Jealous wife bags death sentence over murder of pastor-husband

A jealous housewife has bagged a death sentence by hanging for stabbing her pastor-husband to death with a kitchen knife and setting him on fire.

The 28-year-old housewife, Mrs Mary Attah, was sentenced to death by hanging by an Effurun High Court, Effurun, Delta State.

She was found guilty of stabbing her husband, Pastor Darkington Attah, with a kitchen knife and dousing him with petrol before striking a match on him on July 6, 2012.

Mrs Attah, who has four children for her husband, according to Assistant Director, Mr Patrick Mekako, stabbed him on his neck and set fire on him after an alleged phone call from a mistress of her husband.

He said the accused was incensed by the sudden telephone call from the mistress ostentatiously at a time she was having sexual pleasure in the hands of her hubby.

This, Mekako said, prompted the accused to obsessively hasten to the kitchen, grabbed a kitchen knife, further armed herself with ground pepper, splashed it on her husband’s face to immobilise him and eventually slashed his neck.

Undone, the assailant doused the dying husband, who was already weak as a result of excessive loss of blood, with fuel and struck a match on him!

The victim, as narrated, later gave up the ghost at the Warri Central Hospital where he was rushed to for medical emergency.

Meanwhile, the Presiding Judge of the Effurun High Court, Justice E.I Oritsejafor, condemned the accused to death, having been pronounced guilty on a one-count charge preferred against her by the Delta State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice.

The offence, the Justice said, was punishable under Section 319(1) of the Criminal Code Law, Cap C21, Volume 1, Laws of Delta State of Nigeria, 2006.

While delivering the death verdict, Justice Oritsejafor held that the prosecution, led by Mr Mekako, was able to prove beyond all reasonable doubts the offence of murder against the accused.

Oritsejafor held that: “I must also add that the evidence before this Court do not and cannot support the plea of self defence in favour of the accused person.

I agree with the learned Assistant Director for the Prosecution that there is just no possible defence to avail the accused person when she stabbed her deceased husband in the neck with a knife and thereafter doused him with fuel before she struck the match on him was to kill the deceased or do him grievous bodily harm.

The law is trite that a man intends the natural consequences of his act.”

Justice Oritsejafor added that: “from the evidence before this Court and in particular the extrajudicial statement of the accused person, Exhibit A and the evidence of PW1 and PW2, which corroborates and is consistent with the facts contained in the said extrajudicial statement Exhibit A, I hold that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person murdered her deceased husband on or about the 6th day of July, 2012, and I find the accused person guilty of the murder of Darlington Attah as charged.

“Accused person is accordingly, hereby, convicted of the offence of murder.

“The sentence of this Court upon you, Mary Attah, is death by hanging by the neck till you be dead and may the Lord have mercy on your soul,” the Justice declared.