Investigations into the suspected suicide of Kikuyu singer Edward Irungu Njaro are ongoing but his family came out to reveal more details that could unravel his death.
His father Njaro Wairatu dismissed reports that his son committed suicide. He told the Nation that after his son's story made headline news he received a call from a hidden number and the person on the end of the line offered him money in exchange for his silence.
Njaro went missing on July 14 after he sent his friends a text message that he was jumping into the River Tana due to depression over a Ksh700,000 debt he owed.
But his father refuted claims that his son was in debt or that he was mentally unfit. Wairatu told journalists that Wanjaro called him at around 4.30 am on July 14 and he sounded scared.
The musician told his 73-year-old father that he had been abducted before his phone went off.
His body was later found floating in the Masinga Hydroelectric Power Station’s dam on the boundary between Embu and Machakos counties.
“He told me a certain businessman was stressing him over a deal they had signed in Nairobi. He said the trader was demanding money from him over the botched deal,” Wairatu stated.
The father of four, who now has no surviving child, maintained that Wanjaro's death being ruled as suicide was an elaborate plot to mislead the public.
He also dismissed a police report which had indicated that there were no injuries on the deceased's body. The deceased's father stated that his son's body had two visible injuries — one on the forehead and the other on the upper lip.
In the suicide note saved on his phone, Irungu directed his friends to retrieve a vehicle he would use at the boundary of Murang’a, Kirinyaga and Embu counties on the Kenol-Nyeri highway.
"When I go missing, don't waste a lot of time looking for me. My body will be in Sagana River," read the message.
However, the vehicle was found at the Kasarani Police Station in Nairobi County and details over who moved it from the original crime scene are not yet established.
Wanjaro is the brother of the late popular Kikuyu musician George Wanjaro. Before his death, he sang songs like Date ya Mbeere and Wanjaro Marua ma Jacqueline.
