By Oghenekevwe Laba
LAGOS: A suspected kidnapper and murderer 25 years old Mr Onyeka Patrick has confessed to have kidnapped his neighbour’s seven years old son which he later strangulated to death before demanding for a ransom of N5m from his parents.
Looking remorse and full of regret Onyeka who was paraded at the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, Lagos yesterday told Urhobotoday that he could not fathom why he snuffed life out of his neighbour’s little son with whom they have been living cordially ever since.
Onyeka in a confessional statement agreed to have strangulated seven years old boy (name withheld) son of the neighbor on January 12th, 2013 after which he concealed his body in an empty sack of rice and hid it in his residence located at number 16TH, 3rd Avenue, Mumako Estate, Ikekube, Ikotun a suburb of Lagos . Ironically, his residence is the next building to the victim’s residence which is located at number 14 of the same street.
Not comfortable with the place he hid the corps in his residence, Onyeka took the little boy’s corpse and hid it inside a soak away in an uncompleted building in the same nighbourhood. After masterminding the concealment of the corpse, he went a step further by writing a letter to the parents of the child demanding for the sum of N5 million as ransom before the boy could be release to them. He posted the letter on the victim’s parents gate. He also included his telephone number on which to contact him.
Onyeka however ran out of luck when neighbours and sympathizers in course of trying to fathom out who owns similar handwriting in the neighborhood, Onyeka elder brother identified the handwriting as that of his junior brother which is Onyeka. However, in the course of interrogation at home and Ikotun Police Station, Onyeka was reported to have denied being part of such crime. But when he was transferred to State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and after intensive interrogation, he owned up to the crime saying he did not know what went into him to have made him to kill his neighbour’s son. He later lead SARS operative to recover the decompose corpse of the boy which was later deposited at the Isolo General Hospital mortuary for autopsy.
Speaking to our correspondent, Onyeka agreed to have committed the crime, saying that he did not collect the ransom from the parents after it downed on him that he had done a bad thing.
“After killing him, I could not continue with the negotiation for ransom. I felt bad and was not comfortable. This is the reason why I did not ask for he ransom. I decided to destroy my sim card so that they would not be able to get across to me for further discussion. I killed the boy, because I felt that if I release him, he would identify me before the parents,” Confessed, Onyeka who said this was his first time of indulging in such crime.