A 26-year-old man, David Isaiah, who has been sentenced to death by hanging has confessing to the murder of a commercial sex worker, Comfort James, in Ado Ekiti.
He convicted by the Ekiti State High Court after being found guilty of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder.
The court handed down the death sentence for the murder charge, a life sentence for kidnapping, and a 21-year prison term for conspiracy.
Isaiah, along with his deceased accomplice Saviour Daniel, planned the abduction of Comfort James in February 2024.
According to court records, the two men lured James under the pretense of engaging her services, only to later tie her up and demand a ransom of N100,000 from her colleagues.
The victim, who had earlier managed to make a distress call to her peers, was held captive, and her life was tragically cut short when Isaiah and Daniel poured herbicide into her mouth after realizing she had seen their faces and could potentially implicate them.
Isaiah and Daniel initially hoped to collect the ransom, but when the money failed to materialize, they decided to kill her to cover their act up.
Isaiah admitted in court that he and Daniel had planned the murder to prevent James from identifying them.
The case came to light when other commercial sex workers from the same brothel as James raised alarm after she went missing.
A report was filed with the police, leading to a swift investigation. Authorities tracked the phone lines used in the ransom demand, eventually capturing Isaiah.
He led the Civil Defence officers to the location where the body of the victim was discovered, confirming the brutal nature of the crime.
His words “After having sex with the deceased, we used her number to call her colleagues that she had been kidnapped and demanded a ransom of N100,000. Her hands and neck were tied all along, but when the ransom was not forthcoming and on realising that she had seen our faces clearly, to avoid being implicated, we poured herbicide in her mouth and she later died.”
Punch
