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The first crime which brought an awakening to the reality of serial killers in Uganda was that of a young man known as Richard Arinaitwe. Ugandan’s and Africans at large had long associated crimes of desire, particularly murder to be a western world problem. However, the crimes and personality of Richard Arinaitwe closed the curtains on this belief. While researching for this true crime story, I could not find much about his earlier life or family background. It seems the only information that brings relevance to him in the public realm is his murderous exploits. To date, he continues to be known as Uganda’s first serial killer. However, this assumption is not accurate since the crimes of earlier perpetrators with similar traits may not have been well documented or even received widespread local and international media coverage as they did with Richard Arinaitwe’s crimes. Possibly, the attention to this crime was due to one of its victims being an American national. Police at the Central Police Station were first alerted to murder in Hotel Equatoria in Kampala on July 28, 1998, at 11 pm. The hotel staff had tried to put through an urgent phone call to the guest but the phone was not ringing. They decided to physically check out the room, only to find the occupant lying in a pool of blood, dead. The victim, an American volunteer Cecilia Maria Goetz, had been in the country to follow the utilization of the HIV/Aids funds in Uganda and more specifically in Rakai District were the scourge had wiped out entire families. On return to Hotel Equatoria, Goetz picked her key from the reception and proceeded to her room. All this time, her killer Arinaitwe r, who usually frequented the hotel, was seated in the lounge looking at her. He immediately followed her upstairs to her room and knocked at the door. He duped the elderly woman with ‘ROOM SERVICE’ and she opened. Unknown to the American that it was her killer’s knock, she opened the door but on seeing a man with a heavily built body frame, she tried to push back the door and lock; but was soon overpowered. In the struggle, Goetz broke the key and tried to reach for the desk phone to alert reception but it also slipped out of her grip. It is not clear whether Goetz even raised an alarm or not. With little help, her killer repeatedly stabbed her more than 30 times in the chest with a jackknife in an act that to date is still a puzzle to police officers. Unknown to her killer, a sheath for his knife slipped and fell in the room and was later to be a major clue in linking him to the scene of the murder. He also escaped with Cecilia Maria Goetz’s laptop. Shortly, thereafter, another room in the same hotel, which housed a Kenyan national, was broken into. This time around, the killer had gotten some U.S dollars and Kenyan Shillings. When police arrived at the scene, there was nothing much to do, they locked up the room until the next day when they returned to pick forensic evidence. From the onset, police concluded that this was the work of a lone operator. Police recovered blood-stained sheets that were taken for DNA tests. It turned out that there were two blood samples one from the American woman and the suspect. By sheer luck, one month later, Entebbe Police Station was reporting a robbery in a room at Lake Victoria Hotel in Entebbe. The room occupant had been attacked by someone. When he raised an alarm the person jumped throw the window and drove away in a vehicle that had been parked at the hotel. However, the room occupant managed to identify the vehicle registration number. After searching from Uganda Revenue Authority, the license plate was traced to a man who worked with Uganda Commercial Bank's main branch. When approached by police, the vehicle owner described someone who had hired his car for self-drive that day. It was a well-built young man who lived with his parents in Kololo, a city upscale residential area. Entebbe police reported to CPS Kampala and later proceeded to Kololo where they found Arinaitwe hiding in his parents’ family house ceiling. He tried to resist arrest but was later overpowered and handcuffed. Police searched the ceiling and recovered two pistols and a jackknife. The knife had an inscription “Sky pie”. Arinaitwe was then brought and locked up at CPS Kampala, where even the recovered items were exhibited. On examining the knife, an officer at CPS discovered the name was very similar to the one on the sheath that had been left by an assailant in the murder of the American volunteer at Hotel Equatoria. Police tried to fit the jackknife into the sheath and it fitted well. So it was concluded that this must be the same suspect in the Hotel Equatoria murder. Investigators asked that Arinaitwe be brought from the cells for interrogation and he confessed to the murder which he said had been executed by a Lebanese national. He told police how he had with ease managed to dupe the American to open her room by claiming ‘ROOM SERVICE’ but declined to state the motive of the murder. However, the police failed to recover the American woman’s laptop. Arinaitwe claimed that the Lebanese national had promised to take him out of the country. It is then that Arinaitwe’s blood sample was taken for tests and the tests later corresponded with the blood group that was lifted from the bedsheets police had recovered from the American woman’s room at Hotel Equatoria. On arrest, Arinaitwe had also been found with a healing wound on his little finger which had been inflicted on him by his victim in the Hotel Equatoria attack. So police used the blood group, the sheath, and knife, and the wound to bring Arinaitwe to the murder scene of the American volunteer. After learning of his involvement, police took Arinaitwe to Buganda Road Court under Chief Magistrate Jane Elizabeth Alividza to record an extrajudicial statement that is required in circumstances where the suspect is confessing to murder. Long after the Chief Magistrate had requested that the police, including two Korean trained police officers who used to guard Arinaitwe because of his violent nature, to move away, Arinaitwe instead turned against the Chief Magistrate. It was Alividza’s bodyguard, police constable Baliita, who responded to her wailing and rescued her. Arinaitwe had grabbed a bangle from the Chief Magistrate’s hand which he straightened and tried to use to stab her and her bodyguard. He was charged with the murder of the American volunteer, Goetz, and the attempted murder of then Buganda Road Chief Magistrate and now Judge Alividza, and Police Constable Baliita. Arinaitwe is currently on death row. He was placed under solitary confinement after he turned violent on fellow inmates. He had been a frequent visitor to Hotel Equatoria’s gymnasium. During the course investigations, police discovered that the anti-robbery squad had also had a file against him. At the time of his arrest, Richard Arinaitwe was a first-year Law student at Makerere University who had passed with flying colors to join university. Police found that as a juvenile, Richard Arinaitwe had been involved in the robbery of Speedbird forex bureaux in the Sheraton Hotel. The senior members of the gang were locked up in Luzira while Arinaitwe as a juvenile was sent to Kampiringisa for rehabilitation. He was also behind a spate of theft at Rugby clubs around Lugogo, often stealing money from clothes left behind by Rugby players. There were a series of other cases that had been linked to him but were not reported to the police. When police searched his room at his father’s house in Kololo, they discovered a string of crime novels among which were James Hardly Chase, James Bond films among others. Police watched the movies to try and read into Richard Arinaitwe’s mind and found them to be horrific. Police also recovered a calendar from Richard Arinaitwe’s room and found that on July 28, 1998, the day Cecilia Maria Goetz was murdered, and drew a picture of a skull and two bones crossing similar to the one usually seen on electricity poles and marked it ‘Kabi Danger Hatari.’ In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that all death row inmates who had not been executed after five years prison would have their sentences reduced to life in prison which is equal to 20 years. He is currently serving a life sentence, which was reduced to 24 years imprisonment due to legal technicalities I won’t get into.