A 32-year-old man , Chinedu Nweke has claimed he killed 45-year-old Philomina Nwega, a native of Ebuku Ndieze Amudda in Umuzeoka village, Ezza North Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, to avenge the serial rape of his wife by men in the murdered woman’s village.
He hacked Phillomina to death on September 6, 2014.
Stating his version of what led to the horrible incident before the police, Chinedu said:
“I am a farmer. Villagers raped my wife severally. And it made my wife to have miscarriage anytime she was pregnant. I never complained about this problem to the police. It was on September 6, 2014 in the evening that I saw a woman coming from the farm. I waylaid her and I used my cutlass to kill her. I cut off her head which I dumped alongside her lifeless body into the Ogbor stream. I cut her head into pieces and threw them into the stream. It was at Umezeoka that the people raped my wife and that was where I killed the woman. Each time my wife was raped I bought drugs for her but I didn’t report the incident to anybody, not even to the village head or the traditional ruler.”
A report to the police about the death of the woman and a subsequent search by a combined team of the police and the local vigilance group in Achiagu, Ezza North LGA, led to the arrest of the suspect, Nweke,who was caught with a blood-stained machete and clothes on September 7, 2014.
The headless body of the deceased was later recovered where it was hidden and taken to the mortuary of the Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki.