The legitimate image of the publication for that date is shared by the Kenyan newspaper on its social media page and carries a different lead story.
Syndicated Story By PesaCheck.
An image shared on Facebook claiming to show a front page of Taifa Leo’s 20 June 2021 edition, is ALTERED.
The cover story is about Masten Wanjala, a deceased self-confessed serial killer, escaping from the mortuary. Wanjala’s photo is published alongside a headline that reads “Masten Wanjala Atoroka Mochari Bungoma (Masten Wanjala Escapes from Bungoma Mortuary)”.
Wanjala was facing sexual molestation and multiple murder charges before he was lynched by a mob in Bungoma county, days after escaping from police custody in Nairobi.
Prior to his escape and death, Wanjala was held at Jogoo Road police station pending his arraignment on 13 October 2021 at Makadara Law Courts.
Wanjala’s body was taken to Bungoma County Referral Hospital mortuary where a government pathologist performed an autopsy on 20 October 2021.

However, the claim was shared on 15 October, but the date on the attached newspaper front page is 20 October, which is not possible.
Closer scrutiny of the fake front page reveals that the font type used for the headline is different from the rest of the stories.
Additionally, the front page shared by Taifa Leo on its Facebook page on the said date is about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive to the ruling Jubilee Party to form a coalition with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The authentic front page contains images of Kenyatta with Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto addressing a political rally. There is no image of Wanjala, as claimed.
Other stories highlighted on the fake front cover are similar to those carried by the legitimate front page of the Taifa Leo.

PesaCheck has looked into the image shared on Facebook claiming to show an image of the front page of Taifa Leo’s 20 June 2021 edition, with a lead story that the deceased serial killer, Masten Wanjala, escaped from a mortuary and finds it to be ALTERED.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Rose Lukalo.
The article was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.