The Kiswahili teacher [name withheld] at Gatamaiyu Secondary School in Ruiru did not show up to school on Thursday, according to the headmaster Mr J.Gichohi.

“She was here yesterday [Wednesday] but I have not seen her today; we are equally worried because she did not seek permission to be absent,” Mr Gichohi said.

[…]

Mr Gichohi said he knew little about the teacher as she had only been posted there one and a half months ago from Matopeni Secondary School in Ruiru.

“She was moved here recently; she is new and she had no other responsibility here apart from teaching Kiswahili,” the head teacher said.

A manhunt for the teacher was launched on Wednesday after Mr Onyancha – who has confessed to killing 19 people – alleged that she recruited him into the cult while he was a student at the Kenyatta High School, in Othaya Nyeri.

“My class teacher recruited me into a cult when I was in school but it took long to take effect; the spirits started working in me when I started working in Nairobi,” Mr Onyancha who hails from Etange village of South Mugirango said.

[…]

Since Sunday, Mr Onyancha has been taking the police to various scenes where bodies and other personal effects of people he confessed to have killed were recovered.

“My target was 100 people… once I achieved that I would have been very rich. It is that power of conviction in me, and that is what my initiator told me but all that is now gone because I have confessed,” he added.

During police interrogation and interviews with journalists, the suspect said he planned to accomplish his mission in a span of five years and was mainly targeting women and children under 10 because they are weak.

[…]

He was arrested last week after he was tracked down through his mobile phone which he had used to demand ransom from the family of a nine-year-old boy he had killed in Nairobi.