On August 15, 2026, 36-year-old Timothy Njau, a teacher at Muruka Senior School in Murang’a County, reportedly made a decision his family would only understand after his death.
Without telling his wife or children what was going through his mind, Timothy quietly rented a house near Kenol town.
To those around him, life appeared to continue normally. But, according to his wife, Elizabeth Waweru, Timothy had begun putting his affairs in order and creating what would become his final memories with the people he loved.
The following day, August 16, he made an unusual request.
He asked his family to accompany him to church and attend Mass together.
They agreed.
At the time, there appeared to be nothing alarming about the invitation. Timothy was calm, affectionate and seemingly at peace. His family therefore had no reason to imagine that the day might later become one of the memories they would hold onto most dearly.
But in hindsight, Elizabeth says his insistence on spending that time together stood out.
The following day, August 17, Timothy once again brought his family together. He took his wife and their four children to Thika, where they spent the day shopping and having lunch.
It was an ordinary family outing — the kind of day that usually disappears into the routine of family life.
But for Elizabeth, it would later take on an entirely different meaning.
What she initially saw as a husband spending time with his family would become, in retrospect, a series of farewell moments.
Then came August 21.
After completing his teaching duties at Muruka Senior School, Timothy reportedly made a brief stop at his family home.
He interacted with his children as he normally would.
Nothing, according to the family account, suggested that this would be the last time they saw him alive.
He then left.
This time, however, he did not return.
When his phone went off and hours passed without him coming home, concern turned into panic. His family began searching for him, unaware that he had been staying at the house he had quietly rented days earlier.
Five days later, on August 26, neighbors living near the rental house reportedly noticed a powerful foul smell coming from the locked premises.
They alerted authorities.
Police subsequently broke into the house, where Timothy’s body was reportedly discovered in an advanced state of decomposition.
He had apparently been dead for several days.
The discovery transformed what had initially been a missing-person search into a heartbreaking investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.
A marriage shadowed by suspicion
Behind the tragedy was a troubled marriage, according to Elizabeth.
She says Timothy had repeatedly accused her of being unfaithful — allegations she strongly denied.
Elizabeth maintains that there was no affair and that the accusations were fuelled by rumours and suspicion rather than evidence.
Their marital difficulties reportedly intensified after Elizabeth completed her studies in early 2023 and secured employment through grassroots mobilisation.
Rather than easing their financial pressures, her new job allegedly became another source of tension.
Her work required a demanding schedule, which Timothy reportedly viewed with increasing suspicion.
Elizabeth says the reality was considerably different.
The couple were both earning Teachers Service Commission salaries, but with four children to support, she says their combined income was barely enough to meet the family’s needs.
Her decision to work harder, she maintains, was not about creating distance from her family but about helping sustain it.
Yet, according to her account, rumours began circulating that she had changed after getting a job — that she had become “arrogant”, was neglecting her family and had possibly become involved with another man.
Elizabeth rejected those claims.
There was another painful chapter.
She says Timothy demanded that she refund the money he had spent on her education.
In an attempt to calm the situation and remove one source of conflict from their marriage, Elizabeth says she took out a loan from a micro-lender in December 2023 and repaid him.
But the repayment did not end the disagreements.
The suspicion, according to her account, continued.
The question that may never be answered
Elizabeth says one of the most painful aspects of Timothy’s death is that she may never know exactly what was going through his mind during his final days.
She reportedly accepted that he had died by suicide, but questioned why he chose to leave without a note explaining what had pushed him to such a desperate decision.
For a wife left behind with four children, the absence of an explanation can create another form of suffering: unanswered questions.
What was he thinking when he rented the house?
What was going through his mind when he took his family to church?
Why did he make that final trip to Thika with his wife and children?
And, perhaps most painfully, did he believe the rumours about his wife?
During her final visit to his body, Elizabeth reportedly expressed anguish that if Timothy had indeed taken his life because he believed she had been unfaithful, then the information he had received was false.
Her message was simple but devastating: he may have acted on a lie.
A family left with memories instead of answers
Timothy’s final days now appear, through his family’s eyes, to have been filled with moments that seemed ordinary at the time but became extraordinarily significant after his death.
A church service.
A shopping trip.
Lunch with his wife and four children.
A final interaction with his children.
Then silence.
The tragedy also raises a broader question about the hidden struggles people can carry while appearing perfectly normal to those around them.
Someone can go to work, teach students, attend church, shop with their children, laugh with family and still be experiencing an internal crisis that nobody else fully understands.
That is why mental-health professionals repeatedly stress the importance of taking significant behavioural changes, withdrawal, hopelessness or expressions of being overwhelmed seriously. A calm appearance does not necessarily mean that a person is emotionally safe.
At the same time, it is important not to reduce a suicide to one argument, one rumour or one relationship problem. Without a suicide note or a completed investigation establishing his state of mind, the precise reasons behind Timothy’s death may never be known.
What remains are the memories — and a grieving family left to reconstruct the final chapter of a man’s life from the moments he left behind.
For Elizabeth and their four children, the shopping trip to Thika and that final church service may forever carry a meaning they could never have imagined on those August days.
They thought they were making memories with Timothy.
They did not know they were saying goodbye.
