A man who murdered the granddaughter of a school proprietor in Ijebu-Ife, Ogun State, for owing him salary, says he was pushed to the crime by “family spell”.
Edet Umoren, a staff of Favour Nursery and Primary School, Itamerin, Ijebu-Ife, said at the headquarters of Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Abeokuta, on Tuesday that he had no justification for killing the 10-year-old girl, and that the scale of the crime dawned on him after the murder.
Mr. Umoren, 53, said he struck Precious Adeji with a machete and left her to bleed to death just metres outside the school premises.
He fled the scene of the attack before he would later be arrested by the police.
Narrating the attack, Mr. Umoren said a spell on his family may have been responsible for the killing, as his older brother, a former police officer, had in 1999 “accidentally” killed an innocent man before his dismissal from the force.
“I think I am under a curse and the spell might have been placed on our family, because my elder brother who was a police (officer) before being dismissed, faced similar problem, following an accidental discharge which claimed the life of an innocent man in 1999,” he said.
A father of three, Mr. Umoren said he believed he was “spiritually remote controlled”, and that he regretted killing the girl. He said he was ready to face the consequences of his actions.
“It is true the school management is owing me salaries, but that was not enough for me to have killed. But I don’t know what ran over me, I just took a cutlass from the school and went to attack the child.
“I cut her and while bleeding I took off, only to later realise the magnitude of crime committed,” the man narrated.
“This is a spiritual problem, I can’t understand, I don’t even know how I got to kill the girl. I know the school is owing me, but it’s not enough justification for me to kill, if not spiritual forces.”