Imo police arrest serial rapist

From GEORGE ONYEJIUWA, Owerri

The police in Imo State have arrested a 34-year-old man, identi.ed as Chichi, a native of Amaegbu Umulolo in Nkwerre Council for abducting a 12-year-old girl, who he allegedly raped to death and dumped in a disused well.The decomposing body of the victim, who was declared missing two months ago, was however discovered after the suspect who had earlier gone into hid-ing after committing the crime was arrested by the police.

While parading the suspect before journalists yesterday, Imo State Police Commissioner, Mu-hammad Musa Katsina, alleged that the suspect was a serial rapist, saying he had been banished from his village for similar offence. According to him, the suspect allegedly lured the victim to his one room apartment in a deserted building, where he held her captive and raped her repeatedly and thereafter strangled her and subsequently dumped the body in a disused well to con-ceal the crime.The police boss further disclosed that the principal suspect, who had .ed to Umugba village in Abia State later sneaked back into the community and fell into the hands of the command’s ambush squad who had been trailing him.

According to Katsina, the arrest of the suspect and interrogation revealed that after he had abducted the girl, he took her to a very remote but deserted building where he kept her in captivity, using the op-portunity to rape her until she died.

He further revealed that having killed the girl and in an attempt to cover his tracks, the suspect dragged his victim’s life-less body to a deep well and dumped it and that the corpse had been iden-ti.ed and brought out for autopsy.

Meanwhile, the sus-pect who confessed to the crime while .elding ques-tions from journalists, revealed that his victim was one of the little children in the neighbourhood that used to greet him each time while passing through their compound.

“But on that fateful day, she followed me to my house and asked me to give her my phone and while she was operating the phone, the spirit of rape came upon me and I forcefully raped her and I held her on the throat to stop her from shouting but when I noticed that she was no more struggling, I thought that she had fainted so when I finished I locked her in the room and went out.“When I came back and discovered that she was dead, I wrapped her up with clothes and waited until 1.30am when everywhere was quite and dragged her out and dumped her