Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, popularly known as JM, was an outspoken Kenyan politician. He disappeared on March 2nd, 1975, while his car was parked in front of Hilton Hotel, Nairobi. It is not known, where he was killed. His body was dumped in the Rift Valley, not far from the road passing west of the Ngong Hills. Whoever did so probably hoped the body would be eaten by wild animals. But a Maasai herdsman, Musaite ole Tunda, now a Mzee still living in the neighbourhood, found the body. JM had been maried to three wifes.

Sources say that as they were playing darts over a drink at Nakuru’s Stag’s Head Hotel together with his bosom buddy former Nakuru town MP Mark Mwithaga, the town’s Mayor Mburu Gichua and his associate stormed the hotel, went straight to JM and Mwithaga and uttered these chilling words; “You want to cause trouble in Nakuru. Just be warned. Your days are numbered. We are going to finish you.”

The threat got JM sweating because earlier on, while in Nairobi, an assistant minister, Godfrey Gitahi better known as GG Kariuki (who died in June 2017) had whispered to him that a secret meeting had taken place in Nakuru and decision made to eliminate him by all means. The plan KTN was told, was to stage a political and security scare then blame it on him.

Kariuki worked closely with Jomo Kenyatta, who became independent Kenya's first president in 1963. Kariuki, meanwhile, became a member of parliament, where he soon gained a reputation for eloquence, and wrote an important book on Great Britain's repression of the Mau Mau movemen