The country woke up to the news of a killer cop who had murdered six victims in Kabete area of Kiambu County in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, December 7.
Benson Imbatu, a police constable attached to Kabete police station, made front page news due to his atrocious acts that led to the murder of six people including his girlfriend Carol.
However, details of Imbatu and his personal life remained scanty as the online world was yet to come to terms with the incident.
A police officer attached to Kabete police post, gave exclusive details of Imbatu's character and how he interacted with his colleagues.
According to the source, Imbatu was previously attached to the presidential escort unit during former President Mwai Kibaki's reign before being deployed to the Kabete police station.
He noted that Imbatu, who was an avid chain smoker, maintained an introverted character as he always kept to himself. The police constable did not have any indiscipline case on his file as he maintained a clean record.
The silent nature, according to the source, appeared to disguise a peculiar yet dangerous character about Imbatu. This intuition made him minimize talks outside office hours with Imbatu.
"He would invite me for a drink but I would take only one drink and lie to him that I had to attend another engagement elsewhere," the source stated.
Over the past few days, Imbatu did not show any erratic behaviour as he kept to himself and did his work as usual. However, an incident that occurred the past week could have signaled that not everything was rosy in Imbatu's personal life.
"Last week, he went to his girlfriend's business premises and caused a commotion by damaging property and destroying some alcoholic bottles. After the chaos, he left the shop, seemingly angry over a particular issue," the source intimated to Kenyans.co.ke
Imbatu had put up a wines and spirits shop for his girlfriend Carol, despite having a wife with two kids; a daughter who works in Dubai and a son who works in Nairobi.
The police officer further hinted that another motive could be behind Imbatu's killing spree, pointing out that the deceased's mental wellbeing had snapped. He revealed that Imbatu had suspected that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) were on his trail in regards to a past case where the cop had killed a civilian.
He, however, noted that investigations were ongoing in order to uncover the actual reason behind the shooting.
The news of the Kabete six caught the attention of Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang'i, who noted that the government had enhanced counselling and medical help for affected officers. He further mentioned that all officers' records would be digitized to enhance the payment of relevant dues for fallen officers.
