Mercy Wanjiku Muthui, a Kenyan musician, was found dead by the police in a ditch in Jargersgreek, Netherlands.
Ms Wanjiku, who lived with her husband Daniel Erhardt and her five month-old son, was found in a ditch fence of the background garden of where she lived.
Before her body was found, the deceased’s husband had filed a missing person’s report to the police.
On January 13, her family had been informed that the artist had allegedly committed suicide by drowning in the ditch, where her body was found.
However, following the information her family, which resides at Jericho estate, noted that they suspected foul play in the cause of her death.
Speaking to one of the local dailies, Wanjiku’s sister, Bilha Muthui narrated: “According to the media, Erhardt had reported that his wife was not in bed next to him when he woke up and appeared as if she was not at home but it took the police a few minutes search when they found her body in a ditch.”
She further revealed that her sister’s husband informed them that he had no financial ability to raise the Ksh1.2 million to ship her body back home.
Using his obtained paybill number, Wanjiku’s husband was able to raise Ksh275,000 from well-wishers on his Facebook page.
However, the sister also stated that Mr Erhardt reached out to them last week, informing them that he had decided to cremate the body since it would be an affordable way of disposing the body.
“He said he would cremate her on Friday, the same day we were to hold a memorial for her at Jericho church. We told him that our customs and beliefs as Christians were not in tandem with cremation, but he said he did not care how we felt and it was our problem to deal with,” Bilha stated.
Their efforts to get help from Kenya’s ambassador to the Netherlands were futile as they were informed that Erhardt was Wanjiku’s next of kin and his decision should be respected.
The deceased died at the age of 32.
