Police posed as sand buyers and called Kubanja for the deal and he was arrested. He admitted having committed the offence and took police to the site where he killed Alupo and the spot in River Mayanja where he spilled the blood.
Ivan Kubanja, 23, a lorry driver of Mpangala-Buddo in Kyengera Town Council in Wakiso district, had spent a long time looking for a way of becoming rich in a short period and in search of the same, sought the services of a Kaseese traditional healer who, he claims, directed him to kill a woman, harvest her blood and spill it in River Mayanja.
Kubanja said that at Buddo where he resides, he entered a bar where he found 26-year Judith Alupo and proposed to take her to his home but, because she had just been given employment at the place, she suggested that they go together the following night.
“We duly got in touch the following day, Saturday 11th October 2025, had supper at my rented room and I took her to Naggalabi where I sliced her neck, collected the blood and took it to River Mayanja where I poured it as instructed by the Kaseese traditional healer,” Kubanja narrated to police after his arrest.
He later took her body and dumped it near the Buganda coronation site, from where residents found the body the following morning lying in a pool of blood and with a cut neck, and alerted police. On arrest, Kubanja admitted having killed Alupo, and narrated circumstances that led to her murder.
According to police spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke, they tracked mobile phone numbers in the deceased hand set and zeroed in on Kubanja. She had colleagues at Nabbingo in a bar where she worked before shifting to Buddo in another bar.
Police posed as sand buyers and called Kubanja for the deal and he was arrested. He admitted having committed the offence and took police to the site where he killed Alupo and the spot in River Mayanja where he spilled the blood.
Kubanja is the second person to be arrested in connection to Alupo’s murder, after a boda boda cyclist Arthur Muluva at whose bike a sniffer dog ended, and which bike had blood stains on it. According to police he is still held at Nsangi police station.
Residents variously castigated Kubanja for committing such a heinous crime in the village where he stays, and thanked police for the arrest following a series of murders in the area.
Naggalabi councillor Joseph Nsubuga attributed to rampant similar crimes in the area for the too much love for money among youths, and expressed commitment by leaders to work hand in hand with security personnel to contain the situation.
