Did 32-year-old Chinedu Nweke kill 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, as he claims? That is the big question that the police in Ebonyi State are scratching their heads to unravel.The unimaginable and horrible happened on September 6, 2014 in Umuzeoka village in Ezza North Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, the Commissioner of Police for the State, Maigari Dikko disclosed to this reporter.
Recounting the bizarre tale, Nweke, a farmer, said men from the village had raped his wife severally, alleging that the repeated vicious act led to a miscarriage.
His words: “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.”
When a report was made to the police about the death of the woman, a search was conducted by a combined team of the police and the local vigilance group in Achiagu, Ezza North LGA, where the suspect, Nweke, was arrested with a blood-stained machete and clothes on September 7, 2014.
Nweke confessed to the police that he killed the woman and dumped her corpse in the stream along with the head.
Dikko said the headless body was later recovered and taken to the mortuary of the Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki. The Assistant Commis¬sioner of Police, State Criminal Investigation Department, Mrs Justina Ogbodo also told Sunday Sun that detectives had recovered the machete allegedly used by Nweke to kill the woman.
ACP Ogbodo said the command was still finding it difficult to recover the severed head, which Nweke claimed to have thrown into the stream.
While the police continue with the interrogation of the suspect, the husband of the deceased, Mr. Bar-tholomew Nwega said his primary headache is seeing the severed head of his late wife recovered so that she could be given honourable burial. In a broken voice that belied his grief, he said: “I am pleading with the police to help me recover the head of my dead wife.”