Some call it the witching hour while others know it as the devil’s hour.
And indeed, 3am on Thursday, February 23, 2023, is slowly turning out to be just that for renowned Kikuyu entertainer, Lawrence Njuguna alias DJ Fatxo.
On that day, a young man known as Jeff Mwathi, 23, who the entertainer had called, allegedly for an interior décor job, ended up dead outside his Safari Park estate house in Nairobi.
Witness statements taken by local police say Mwathi jumped from the 10th floor to the hard concrete downstairs – a case of death by suicide.
Mwathi was buried in Nakuru County on March 3, 2023.
But the victim’s relatives, who include Kikuyu benga musician Samuel Muchoki aka Samidoh, who is his uncle, have expressed reservations about what killed young Mwathi.
They insist that only a conclusive, open and transparent investigation will eliminate their doubts of foul play.
The Nairobi County police boss Adamson Bung’ei has assured all involved that “we are going to unravel the mystery and at the end of the day we will present the case as it happened, blow-by-blow”.
He said, “Police have nothing to gain by covering up and the ongoing investigations will answer all the lingering questions and make the findings public.”
Mr Bung’ei urged Kenyans to stop speculations and being judgmental “since all of us want to pursue the truth and place it on the table from where further decisions will be made”.
He, however, noted that justice cuts across the board — both suspects and victims — “and that is why we are recording as many statements possible from all we deem to be of interest and help…we remain very vigilant to detect all elements of possible crime(s) in the puzzle that we will soon unravel”.
As the investigation goes on, DJ Fatxo has suffered a huge dent after some business partners suspended engagements with him, fearing bad press.
The partners who have cut ties include Citified Homes, Lesedi (now Tuza), Vodka Sweet Berry, a rice company in Kirinyaga and Optiven.
He burst into the limelight in 2020 when he released the song "Ndi Mang’a" (I am drunk), a song that opened doors to well-paying Mugithi gigs. He followed that up with a collaboration with fellow Kikuyu singer Kamoko to release "Mwomboko" in 2021, asserting him among the vernacular elite singers.
“DJ Fatxo is fine with the way the investigation is going … he has nothing to hide and will cooperate with the investigators in all aspects as may be directed or demanded,” his lawyer, Mr Charles Mugane, told journalists outside Kasarani police station, where the matter was reported.
Mwathi, alongside two other friends, was seeking to find a footing in the lucrative interior décor industry.
So when he got a call from DJ Fatxo for discussions about a contract, he borrowed Sh200 from his mother to go and meet him.
“I sent him the cash. He never went out to meet people without informing me first. He was my son and my best friend too. I even recorded the call as was common with our communication. My son was in high spirits and was interested in making money to treat himself since we were arranging for his move to Qatar where I am also based,” his mother, Ms Anne Wacuka, said.
She told Nation.Africa that her son ended up meeting with DJ Fatxo and “he even took a short video to confirm they were together and sent it to me”.
The meeting ended up being a day of clubbing and drinking in four bars in Kiambu and Murang’a counties until late.
A scene-of-crime report filed at Kasarani police station indicates that Mwathi’s body had an open skull, multiple fractures on legs and hands and was naked from the waist down.
The preliminary investigative report indicates that the late Mwathi, together with the DJ and another man retired to the ill-fated house at around 3am accompanied by three women.
“The six were joined by another male who is a relative of DJ Fatxo. About an hour later, DJ Fatxo left with the three women, and left Mwathi in the company of the two males. Some minutes to 5am, the two men were captured by CCTV cameras going down to the ground, and appeared as though scouting for something. One made a call and they went up back to the house,” the report reads.
Seven minutes after they went up, a human of Mwathi’s build is seen coming out of the window and falling to the ground. His body was found on the concrete floor, lifeless.
A post-mortem report attached to the investigative notes indicates that he died of acute trauma resulting from multiple injuries on the head and limbs.
DJ Fatxo, in his statement, indicates that he returned to the house at around 9am and found a scene in the compound but he did not know that it was his contractor –Mwathi--who was lying there dead.
He is seen in the cameras looking at the body, holding his face in consternation before going up to his house.
The two men in his house, in their police statements, say that Mwathi died by suicide after jumping out of the room.
Under the itemised “missing links” of the investigations, the sleuths have recorded the following as gaps to be filled: How long had Mwathi known DJ Fatxo and in what way? What was Mwathi’s history with the other two men captured in the video and their collective sexual orientation?
To unravel this, the detectives are visiting all the bars where Mwathi was taken to collect evidence onhim and his company and especially the kind of drinks he was taking.
Detectives also want to establish what the reaction of the two men was after they learnt that Mwathi had died by suicide as they claimed, given that they remained indoors.
“It is peculiar that the two left Mwathi in the house and went down together and it was when they were up that the deceased exited the house to end up dead in the compound. There is a way under normal circumstances buddies will behave and this is a matter to be analysed with the help of experts and study of footages retrieved,” it reads.
DJ Fatxo is being investigated on why he ended up taking Mwathi into an alcoholic binge and later into his house in the dead of the night if the principal need to meet him was to offer him an interior décor job.
Detectives also want to establish past mental issues of the late Mwathi to check whether he had exhibited suicidal thoughts “and especially why his mother was exhibiting open fear of movements of her son to a point of demanding video and audio evidence of where he was and who he was meeting”.
