Timothy Adegoke: Hotel receptionist jailed over OAU student’s murder

The High Court sitting in Osogbo on Wednesday sentenced Adesola Adedeji, the receptionist that received the late Timothy Adegoke when he lodged in the Hilton Hotel, Ile-Ife, on November 6, 2021, to two years’ imprisonment for altering the receipt issued to the deceased.

Ms Adedeji was said to have fabricated another receipt as directed by her employer (Rahman Adedoyin) to conceal any traces of the deceased death from the police.

Delivering judgment, Justice Adepele Ojo, who sentenced Ms Adedeji, said the two-year jail term starts from the first day she was detained for the crime.

Ms Adedeji was arraigned alongside six others on 11 counts bothering on conspiracy, murder and felony, and they all pleaded not guilty to all the counts.

The case file number: HOS/5C/2022, dated February 14, 2022, and filed on February 17, 2022, was substituted with: HOS/5C/2022, dated February 22, 2022, and filed on March 2, 2022.

Mr Adegoke was a Obafemi Awolowo University ( OAU) postgraduate student. He left Abuja on November 5, 2021, to sit his last examination at the university at Ile-Ife.

The deceased had lodged at the Hilton Hotels belonging to Mr Adedoyin, where he allegedly lost his life and was declared missing on November 7, 2021, after his classmates discovered that he did not attend class at Moro Distance Learning Centre of the university.

Also, the police investigation revealed that he had told his family of his plans to check into Hilton Hotels in Ile-Ife, where he usually stayed whenever he arrived in Ife, but the hotel management initially denied this.

Police investigation further revealed that one of the white Hilux vans allegedly used in carrying the deceased’s body by the son of the owner of the hotel, Raheem Adedoyin, was later recovered in an undisclosed place in Abuja.

Mr Adedoyin’s son was the hotel’s managing director and reportedly supervised the dumping of Adegoke’s body in a shallow grave along Ife highway before the police recovered it.

The owner of the hotel, Mr Adedoyin and two other hotel staff were sentenced to death by hanging by the same court on Tuesday.

(NAN)