Five journalists caught up in murder scandals

It's obvious being in the limelight comes with a heavy price to pay if the current trending sad story of Citizen TV news anchor Jacqueline Wairimu Maribe is anything to go by.

For media personalities in the limelight, a certain degree of trust between them and the audience is required.

However when one is hit with scandals especially a murder, the disgraced journalist becomes a juicy scoop as any. It’s for this reason Maribe has been trending for several weeks now, and she is not the only one who has found her/himself on the wrong end of the story.

ESTHER ARUNGA

About seven years ago or so, Esther Adongo Arunga was for a long time was the darling of the Kenyan media fraternity. The then younger Arunga was a trained lawyer, and a broadcast journalist who presented prime news on KTN TV station with aura.

Suffice to say Arunga was young, beautiful and had intelligence in abundance. The well-spoken and ambitious Arunga was everything and anything the Kenyan audience yearned for in a TV media personality.

She had started her journalism career at Capital FM before moving to KTN where she blossomed and bloomed coming into her own.

She was now set for probably an illustrious career in media until it just wasn’t. Things started falling apart in 2009 when she joined Finger of God Church founded by Joseph Hellon.

She soon became engaged to a member of the church, Wilson Malaba, but called off the engagement in early 2010. February of that year she resigned her job after meeting Quincy Timberlake whom together with Hellon founded Placenta Party (Platinum Centralizer and Unionist Party) of Kenya.

Hellon would use the party to vie for presidency while Arunga would go for the parliamentary seat of Karachuonyo Constituency as well as the deputy presidency (as per the Constitution then).

In March 3, 2010, Arunga married Timberlake who had been arrested on suspicion of running a cult sect ( Finger of God Church).

After his release, Arunga and Timberlake relocated to Australia and settled down with their young family.

In 2014 the couple lost their eldest son who was alleged to have died following an exorcism performed on him by his parents.

Both were charged with murder but later Arunga was granted bail after testifying that the child died in his father’s hands. Since then, little is known of Arunga’s whereabouts.

SARAH WAMBUI KABIRU AND MOSES DOLA

Sarah Wambui was a rising Swahili News reporter on NTV station before she met her brutal death in May 2011.

In 2009 Wambui lost her job during a restructuring exercise at NTV but later on got a job with ANAFE (The African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natuarla Resources Education) as a media consultant.

She would later marry fellow journalist Moses Dola who would later be the man who took away her life. Wambui was brutally killed in her house in Umoja estate Nairobi. Her lifeless body was found by neighbours well covered in her bedroom.

Soon after the murder, Dola went missing and a major man hunt was mounted. Then disgraced former journalist later handed himself over to the police.

A postmortem report showed that Wambui’s death was caused by a heavy blow to her skull using a blunt object. In his defence, Dola said that his wife (Wambui) died after hitting her head on their bed while they quarrelled over music volume.

On October, 5, 2018 High Court Judge Roseline Korir found Dola guilty of manslaughter. She is expected to give her judgment on October 26, 2018.

LOUIS OTIENO

At one point in time Louis was riding the high in his career as one of the finest prime time News TV Anchor at KTN.

He made many friends including powerful people, the likes of politicians whom a few months ago he revealed in an interview that they no longer pick his calls.

His career screeched to a halt after he was named in the murder investigation of a college student, Careen Kipchumba. Since then life hasn’t been good for him.

He lost his hearing and few months ago was at the mercy of well-wishers to raise Sh4 million to aid in treatment so as he would regain his hearing ability.

BARACK ODUOR

Nation journalist Barack Oduor set tongues wagging with his narrow escape from the jaws of death which claimed the heavily pregnant Sharon Otieno.

The journalist was heavily dragged into the murder of Sharon who had an affair with Migori Governor Okoth Obado, with different plots about his connection to the brutal murder emerging.

However investigation have since revealed other prime suspects linked to the murder including Governor Obado and are currently being held in police custody.

JACQUE MARIBE

Since she was dragged into the murder of 29-year-old Monica Kimani at her Langata apartments, the life of the sassy bubbly TV siren has been nothing but hell on earth.

In the last few weeks, she has been spending most of her time shuttling between Directorate of Criminal Investigation Offices in Kiambu, Kilimani police station and Gigiri police station where she is currently detained.

Maribe has been named as an accomplice to the prime suspect of Monica’s murder, Joseph ‘Jowie’ Irungu who is her fiancée.

DNA samples and fingerprints analysis conducted on Monica’s body at the scene of her murder have placed Jowie at the heart of the investigations.

DNA tests on semen found on the slain girl and other samples from her nails confirmed with a 99.9 per cent accuracy that they belonged to Jowie.

Maribe is being treated as a suspect because of a false statement she gave earlier on to the police and is suspected to have been covering up for the main suspect, Jowie.

She has since recanted the earlier version and given another against Jowie and now the prosecution team is pondering of using her as a witness to the case.