US fugitive arrested in Westlands for killing girlfriend, stashing body in car boot
There was drama in Nairobi’s Westlands area on Monday, January 29, night when a man wanted for murder in the US was arrested by local authorities and detained.
40-year-old Kevin Kangethe Kinyanjui is wanted in connection with the murder of a 31-year-old Kenyan-born Margaret “Maggie” Mbitu based in Whitman, Massachusetts, whose body was discovered inside a vehicle at Boston’s Logan Airport in November 2023.
Kang’ethe had an Interpol Red Notice on his head, was arrested at a club by police who had been tipped off, and is being held at Gigiri Police Station while investigations continue.
A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.
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It is not an international arrest warrant. The requesting member country or international tribunal wants the individuals.
According to the police, they are waiting for identifiers from the US police to help facilitate the process of identifying the suspect in custody.
“We have a man believed to be the suspect who is wanted in the US over alleged murder. We are waiting for more profiling to know the way forward,” said a senior official aware of the probe.
Kenyan detectives received a request from US authorities in November to arrest Kangethe for alleged murder in Massachusetts. The victim’s mother revealed that Margaret was planning to break up with the suspect.
In November 2023, after the body was found, her mother, Rose Mbitu, told the Boston News that her daughter was planning to break up with Kevin.
Police officers in Boston found Margaret’s car with her lifeless body inside, with analysis confirming that she was murdered.
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US authorities are convinced of one thing – that Kang’ethe murdered Maggie, as she was affectionately known to family and close friends, before buying tickets for a 16-hour flight to Nairobi, a move detectives believe was to avoid prosecution.
The tickets, it has now emerged, were bought early on Tuesday morning, just hours after Margaret’s death.
“State Police Detectives obtained a warrant charging Kangethe with Ms Mbitu’s homicide and are working with Kenyan authorities to locate Kangethe,” a statement from the Massachusetts State Police said then.
Preliminary evidence gathered from Maggie’s car, which was parked in a garage at the airport, and CCTV footage from the airport pointed the finger at the suspect for the most heinous of murders.
The 31-year-old nurse worked at Brockton Area Multi-Services Inc and clocked out of her shift at 11 pm last Monday. She got into her white Toyota Venza and drove off in what would be the last time she would be seen alive.