MISLEADING: Self-confessed serial killer Phillip Onyancha is not out of prison

A tweet by social media personality Xtian Dela, claiming that self-confessed serial killer Phillip Onyancha had been released from prison is misleading.

The tweet claims that Onyancha was trending because the courts had released him 13 years after confessing to having killed 18 women.

“Today he is released because the police could not provide sufficient evidence even after confessing?” the tweet reads in part.

Onyancha is a self-confessed serial killer who said he had been recruited into a cult by his teacher who told him to kill 100 people and drink their blood for good fortune.

The tweet is misleading because Onyancha who faces several murder charges has only been acquitted in one case, not all the cases.

In 2010, Onyancha confessed to the police that he killed 17 women, not 18 as has been alleged by Dela.

A review of the court documents shows that the alleged serial killer has two other cases pending at the high court namely file number 36 and 37 of 2010.

On July 8, 2021, Justice Jessie Lessit acquitted him in the case where he had been charged with killing Jacqueline Misoi on May 30, 2008, at the Mount Kenya building along Kombo Munyiri Road in Nairobi.

On the same day his Lawyer Mary Chepseba told journalists that her client Onyancha had only been released in case no. 38 of 2010 and not the other two cases.

On September 28 a local daily published an interview with Onyancha that was done while he was in Kamiti Maximum prison where he is being remanded.

This means that he is still held at Kamiti maximum prison as he awaits the completion of his other two murder cases before he knows his fate.

Speaking to the Star a senior Prison official at Kamiti Maximum prison who wanted to remain anonymous confirmed to us that Onyancha is still being held in prison and is not free as has been alleged online.

The Star has looked into this claim and finds it to be misleading.