How a night out at Mirema bar ended in journalist's death

 Journaist Amos Harun Maina. [Courtesy]

The last call that Amos Harun Maina, a journalist, ever made to his wife Regina Wanjiru, was to tell her that he was coming home, but he never did.

This was on Sunday, November 16, 2025, and he made the call at around 9:12pm; this was before his brother discovered him unconscious at the Ngaini bar in Mirema, Nairobi County.

The father of one, who will be laid to rest today in Narok County, left home at around 4 pm and told his wife that he was going to watch a football game at the joint.

He then placed a call to his younger brother Peter Muiruri, telling him to join him for drinks and a game of pool.

By the time Muiruri was getting to the joint, he found him allegedly slumped on the chair and blacked out.

“I found him asleep on the table. I tried to wake him up, but he was not waking up, we even poured water on him but he was not responding,” said Muiruri, which prompted him to call Wanjiru.

“I was at home when Muiruri called and told me that he found Maina asleep and he was not waking up,” said Wanjiru.

The entertainment joint is less than a kilometre from their house.

When she came, they called a taxi and he was taken to a Marurui hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

“The doctor checked his pulse and his eyes and he told us that he was already dead,” said Wanjiru.

Now his death is subject to investigation by the Kasarani Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).

Already, his phone is at the DCI headquarters, where it is being exploited for clues and samples were taken to the government chemist for toxicology.

His body was moved from the facility and taken to the Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH).

A post mortem conducted at the facility showed that he died as a result of Acute Hemorrhagic Gastritis.

“The pathologist told us that there is something that he took that was corrosive and was quick to react and he could not have made a call or move from one place to another,” said Wanjiru.

She added; “It was so quick, it burned his throat and stomach and the small intestines.”

Acute Hemorrhagic Gastritis is the bleeding in the esophagus, stomach, or duodenum.

At times, the condition may cause vomiting blood, bleeding from the upper part of the digestive system and abdominal pain.

Wanjiru said that he showed signs of stress, which she assumed was because of his job but did not express any fears for his life.

Muiruri says that he had intimated to his cousin who lives in Dubai, that all was not well with his marriage but Wanjiru says that they were in good terms.

On Saturday, November 15, she said that they spent the day shopping at Kamukunji, but Maina kept calling his business partner to send him money.

Maina, together with his partners, ran a betting company business with branches in Nairobi’s CBD and Mathare.

His younger brother worked in the business.

“His work was to reload the float and the machines,” said Muiruri.

The family is calling for justice to be served and for detectives to investigate all leads saying if he was killed, it might be connected to his work or a deal where he was conned out of some Sh500,000.

The Kasarani Sub-County Criminal Investigations Officer, Alloyce Mboya, said that detectives are waiting on the toxicology results to know what killed him which will help direct them to possible motives in the probe.

“We are continuing with the investigations, but we don’t have anything conclusive yet,” he said.

Nancy Wawira Njoki, the owner of the premises, said that she was not there when the incident happened.

She said that she had been cooperative with the detectives by recording a statement and providing them with more than five hours of CCTV footage from the premises.

She, however, threatened to take legal action against journalists and others she said were damaging Ngaini’s reputation.