The death of Irungu Wanjaro alias Wanjaro Junior, the brother of the late Kikuyu benga artist Mwalimu George Wanjaro is shocking.
He was confirmed dead on Saturday after his body was found floating at the Masinga Dam.
Moments after leaving his Kasarani home, he sent a text message to his family telling them not to look for him.
“Don’t look for me, I am in River Sagana stress will kill me,” his text message read.
He was battling depression over a Ksh700,000 debt.
But, it is not the cause of death that has elicited a debate but the widow of his late brother George.
George was a secondary school teacher who fell in love with one of his students, Maureen Atieno Wanjaro and went ahead to marry her when she completed high school.
Life was good together. He took her through college and opened a salon business for her in Thika.
However, the worst happened. Her husband died shortly after complaining of a terrible headache. This was the beginning of her trouble with her in-laws.
In a past YouTube interview with Ala C, Maureen, born in Migori County, said she was disinherited of everything her husband owned.
She painfully narrated that the land where her husband was buried was sold off and was left with nothing.
She recalled the plan to disinherit her because she was not legally wedded to the singer.
Some of her in-laws accused her of killing their kin, who had developed an acute bout of headaches and eventually died while receiving treatment in hospital.
“Some even said he died of HIV/Aids… I was not allowed to see George’s body in the morgue. They also omitted my name from the eulogy, but artistes intervened and it was included,” she said.
Wanjaro’s widow said that her husband’s family’s contributions were taken away by her husband’s family after the burial.
“They sold everything, including the land where George was buried. Today I can’t visit where he was buried,” she recalled.
She sank into depression and closed her salon business in Thika town that Wanjaro had opened for her because she couldn’t get the energy to work.
With time, she decided to take the battle to court and sued the family for disinheriting her and luckily, she won but is yet to get anything back.
Together with her teenage son JKrules Wanjaro Junior, Maureen continues with the musical legacy left by the late Wanjaro.
She is fluent in Kikuyu despite being born in Nyanza.
