ST. PAUL -- Justus Ogendi Kebabe confessed to police that he strangled his wife in a jealous rage, drowned his 12-year-old son in a bathtub and strangled and smothered his 9-year-old daughter.
Then he tried to kill himself in jail by jamming toilet paper in his mouth.
Friday, he pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder.
Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said her office will ask that the 43-year-old Vadnais Heights man be sentenced to three consecutive sentences of 25 years and six months, for which he would actually spend about 50 years in prison.
"The defendant has admitted guilt for committing one of the most horrific crimes I can recall," Gaertner said in a statement. "His plea cannot undo the tragedy of three senseless murders, but it does bring a measure of swift justice."
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The killings came to light the night of Oct. 13, when state police came upon Kebabe's stalled vehicle on Interstate 35 just south of the Elko-New Market exit.
Kebabe had abandoned both his car and his 3-year-old daughter with a couple of other motorists, according to police. Kebabe himself was found running along the highway. He initially told police that his wife was dead because of a diabetic reaction and that his other two children were at his brother's house.
But when police went to the family's Vadnais Heights apartment early on Oct. 14, they found the body of Kebabe's wife, Bilha Omare, 32, locked in the bathroom with a pool of blood around her head.
They found the body of his daughter, Ivyn Ogendi, on a bed in a locked bedroom. In another locked bedroom, police found the body of the son, Kinley Ogendi.
In court Friday, Kebabe admitted he struck his wife in the head with a golf club and strangled her. He said he gave the children cranberry juice laced with Tylenol PM pills and held his son's head under water in the bathtub until the boy died. And he said he smothered his daughter with a pillow and strangled her.
According to police, Kebabe told them he thought his wife was having an affair and, during an argument Oct. 11, he hit her with the golf club and strangled her with an electrical wire.
According to a criminal complaint:
He told police he then put her body in the bathroom, locked the door and put a towel under the door to prevent blood coming out.
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He told police he drugged his children the next morning. He said his son struggled when he was being drowned, stating "Stop daddy stop!" He told police his daughter was groggy and lying on a bed when he smothered her with a pillow and then choked her with his hands.
Kebabe told police he tried to kill himself by putting a plastic bag over his head, but stopped because he realized he had made no plans for his 4-year-old daughter. He said he didn't want the girl to be sent to Africa. Kebabe immigrated to the United States from Kenya in the late 1990s.
Kebabe took off the plastic bag and typed notes on his computer to his brother about his daughter's future care.
Then he fled with the girl until he ran out of gas.
He tried again to kill himself in jail and was placed on a suicide watch.
Kebabe is to be sentenced Jan. 14 in Ramsey County District Court.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
