Edo police parades 14-year-old killer housemaid

IN what looked like a season of mass arrest by the police in Edo state, a record number of 115 suspected criminals which included a 14-year-old girl who allegedly killed her madam were paraded at the command headquarters in Benin yesterday.

The killer teenager, Miss Hannah Amos, a housemaid was arrested on Wednesday, August 8 for the alleged murder of 71-year-old Mrs Helen Adodo, a day before, by smashing her head with a big stone.

The young suspect who had lived with the old woman for about four months since April at Guobadia Street, in uptown Benin, said some unseen spirit who control her, ordered her murder the septuagenarian.

Hannah further told reporters that the occultic spirit sternly warned her never to disclose that she was the one responsible for the death of her victim.

The Junior Secondary School student of Itohan Girls’ Grammar School, Benin who denied being a member of the occult, however, confessed that during night time, she normally sees herself in the midst of occultic people singing and dancing but does not participate.

In crocodile tears, Hannah, a Gbagi from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) described the deceased as a kindhearted woman who took her like a grandchild but ironically smashed her head as she dozed off in an arms chair on that fateful morning.

She said: “I don’t know what came over me. Iye (as she was fondly called) was very good to me. She never offended me. The only complaint against me was that she was always rebuking me for not eating much. It is some evil forces that order me to kill her.”

She said that she was alone at home with the victim as her sister went out, and took advantage of her absence to kill her with the big stone which she found in the verandah of the house.

The suspects were arrested for offences from across the state, ranging from cultism, fraud, kidnapping, armed robbery and murder.

The Commissioner of Police, Mr Babatunde Kokumo who paraded the suspects before journalists at the Command headquarters in Benin, advised criminally-minded persons to either repent or relocate to other places, else, they will face the full wrath of the law.

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He alleged that many of suspects who escaped from the long arms of the law in neighbouring States were caught in Edo following a crackdown on the criminal hideout in the State.

Many of the suspects confessed to the crimes they were accused of and narrated their level of involvement in the crimes.

Also paraded was 26-year-old Wisdom Olocha, indigenes who were accused of capable of opening any locked door after knocking the door with a wing strapped to his finger.

The suspect who denied opening doors with rings, however, said he was arrested after breaking into a car and stealing a woman’s bag from the car.

Items recovered from the various suspects include laptops, cell phones, the undisclosed amount of money, banned drugs, cutlasses, assorted sophisticated arms and ammunition and locally made cut-to-size guns.

Kokumo, who commended the cross-section of the public whom he said supplied the useful information which led to the arrest of the suspects, pleaded with them to sustain the collaboration.

He said that many of suspects had escaped from the long arms of the law in neighbouring states but were caught in Edo following a crackdown on the criminal hideout.