Suspected ritual killers confess

By Emmanuel Obe, Benin


Two of the suspects who were arrested by the police at the King’s Square , Benin City on Tuesday on the suspicion that they were behind the several killings that had taken place in the area have confessed.
The two suspects, a male and a female, who resided in a shack by the wall of the Central Hospital mortuary, spoke with reporters at the State Criminal Investigation Department on Wednesday.

The man, who gave his name as Festus Ivabor, from Ozoro in Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State, was however, incoherent in his reply to questions.

Festus said he was 17 years old, but looks like a man in his late 30s or early 40s.

He denied having a hand in the serial killings that have been going on at the King’s Square, and said he was only being framed up.

But the woman, who gave her name as Patience Overo from Akure, said Ivabor had killed three people in her presence.

One of them, she said, was a beggar around Ring Road. According to her, the second victim was another beggar who Ivabor owed some money and a third one, whose death on Tuesday led to the discovery of the secret killings.

She said Ivabor, who had lived at that spot for about three years, forced her to become his live-in lover some months ago.

Patience denied that she and Festus sold parts of the bodies they killed to people that used them for ritual purposes.

She said Festus had beaten her up severely when she reprimanded him for killing the third person. She said he even threatened to kill her the same way he had killed the other people and nobody would come for her.

She claimed to be a 34-year-old divorcee who left her husband in Lagos with three children.

The lid on the ritualistic acts of the suspects was blown up on Tuesday when officials of the Oredo Local Government were called in to remove a corpse near the residence of the suspects.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr. Peter Ogboi, said experts would be brought in to examine the state of mind of the suspects while investigations into their nefarious activities continue.

http://odili.net/news/source/2007/nov/8/403.html