Posted by By GODDY OSUJI, Abakaliki on
They say she is in the habit of asking for sex, sex and more sex. As she failed to get all the carnal actions she had pressured her husband for, Josephine reportedly recruited a younger man to fill the void.
•Says ‘He can't perform'
They say she is in the habit of asking for sex, sex and more sex. As she failed to get all the carnal actions she had pressured her husband for, Josephine reportedly recruited a younger man to fill the void.
Parents who knew her track record were really worried about what Josephine Onuzulike, a secondary school principal, actually teaches her students.
But while that was going on, Josephine allegedly connived with her lover boy to murder her husband. Her anger, Sunday Sun learnt, is that Chukwuma Anthony Onuzulike wanted to take another wife. And that was unacceptable to her!
Curiously, it's this same man she claimed could not satisfy her sexual urge. While that was being debated, Josephine was last week arraigned at a Magistrate Court in the state capital, accused of stabbing her husband to death with a kitchen knife.
The man, a 48-year-old trader, was a native of Adazi Enu in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State.
At first the woman made it seem like a case of robbery, but when an oath was to be administered to her in their village, Josephine reportedly owned up, saying she did it because he could not satisfy her sexually.
The incident happened on May 7, 2008 when Josephine, a mother of four, allegedly conspired with her boyfriend, Ekene Onyeka, and four others now at large, to kill her husband at their residence, No 33 Convent Road, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State.
Though the woman did not make any plea in court, the presiding Chief Magistrate, Mr. G Ugbala, ruled that his court lacked the jurisdiction to try the case and referred the case to the state Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) for further action. He, therefore, remanded her in prison custody in the absence of application for her bail.
Accosted by Sunday Sun in the court premises, Josephine denied committing the crime, and declined further comments. According to her, 'this is not the time, I have nothing to say, later." And then, the prison officials whisked her away in handcuff.
However, the immediate younger brother of the deceased, Mr. Donatus Onuzulike, narrated the bizarre incident to Sunday Sun, giving details of how Josephine, a native of Umuabi Udi, Enugu State, conspired with her boyfriend to kill his brother.
According to him, they hired assassins on the night of May 7, 2008, invaded his elder brother's residence at No. 33 Convent Road, Abakaliki, and murdered him in cold blood.
If the claim by Donatus is anything to go by, Josephine later admitted committing the crime when the family of the deceased threatened to unravel the truth, ostensibly through other unorthodox means.
She was reportedly cajoled to help track down her fleeing lover-boy, which she obliged.
The fleeing boy friend, Ekene Onyeka, Sunday Sun learnt, was eventually arrested at a popular eatery in Enugu. He had, after committing the crime, allegedly fled to Lagos, and later Port Harcourt before Josephine reportedly summoned him to Enugu for a tête-à-tête, where he walked into police ambush.
Her reason for shedding her hubby's blood, Donatus further revealed, was that her husband's inability to satisfying her sexually. Again, Josephine was said to be opposed to her hubby's proposal to marry a second wife, 'now that he is rich."
His story: 'We had gone to bed with my family when around 10.30 pm, a call came, I picked it and found out that it was my elder brother's wife (the immediate elder brother to late Chukwuma) who ordered me to rush to Chukwuma's house, that he had allegedly been stabbed to death by armed robbers who came to his house. I was confused. I raised an alarm that woke my family and we rushed to his house. When we got there, his body had already been taken to the mortuary accompanied by police who arrived immediately after. She (elder brother's wife) told me that it was the police that alerted them about the murder.
'Later in the morning, the police came to arrest neighbours but the wife of the deceased pleaded that they should be released because they were innocent of the matter. They were later bailed and after a few hours the police came back for another round of arrest. My late brother's wife repeated that they should be left out of the matter.
'In her statement to the police, she claimed that unknown persons just came and stabbed her husband to death. During this period we never suspected her as she was urging us to hasten arrangements for his burial, if possible the following week. The death of my brother could not be explained, as neighbours were not even aware of any noise from the house. It was only when they heard the woman come downstairs crying, which attracted them and when they went upstairs to find out what happened, that they saw the man stone dead.
'As she insisted that the husband be buried within a few days, we went ahead to see the pastor where they worship for clearance while some of my relations went to the village to inform our people and also seek clearance for his burial.
'But people who came to commiserate with us suggested what we could to do to unravel the killers. Some suggested that we accompany the corpse with a knife so that he (the deceased) would avenge his death. Worried by the suggestions, Josephine consulted my wife secretly to know if something could be done to prevent the deceased from avenging his murder, in case my people decided to enclose a knife in his coffin, but my wife told her that the much she knew, nothing could be done if the family decided to do exactly as resolved."
Donatus continued: 'After obtaining clearance from the church and the information passed to the people in the village preparatory for his burial, they asked us to come home. We went to the village where they demanded that the wife should tell them what actually happened. After telling them her story, they concluded that the man died a violent death and should not be buried in a hurry, arguing that his spirit would not be happy if anything to the contrary was done. They suggested that native investigations should be conducted to reveal the actual culprits. Finally, we went to a place at Urualla in Imo state, in an attempt to unravel the killers. We all went there and it was when prayers were going on that the woman started shouting and crying, confessing that she was responsible for the death of her husband, and pleaded for forgiveness.
'Asked what pushed her into committing such a heinous crime, she told us how her husband poisoned her and that it was her boyfriend that helped her to find a cure at a place in Nsukka, after all efforts earlier made to cure her of the sickness failed.
According to Josephine, she resolved not to let the man live particularly because she married him when he had nothing, but now that he had become wealthy, he wanted to marry a second wife. That, she vowed would not happen in her lifetime.
Another reason she gave, according to Donatus, was that her late husband never satisfied her sexually, which was why she kept a boyfriend - Ekene - who satisfied her sexual urge.
Donatus continued that after her confession, the police advised the family to handle her with caution so that she would help them to apprehend the perpetrators of the crime.
The strategy, Donatus said, worked, as Ekene walked into police trap, at the instance of his ‘sugar mummy'.
'On our way back to Abakaliki, Ekene admitted that the woman was his sugar mummy, and that she hired the boys that killed her husband.
He recalled that on the fateful day, they were coming in from Ezillo in the woman's car, then at a point in Isieke, she asked him to take a route that led them to Abakaliki Township stadium. He revealed that it was there that she arranged with the assassins that killed Chukwuma.
Ekene said that the woman assured the assassins that they should not worry; that they would be paid immediately the assignment was accomplished.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the State, Nuudan confirmed the story.