Rose Thuo, the firstborn in the family and who is based in England, says their late mother Charity Wangari Njagi wanted Jayne Muthoni to help clear her hospital and funeral bills, but this was not to be because her sister never visited their mother at Karen Hospital.
“Every time I visited the country, I was denied access to Muthoni. But when our mother was taken ill sometime last year, she was allowed to visit her for only half an hour. She promised to make soup for mum but never came back.
“It was hard to reach her on phone. When our mother died on February 17, she made a lot of wishes, even telling me to split her hospital bill and burial costs with Muthoni. But Muthoni and the church called claiming they could raise any money,” Rose says.
She adds that on the eve of the burial, she sent for Muthoni but she apparently could not access any of her cars since driver had vanished with the keys.
“It was around the same time that I realised she was still asking where our mum was,” Rose recalls.
She says during the burial, the family prevented Muthoni from going back to Owuor’s church after realising her health was getting worse, and that the few church members who came for the burial were preoccupied with their phones.
“The prophet did not show up and has never prayed for anyone in the family despite the fact that Muthoni has been bankrolling the church and building a palatial home for him in Runda,” she claimed.
Their mother was buried on February 27 at Mukarara village in Kirinyaga County after succumbing to cardiac arrest on February 17 and spending two weeks at Karen Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
Wangari was a practising teacher until 1951 before joining Jean School (currently Kenya School of Government), where she trained as a police officer. She retired in 1989 while serving at Jogoo Police Station.
In the eulogy, the family explained that Wangari was in good health, until she developed high blood pressure. Upon examination, the doctors found that she had an enlarged heart.
Even though this was managed, it is said that her condition started deteriorating around October 2018 when she was taken for treatment at Karen Hospital.
On January 26, she developed complications and was admitted at the same facility’s ICU until her demise.
The family says their mother expressed a wish from her deathbed to see all her children, but they claim Muthoni was either not allowed to visit for long or was barred from leaving her home.
“Somethings happen for a reason. Maybe the church barring Muthoni from seeing her mum in her last days played a role in exposing what had been hidden for ages,” said one of Muthoni’s brothers