Court sentences Cameroonian house-help to death for murder

By Peter Fowoyo, Lagos

Fifty – three months after a Cameroonian house-help, Leudjou Koyemen Joel, alias William Smith, murdered his boss, Dayo Enioluwa Adeleke, a Lagos High Court, Igbosere on Tuesday sentenced him to death by hanging.

Adeleke, daughter of the late Brig. Gen. Adekola Alfred Adeleke was killed seven months after Joel was employed and exactly three months after her engagement to her fiancée. 

The house- help had stabbed her in the neck and chest, but was apprehended at the gate of the deceased’s Park View Estate, Ikoyi, while trying to escape. 

Justice Adedayo Akintoye yesterday convicted Joel, who had testified that Adeleke mistakenly stabbed herself after she fell while she was pursuing him with a kitchen knife.

The judge noted that “all the evidence points to the defendant. I find merit in the prosecution’s case.” 

Joel, 25, was first brought for the offence before Chief Magistrate Oluyemisi Adelaja of an Ebute-Meta Chief Magistrate Court, Lagos on December 30, 2016.

Following his remand, the case was transferred to the high court where Joel was arraigned on January 19, 2017 on a one-count charge of murder, in accordance with Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos state 2011. 

The prosecution, attorney general and commissioner for justice, Lagos state, had told Justice Akintoye that the defendant committed the offence on December 20 at about 9.30p.m. 

He said on the morning of the incident, Joel requested for a two-week salary advance, but Adeleke turned him down. Later that night, shortly after Adeleke got back from work, Joel repeated his demand. Again she declined.

The court heard that the victim was found lying on the floor of her living room in a pool of blood. A kitchen knife was found stuck in the left side of her chest. She was rushed to St. Nicholas Hospital on Lagos Island, where a doctor on duty confirmed her dead.

Joel, who opened his defence on November 21, 2018, denied killing Adeleke. He spoke through a French translator. 

Led in evidence by his counsel, Mr. C. Acnonye, he confirmed that before the incident, he approached his boss twice to pay him part of his salary as his child was very ill in Cameroon and he needed money for hospital bills.

He said the first time he asked for part payment of his salary was on December 16, then the second time was on December 18, two days before Adeleke was killed. 

He stated that on day of the incident, after cleaning her apartment, he knelt down and pleaded with her to give him a loan, “but that she became upset suddenly and started shouting and screaming at me, so I thought that it was the situation in her office that was making her shout.” 

He told Justice Akintoye that Adeleke suddenly stood up and began speaking a language he did not understand, but that from the look on her face, he knew that she was very furious. 

The defendant claimed that his employer pushed him and he fell. She started beating him on his head, so he closed his eyes.

He said: “I was perceiving smell of alcohol. When I opened my eyes, I saw her with a knife, then I tried to run away. But she was rushing towards me. When I got to the entrance door, I noticed that she was no longer running after me, but kept screaming. When I turned, I saw that she fell on the floor, with the knife in her chest.”