Operatives of the Ogun State Police Command have arrested a 54-year-old man, Dauda Bello, for killing a 71-year-old woman, Mesesi Adisa, and selling her wrists and ankles to a suspected ritualist.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said this in a statement on Tuesday.
According to Oyeyemi, the suspect was arrested on Thursday following the sudden disappearance of the victim, who he said had left home since June 8, 2022, and had not returned home.
Oyeyemi stated that a relative of the victim had reported a case of a missing person at Sabo/Ilupeju police station.
The PPRO said the case was later transferred to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the State Criminal Investigation Department where technical and intelligence-based investigation was embarked upon.
He added that in the course of the investigation, the SP Taiwo Opadiran-led team traced the last place visited by the victim to be the house of the suspect in the Olodo area of Imala.
He said: “The suspect was subsequently arrested and taken to custody for investigation.
“On interrogation, the suspect confessed to have known the victim for quite some time now, and that they were both into the business of children trafficking.
“He stated further that he invited the victim on that fateful day to discuss their usual business, but on getting to his house, he discovered that the victim came with what he thought was a huge amount of money.
“This made him hit the woman on the head with a heavy wooden stick, which made the woman be unconscious after which he carried the unconscious body of the victim to the bush where he finally sniffed life out of her.
“He confessed further that when he searched the woman’s body, he discovered that the victim only had the sum of N22,200 with her which he took with disappointment.
“Having realised that his aim of getting much money from the victim was in vain, he decided to cut off her two wrists and ankles, which he claimed to have been sold to somebody who is now at large.”
He noted that the suspect had taken the police to the bush where he buried the victim in a shallow grave, with the dismembered body had been recovered and deposited in the mortuary.
The PPRO added that the Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, who commended the team for a thorough job, had ordered that the case be charged as soon as the investigation was concluded.