Thread by @SDRTVdotnet

In the early 80s Zambia was terrorised by a serial killer and rapist named Milton Sipalo that was dubbed the Lusaka strangler. Between the months of January 1980 to September 1980 he would take the lives of 29 Women including children as young as 10 years old. #ZambianHistory

He would evade the Zambia Police for months and residents of Lusaka became wary and anxious of his presence. At the end of January 1980 it was determined that the Killer was either a soldier or using the uniform as a disguise by a security guard who witnessed one of the victims

in the company of one such individual. Citizens called for Government to seek help from Foreign agencies such as Scotland Yard or the CIA but they decided against that.

A special investigations team was formed by Zambia Police and operation “Rosemary” was begun to thwart the Killings. Operation Rosemary was led by Superintendent William Mundia who concluded that the Lusaka strangler was one man and that there was a pattern in the killings.

A breakthrough was made in the case in July when Detective Constable Chikoti witnessed a soldier speaking to a young lady known as Nora Soko at Kamwala bus stop and they left together. The following day Nora reported to Police that she narrowly escaped death at the hands of the

same man who she met at the bus stop. The killer would continue to elude the Police and the month of August 1980 saw no killings. He continued his killing spree in September but another victim by the name of Josephine Mukatasha would manage to escape his wrath.

It was determined that two soldiers were seen coercing women to accompany them from the bus terminal.
On September 16th 1980 Josephine Mukatasha in the company of Detectives went to Kamwala bus stop in order to lure the Killer and he fell for the bait.

The killer approached Josephine and seemingly remembered her but she pretended not to have met him before. She knew it was him because he even wore her watch which he stole.

He again tried to get her to follow him but in that moment she alerted the detectives who quickly arrested him and took him to Central Police. The man who had originally called himself Lieutenant Nyambe was identified as Milton Sipalo of Arakan barracks.

Three witnesses, including Nora Soko and Josephine Mukatasha, confirmed that their attacker was indeed Milton Sipalo from the line-up. Milton tried to implicate another soldier by the name of Kaluwe but no solid evidence was ever found against him.

The day after being identified Sipalo would break free from officers and make his way to the roof of Central police from where he would leap to his death as seen in the picture here taken by Lake Mwanza.

To this day his motives are unknown and true justice was never brought to his victims. More questions such as how many more victims did he have and if there was a second killer still linger.

Source: Zambian Observer Article by Brian Mulenga, Times of Zambia, Daily Mail, Reddit and Kalemba.