The painter, Niyi Abegunde, was said to have killed the woman, Evangelist (Mrs) Grace Ajibola, a lady evangelist with the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Oke Imole, Agbeni, Ibadan, in the morning of Tuesday, March 17, at the Johnson Awe area of Oluyole Estate where the woman had been living since 1975. He fled with the woman’s ATM card, a phone and some other valuables.
Reports said the woman engaged the services of the painter about 4 months before tht fateful day. Because she liked his service, the deceased became fond of him and he was a regular face in the house, sometimes attending vigils organised by the woman on the third Monday of every month. The woman also used to send him on errands, even with her car.
Her journey to untimely death started when she asked him a week earlier to help her withdraw some money from her account at the ATM of a first generation bank in the Apata area of Ibadan. But the painter, after withdrawing the money, decided to check her account balance and he was said to have found over N2 million in it.
So on Tuesday, March 17, he came to the house after the young girl living with the woman had gone to school, descended on the woman and strangled her to death. He eventually locked the door of the house after taking the phone and the ATM card and fled.
He had already withdrawn the sum of N120,000 from the account before policemen were informed about the murder of the old woman. Policemen were eventually able to get details of the transaction made by the man and his identity from the bank's CCTV. Men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Dugbe then launched a manhunt for him and he was arrested in a hideout in Akure, Ondo State, on Wednesday, March 25.
-Additional report from Nigerian Tribune.