Fresh facts on how the Hungarian wife of Gildas Tohouo, Managing Director of Maersk Nigeria Limited, Bernadette, was murdered by two men who invaded their Ikoyi, Lagos abode, last Sunday, have emerged.
This followed revelation by the main suspect, Olamide Goke and his accomplice, Adeyinka Akanbi, yesterday. Crime Guard gathered that Goke, who resides in Bariga, was only employed as an electrician five months ago, with a monthly salary of N40,000.
Late Bernadette, a mother of three, who had just returned from a foreign trip, was relaxing in her apartment that fateful night, when she heard a knock on the door. Her decision to open the door upon recognising the voice of Goke, the electrician, turned out to be her greatest undoing.
Crime Guard gathered that immediately she locked the door after Goke and his accomplice entered the apartment which was on the top floor of a four blocks of flat, they demanded for the switch box, after informing her that the cause of the black out in the building was from their flat.
While the unsuspecting mother of three was leading them to the location of the switch box, they informed her of their intention.
Why we killed her
Explaining what transpired between them, Goke, 34, said, “We didn’t intend to kill her. I just wanted us to collect some foreign currency from her because she just returned from oversee four days back. When we got inside, I asked her to give us money but she said she had no money with her. Immediately she recognised me, my partner said it would be dangerous for us to leave her alive. At that point, we went to get the sniper used in the garden and asked her to drink it. She asked why we were doing that and I reminded her that it was because she once called me a black pig.
On the day she addressed me as a black pig, I had gone to demand for my salary. They were owing me N160,000 as payment for four months salary. The agreement was to pay me N40,000 monthly and it accumulated for four months. Instead of giving me, she said, “get out of my house, black pig”.
Back to the operation in the flat, Goke said, “As we tried to force the sniper down her throat, she was vomiting it out, Akanbi used a pillow to suffocate her. Yet, she was still struggling with us. It was at that point that we stabbed her in different parts of the body”.
While the struggle was ongoing, her husband, who was in his room reportedly came out to ascertain what the matter was.
But he got more than what he bargained for as the intruders attacked him.
Goke, said, “We did not know that her husband was in. We thought he travelled because he was never at home. When we saw him, we attacked him with the knife used on his wife. But he ran back inside his bedroom. At that point, I rushed into their kitchen to get another knife to stab oga. If they had given me money, we would have left quietly. The couple are stingy. Anytime I approached them to give me money, they would refuse”,he said.
His partner in crime, Ajani, who resides in Mushin area of Lagos, said he was invited by Goke, to collect the money owed him.
He however said, “The plan was never to kill her. It took us three weeks to plan how to enter the flat. We collected her ATM, after we discovered she was dead. We also thought that her husband was dead too. Our intention was to make withdrawals with he ATM”.
Arrest
Crime Guard gathered that immediately Tohouo ran into his bedroom, he sent a distress text message to the estate’s whatapp platform and his company where several emergency calls were made to the Police. Before the arrival of the Police, the estate ‘s alarm was set in motion, thereby making it impossible for the intruders to leave the apartment.
Explaining how they were arrested Police sources said, “CP Hakeem Odumosu, who was on his routine night patrol, received the distress call and he swiftly moved to the scene, where he mobilized the DPO and the Area Commander in the area .
“It was dark and everybody wanted to go home but the CP insisted that we must get something that would help in not just the investigation but also to quickly arrest the perpetrators.
“It was an affective and timely operation. Those boys would have escaped if the CP had not gone there himself. Even when everybody concluded it was late and waned to go home, the CP went to his vehicle and brought out a torch which he beamed in different directions. By the time he pointed it up to the tree, one of the suspects was found to be hiding there.
The second suspect was found hiding in the power generating house. The knife they used for the operation was found with them while other weapons which they intended to use were found in a vacant flat in the estate”.
The corpse of the Hungarian mother of three was evacuated to the morgue while her widower was rushed to the hospital where he was treated. While the attack was going on, their children were sleeping peacefully in their room.
The suspects who are at the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, SCIID, Yaba, Lagos, are expected to be paraded next next.
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