30th March, 2023
By Opeyemi Aremu-Gbemiro
An Ado- Ekiti High Court has ordered the remand of a housewife, Janet Jegede, in the correctional facility after she was found guilty of killing her husband, Kayode, over alleged infidelity.
However, just before the court pronounced judgment on Jegede, her laywer, Emmanuel Adedeji, had pleaded that was mentally unbalanced at the time she killed her husband.
The lawyer, therefore, urged the court to discharge and acquit the defendant on the ground of insanity.
Howver, Justice Bamidele Omotoso, who found Janet guilty of the charge of murder, but ordered her remand at the criminal lunatic Correctional Centre, Afao Road, Ado Ekiti.
Omotoso held that ‘’It is settled that where a plea of insanity succeeds, defendant will be ordered to be confined in a prescribed place to await further order of the appropriate authority.
“I hereby order that the defendant, Janet Jegede, be kept in custody as a criminal lunatic at Correctional Services Centre, off Afao Road, Ado Ekiti until the governor’s pleasure be known in line with Section 223 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law, 2011,” the judge ruled.
The convict was arraigned before Omotoso on Sept.16, 2020, on a one-count charge of murder.
According to the charge, Jegede, 36, on Nov. 17, 2019 at Ado Ekiti within the jurisdiction of the court, did murder one Kayode Jegede, her husband.
The offence, according to the prosecution, contravenes Section 316 and punishable under Section 319 (1) of the Criminal Code Law, Cap C16, Laws of Ekiti State, 2012.
In a statement to the Police, the defendant’s step son, Ayomide, stated: “I received a call from my step mother informing me to come home to take my father to the hospital because I have killed him.
“When I got home, I met my father in a pool of his own blood, gasping for breath.
“I saw a knife hung on his chest.
“I asked her what happened but her explanation was incoherent.
“When I removed the knife, the bleeding increased.
“I went outside to call other neighbours to help me rush him to Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, where he was confirmed dead.
“My step mother once reported my father to me to warn him to put a stop to his act of infidelity and adultery and if he refuses, she threatened to kill him.
“I took it as an empty threat until she killed my father.”
To prove the case, the Police Prosecutor, Olowoyo-Richard Ayobami, called five witnesses and tendered statements of the defendant, a knife, photographs of the lifeless body of the deceased and a statement of the witnesses as exhibits.
(NAN)(www.nannews.ng).
Edited by Kevin Okunzuwa/Sam Oditah