An Akure High Court, sitting in Ondo state, has sentenced a 34-year-old man, Oluwaseun Olabode, to death by hanging, for allegedly killing his eight-month-old, pregnant wife, Adaeze 0labode, three years ago.

The trial judge, Justice A. Adebusoye, in his verdict after three years of trial, said that the prosecution had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Adebusoye, declared Olabode Oluwaseun guilty as charged and sentenced him to death by hanging.

The prosecutors led by H.M Falowo Esq, a Chief Legal Officer, said that the accused person on April 3, 2020. at about 7 : 00 pm in Oke-Ogba Estate, Akure did beat Adaeze Olabode, his wife with a blunt object on the right side of her abdomen while she was heavily pregnant, which subsequently led to her death.

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Falowo said that the case of murder was reported on May 5, 2020, through a petition written to the Commissioner of Police, Ondo State Command, by one Dr Henry Orumen esq on behalf of the family of the deceased, Mrs Blessing Adaeze Olabode, against Olabode Oluwaseun.

A police witness, Insp. Adaran Adebayo, of the State CID, Akure, had testified that a case of murder was reported through a written petition to the office of the Commissioner of Police, Ondo State Command by the parents of the victim.

Adebayo, said that he led the team that investigated the case and that the statement of the complainants and their witnesses were freely recorded while the defendant was invited and his statement was obtained after administering cautionary words.

According to him, investigations revealed that the deceased and the defendant got married in 2014, and were pregnant with their second child, which was found dead in her womb a few days before her demise.

Adebayo further testified that prior to her death, “they had a quarrel concerning the manner in which the defendant spent some money within the period before the deceased was rushed to the hospital.”

Police prosecutor added that “the autopsy report conducted on the corpse of the deceased showed that irregular bruises and abrasions found on the right side of the lower part of the deceased abdomen caused a trauma which was so intense to have ruptured her uterus.”

He told the court that ” the complications led to the death of Adaeze Blessing.

However, the convict, denied that he fought with his wife, but the deceased family insisted in their petition and testimonies before the court that she suffered assault from her husband several times which eventually led to her death.

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While testifying, the father of the deceased, nee Anya, said that his deceased daughter suffered violent maltreatment from her husband and the mother-in-law, Stella Olabode.

Anya, noted that “at a point in their marriage, the deceased attempted suicide and left a suicide note but l waded into the matter and brokered peace between the couple.

“After my daughter’s death on April 14, 2020, her corpse was abandoned at the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Owo, until the intervention of my immediate younger brother,” he stated.

Also, the deceased, mother, Blessing, told the court that her daughter’s husband, her late daughter’s husband, informed her via a phone call that her daughter was sick while the phone was placed in the deceased’s ear but she could not hear her.

Blessing said that the defendant told her that he was rushing the deceased to the hospital.

She narrated that the next morning she met her daughter at Mother and Child Hospital while a caesarian operation had been performed on her.

Blessing told the court that she did not see the corpse of the baby that died in her womb, which necessitated the operation.

She testified further that she thereafter visited her in the ward and discovered that blood was gushing out from the right side of her abdomen and a pipe was attached to the place blood was gushing out which was different from the place where the operation was conducted.

“My daughter informed me that it was her husband who hit her on that particular spot, which led to the bleeding and eventual loss of the baby,” she concluded.

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Another witness, a consultant pathologist, O.E Pelemo, said that he performed an autopsy on the corpse of Adaeze Blessing Olabode.

Pelemo informed the court that he noticed irregular bruises and abrasions on the right side of the lower part of the deceased’s abdomen, and found the cause of death to be a wound caused by blunt force trauma to the abdomen which resulted in an internal wound and bleeding.

The pathologist confirmed that he prepared the autopsy report and signed it.
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