The residents of the sleepy Imodi-Imosan town in Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State have yet to recover from the shock of the gruesome murder of a farmer, Happy Patrick.
The farmer was hacked to death in the rustic community by two men, Patrick Udoh and James Rowland, who had allegedly planned to sell his corpse to undisclosed persons said to have required it for ritual purposes.
When Patrick said goodbye to his family at about 6:30am that fateful day, he did not have the faintest foreboding that death was lurking around the corner. He had hoped to return home later from the Redeem Christian Church of God in the area, where he had been engaged to fumigate the bushes around the premises. But alas that was not to be!
Soon, he met his gruesome death in the hands of his two suspected killers.
No sooner had he begun to carry out the services he was engaged for than his suspected killers lured the 33-year-old victim into the room occupied by one of them, Udoh, whose house adjoins an uncompleted building at the back of the church. Immediately he fell into the trap set by the suspects and entered into the room, they allegedly descended on him with machetes, a hammer and a digger.
In no time, the suspects had practically made mincemeat of their victim, butchering him like a cow! They immediately packed his dismembered body into a sack and made it ready for delivery to some unnamed ritualists, who had earlier given them the devilish job of procuring human parts
In no time, the suspects had practically made mincemeat of their victim, butchering him like a cow! They immediately packed his dismembered body into a sack and made it ready for delivery to some unnamed ritualists, who had earlier given them the devilish job of procuring human parts.
Nemesis, however, caught up with the two suspects when a woman, who, while passing by Udoh’s house earlier, had heard the victim’s frantic cries and screams from inside the room, but had thought the suspect, Udoh and his wife, were just having a domestic quarrel, and just walked away, later squealed on the suspects.
The suspects had thought they had got away with the heinous crime, but they were wrong.
When the woman (names withheld) heard the that the local security outfit, the Vigilante Group of Nigeria in the area, were searching for Patrick, she remembered what she experienced earlier and told the security operatives that she overheard somebody screaming in Udoh’s room while she was passing around the house earlier.
Udoh was promptly arrested by the VGN operatives, who stormed his house.
In the course of his interrogation, Udoh, a snacks hawker, confessed to committing the crime, but said that it was his accomplice, Rowland, who asked him to look for human parts. And it was to procure this that they conspired and killed Patrick.
He further confessed that they planned to sell their victim’s body parts to some unnamed persons, who needed them for ritual purposes.
The 35-year-old suspect further confessed that after killing the victim, they packed his mangled corpse in a sack and hid it inside the uncompleted building located at the back of the church, where the victim had come to work before they killed him.
Speaking with our correspondent, the Head of VGN in the area, Mr. Baruwa Oluwakemi, who described Patrick’s death as gruesome and unfortunate, said that Udoh’s confession led to the arrest of 25-year-old Rowland in his house.
Oluwakemi said that the deceased’s wife and his neighbour, one Mr. Moses Utueke, had earlier come to his office at about 5:00 pm to report the case of her missing husband.
He added efforts made to find the victim proved abortive until a woman (names withheld) hinted him that she overheard somebody screaming in Udoh’s room earlier while she was passing by the house.
The VGN boss noted that the suspected killers had been handed over to the police at the Obalende Division for further investigation.
He said, “He (Udoh) did not want to confess, but after thorough investigation, he later confessed that he and Rowland killed that man (Patrick) and packed his dead body in a sack and kept it in an uncompleted building. He said that they had planned to sell it to unknown persons.
“When we saw the dead body inside the uncompleted building, which is at the back of the church where the victim had come to work, we later informed the police at Obalende about the matter and they came and we handed them (suspects) over to the police.”
Also speaking on the incident, the State Commandant of the VGN, Nureni Adedoyin, expressed sadness over the manner Udoh and Rowland killed Patrick.
Adedoyin vowed that the suspects won’t escape the full wrath of the law.
Efforts to speak with the wife of the deceased victim, who is heavily pregnant, proved abortive as she was said to be receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital, due to the shock she suffered as a result of her husband’s gruesome death.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Abimbola Oyeyemi, confirmed the killing of the victim and the arrest of the two suspects.
Oyeyemi listed the exhibits recovered from the suspects to include two cutlasses, a hammer, a digger and the fumigating tools belonging to the murdered victim.
