Not much is known about the late Wanyoike Thungu, the man who the media describes as 'live wire' during his days as the lead bodyguard of founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.
The history between the two began after Kenyatta's return from Britain in the 1940s when Thungu was a youth-winger in the KAU party, his job being escorting and protecting leaders.
This saw Kenyatta develop a liking for him as a result of his readiness to do anything to protect his bosses. Mzee Kenyatta picked Thungu as his bodyguard after independence.
Thungu, a native of Gatundu, took over from Alex Pierson who Kenyatta inherited from the colonial police, and Kenyatta proceeded to push for his training in Israel and Britain.
However, as would later be revealed by Post Independence Police Commissioner Bernard Hinga, Thungu did not even know how to use a gun during his appointment, having been just a civilian.
However, he rose to become the Head Presidential Bodyguard who even rode in the presidential limousine and was at times sneaked to Czechoslovakia for gun handling courses.
Him not being a policeman, however, made him a rogue man who did not hesitate to use his gun, and on one incident shot dead a patron at a Gatundu bar after an argument over a prostitute.
Hinga said that Thungu also shot dead a relative of a worker at one of Kenyatta's farms simply because 'he had never seen that face before'.
When the founding father was finally convinced to let go of his VIP guards, the team that came with Thungu, Kenyatta indeed did it.
However, he ensured that Thungu remained behind and even ordered that he be given a police tittle, despite having never been a police officer.
"However, because of sentimental attachment, he demanded that Thungu not only remain behind but be the “head bodyguard” to be riding in the presidential limousine," Hinga told Nation's Kamau Ngotho earlier in the year.