Police’s Flying Squad Unit on Wednesday, October 17, re-arrested suspected serial killer Baker Walusimbi who had been on remand fort 12 years moments after High court in Kampala released him on bail.

Lillian Nantongo, a resident of Salaama parish, one of the alleged Walusimbi victims, tells her story. Walusimbi has been represented by prominent city lawyer, McDusman Kabega. He was arrested on January 21, 2006. Four years earlier, he had been accused of defilement in 2002.

Last Saturday, Nantongo sat down with The Observer to relive the torment she says she underwent at the hands of Walusimbi on December 18, 2005.

“You are now reminding me of a man I had erased out of my mind because he has been out of circulation. I vividly recall all I went through the day he kidnapped me and two other ladies,” Nantongo, now 34 years old, said.

Nantongo was a first-year evening student at Kyambogo University. That day, she left campus at around 9.30pm and boarded a taxi which dropped her off at Nakawa stage. She joined two other ladies; one of whom was a fellow student at Kyambogo as they waited for a taxi to take them to Kampala city
centre.

“As the three of us were waiting for a taxi, there came, I think a Toyota Corona  [vehicle] whose occupant offered us a lift. He drove us to town and followed Nasser road heading for Entebbe road. He was asking each one of our destinations and what we were doing. I told him I was heading to Salaama and one lady said she was going to Nateete.” Nantongo said.

Upon reaching Nasser road, she narrates that Walusimbi asked them whether they had ever heard of a notorious robber and rapist called Baker Walusimbi. They all said no, moments later he introduced himself as the one, sending chills down their spines.

“I was seated in the co-driver’s seat and it was heavily raining. We reached Shoprite [supermarket] and the Nateete girl told him she wanted to disembark, but Walusimbi did not stop and instead drove on towards Ggaba road,” Nantongo recalls.

When they reached the Mukwano-Ggaba road junction traffic lights, Walusimbi warned that each of them would get a punishment from him for boarding a strangers’ vehicles.

“I kept quiet as the other two women were screaming on top of their voices which forced Walusimbi to point a pistol and a knife at them and they all shut up. I opened one of my bags and got a cloth and started helping him clean the windscreens because the rain was heavy and he was driving at a slow speed”.

She adds that when they reached Kabalagala, they pleaded with Walusimbi to have mercy on them and drop them off but he refused.

The robbery

When they reached Bbunga, Walusimbi stopped and ordered one lady to remove whatever she had, including the shoes and mobile phone and get out of the vehicle, to which she obliged while trembling.

“After the Cape junction, Walusimbi branched off the main road and took the murram road, which was slippery, forcing him to re-join the main road. As it was still raining, we reached a junction and he asked me whether I knew the place. I said I didn’t and he told me this is Mr Gordon Wavamunno’s residence,” she says.

“He drove off and stopped at Mr Sudhir’s place which was undeveloped then and ordered me to leave whatever I had and I removed everything, including my new Nokia phone, which I had just bought at Shs 200,000 three days before. I removed my shoes, rings and earrings, the two bags I had with their contents, including my money for transport and my spectacles and he stabbed my right arm before ordering me to get out and walk on without looking behind,” she added.

Quaking, Nantongo said she moved out in the rain and stopped in a puddle beside the road and heard a gunshot, which was followed with Walusimbi’s vehicle speeding off at a terrific speed.

“This was around midnight and thanking my ancestors without remembering God, I ran towards Salaama road and when I reached a pitch opposite a church, I met people who had heard the gunshot and asked why I was running. I explained and one boda boda cyclist offered to take me to my residence, which was on Badongo road and my late mother Nalumansi gave him Shs 5,000 and thanked him for saving my life.

“I don’t know what happened to the third girl who I left in the vehicle.”

Walusimbi arrested

She says three days later, their neighbour, one Jjuuko told her Walusimbi had been arrested and was detained at VCCU in Kireka.