29-Yr-Old Lady Raped, Strangled by Co-tenant’s Son 3 Months To Wedding

For the 29-year-old Oluwatosin life was just beginning. Having graduated from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife in Osun State, she had looked forward to a blissful marital life, with her wedding just three months away. But that will never be as she was murdered no thanks to a randy, wicked neighbour.

A young man, Ikenna James Joshua (23), working in cohort with his friend, who is now at large, gang-raped and murdered the hapless lady. The incident, according to Ogun State Police Command, happened on Monday, leaving the already traumatised parents of the deceased in more mystery and despondence. The family only about a year ago lost the first child of their three children but took to fate, only for Oluwatosin, the second child to be cut down in such a gruesome manner.

Ikenna, in his extrajudicial statement to the police, disclosed how he conspired with one of his friends (now at large), to access Oluwatosin’s self-contained apartment by forcefully breaking the ceiling from outside, while the victim was fast asleep.

He said they thereafter took turns on her amid her lamentation that she would never have thought Ikenna could be that callous and mischievous to rape her, adding that the duo would never get away with it necessitated their murdering her.

What is more intriguing is that both the victim and the principal suspect’s parents lived in the same compound at Ogijo in Ogun State during which, the deceased reportedly took him as a blood brother.

Ikenna attested to how friendly and generous Oluwatosin was to him but said he did not know what came upon him to have, in the first place, thought of gang-raping her

On why he agreed with his accomplice to resort to murder Oluwatosin, Ikenna said, “It was not to leave a trace to the assailants, more so that she said it repeatedly that I would be fished out”.

In a press statement, the Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said, “Ikenna’s parents, described his arrest as good riddance to bad rubbish, that they had already given up on him adding that he is the black sheep of the family.

“They also appealed to the authorities concerned to ensure that appropriate punishment is meted out to him”, the police spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the late Oluwatosin’s mother, that early morning, visited her only to discover her dead through strangling and raised the alarm.

By then, Ikenna was about to escape but his mother, with a vigilante member, thwarted his bid, held him down and made a distress call to the police at Ogijo Division.

Led by the DPO, CSP Onatufeh Umoh, the detectives whisked him to the station.

“The state Commissioner of Police, CP Lanre Bankole, has ordered the immediate transfer of the suspect to the Homicide Section of the State Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department for further investigation. He also directed that his accomplice must be hunted for and brought to book”, the statement added.