A middle-aged man, Chinedu Ugwueze, has reportedly confessed to the murder of a 98-year-old woman in Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area of Enugu State.
Ugwueze, in his confessional statement to the police, said he stabbed the nonagenarian, identified as Oyibo Ogidi, to death at her apartment in Ovoko because she was a witch. He alleged that Ogidi was causing spiritual setbacks to members of his community.
According to him, by killing the elderly woman he liberated other members of the community.
However, members of the community have reportedly dismissed Ugwueze’s witchcraft claims. The Vanguard, which quoted an unnamed source, reported that the suspect murdered Ogidi to steal her share of the proceeds from the sale of their family land.
The paper added that after killing and stealing the sum, Ugwueze went on a spending spree. However, when the community intensified its efforts to get to unravel the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death, Ugwueze was said to have fled the community to absconded to a suburb, Okpuje, in Nsukka Local Government Area of the state where he was doing business with his newly married wife.
“When he noticed that the community has intensified efforts to get to the root of the matter, he sent a friend home to bring his motorcycle to a beer parlour where he was having fun with friends. With that, he ran away from the community,” the Vanguard reported.
“Some community members then volunteered to go to Okpuje where he was doing business in search of him. On sighting the emissaries, he attempted to bolt away but was overpowered. He was brought home and he confessed to the crime.
“She said that he killed the woman because she was a witch. He also confessed that he was behind the murder of a 55-year-old Joseph Ogbonna, who was equally killed in his sleep, April 2020,” the source said.
After his arrest, Ugwueze reportedly confessed that when he went to the house of the childless woman with his accomplice, Tobechukwu Atamah (now at large), Tobechukwu hit her head with a rod while he stabbed her to death before carting away with her cash and other personal belongings.
Ugwueze also confessed to the murder of a 55-year-old man, identified as Joseph Ogbonna, in the same community in April 2020.
