For years now, the twist of life for Esther Arunga, a Kenyan based in Australia has left more questions than answers, some of which only Joseph Hellon can answer.
Hellon is a celebrated Kenyan jazz artiste. He breathes music and is the founder and proprietor of the controversial Finger of God Church.
Hellon was a close associate of Arunga who was a decade back a high-flying news anchor with a leading TV station in the country.
Arunga’s star started dimming in 2010, moments after standing up her then-lover Wilson Malaba who she was to wed months later after dating since 2009. Arunga moved out of her parents’ house to live with Hellon and his family. Hellon, a successful saxophonist is a distant relative who was accused of Arunga’s downfall.
It is while at the Finger of God Church that Arunga met her husband Quincy Timberlake of former Bikassy Bijo’s Congolese Band. From here, much happened in her life.
Quincy was arrested for running an unregistered association in 2010 and dragged with him Arunga, and other people among them Hellon.
A few weeks after being released from custody, Quincy wedded Arunga against the will of her parents.
The got their first kid in December 2010 and formed the PlaCenta Party which Hellon would vie for the presidency on in 2013. Arunga would deputize him while Quincy was acted as the party chairman.
However, Arunga and her husband took off to Australia citing safety reasons in Kenya and their life turned around in 2014 when their son Sinclair Timberlake died. It later emerged that he squeezed the boy’s stomach hard and threw him against the wall in an attempt to “exorcise demons”.
Quincy was charged with murder in 2014 while Arunga faced two counts of lying to the police and being an accessory to murder.
In 2019, she was released on parole following a 10-month jail term. Since then, nothing much has been heard of Arunga.
Hellon in a past interview with Bonga Na Jalas distance himself from Arunga’s downfall.
“And then there was a story that we moved Esther from KTN forced her to join a cult yet she became great when she was with us doing ministry together with us. All that time that she was the top journalist, she was operating from my house,” Hellon says.
He notes that the biggest mistake Esther did was getting married to Quincy. He broke off with Esther after telling her that Quincy was a “conman and a cheat”. He warned her but she would not listen to any of it.
After her predicaments in Australia, Hello retorts that he tried to reach out to Arunga but she declined saying she wants nothing to do with the Hellon’s Finger of God Church.