A Rivers State High Court has sentenced the General Overseer of the Altar of Solution and Healing Assembly based in Izioma, Oyigbo Local Government Area, Rivers State, Prophet Chidiebere Okoroafor, to death by hanging for multiple murders including the killing of his choir mistress, Deaconess Orlunma Nwagba, who he allegedly impregnated.
He is alleged to have also killed a nursing mother and her baby. The nursing mother visited him to ask for the whereabouts of Orlunma Nwagba. He quickly strangled her and the baby and buried them in a shallow grave.
Okoroafor had reportedly impregnated his choir mistress known as Orlunma. He pressured her to do an abortion but she refused to terminate the pregnancy.
Pastor Okoroafor then masterminded her killing by inviting her to his house.
On the day the deceased went missing, her friend Ms. Chigozie Ezenwa and her daughter Christabel Ezenwa were also reported missing.
It was later discovered that both Chigozie and her daughter had accompanied the choir mistress to settle matters with the Pastor.
Through investigation and searches, police discovered the decomposing bodies of the three victims.
According to Vanguard, Men of Rivers Police Command had on 17 December 2018 arrested Pastor Okoroafor following an alarm raised by the husband to the late Chigozie Ezenwa over the killing of three victims on 11 December 2018 in two different locations in a community in Oyigbo.
On the day the deceased went missing, her friend Ms. Chigozie Ezenwa and her daughter Christabel Ezenwa were also reported missing.
It was later discovered that both Chigozie and her daughter had accompanied the choir mistress to settle matters with the Pastor.
Through investigation and searches, police discovered the decomposing bodies of the three victims.
According to Vanguard, Men of Rivers Police Command had on 17 December 2018 arrested Pastor Okoroafor following an alarm raised by the husband to the late Chigozie Ezenwa over the killing of three victims on 11 December 2018 in two different locations in a community in Oyigbo.
In a judgment delivered by Justice S.O Benson on the murder trial delivered Monday, said the evidence and confessional statement by Pastor Okoroafor proved he murdered his Church’s Choir Mistress after getting her pregnant and also killed her friend, Chigozie Ezenwa with her daughter, Christabel Ezenwa.
Justice Benson insisted that the prosecution proved the case of murder against Pastor Okoroafor, ordering that the Pastor be killed by hanging on his neck until he is dead or be injected with a lethal injection which also kills faster.
Precious Ordu, Prosecution Counsel from the state Ministry of Justice, and Antonia Osademe, representing the International Federation of Female Lawyers in the murder trial expressed happiness over the judgment they described as justice well served.
Innocent Ekwu, counsel to the convicted Pastor said there were reasonable grounds to appeal the judgment against his client.