Gladys Amadi, 51, was a strong woman. But no one can tell now if she wore the breeches in her 35-year-old marriage to Napoleon Amadi. But she wrestled her husband, snatched a machete from him, and slashed his forehead many times during their last and final fight.
Amadi was a traditional ruler before Gladys killed him.
She said she did it in self defence.
There was nobody who witnessed the macabre drama in their house, a palace, at Chokocho, Etche Local Government Area, early October.
Gladys didn’t report to the police or anyone for that matter.
“It is a case of murder of one Napoleon Amadi. The local police swung into action and did their preliminary investigation,” Rivers Police PRO Nnamdi Omoni said.
“After intense interrogation, she opened up that she actually killed her husband; that she quarrelled with the man that evening and the man brought out a machete to cut her, but that she was able to get the machete from the man and killed him with it.”
All that revelation came after the police arrested her. And she still claimed all she did was in defence.
According to her, Amadi returned one Thursday night, telling her about a letter sent to him that he would soon die.
“He said to me, ‘Gladys, today my cup is full.’ That he was going to use my two children for rituals and after using them, he would use me also for rituals.
“I said, ‘Daddy, what have I done? Look at what is on the ground.’ He said he would slaughter me that night.”
There was supposed to be a struggle because she said she screamed first before she wrested the weapon from him.
“She gave him several machete cuts in his forehead, which led to his death,” Omoni said.
Blood spilled all over the floor and the cutlass. But Gladys was unhurt. Not a scratch.
Nobody knew what happened. Rather that tell the police or her husband’s relatives, Gladys tidied things up.
She mopped the floor, cleaned the cutlass, and hid it.
Then she walked away
“But it took the assiduity of our men to get to know where the machete was kept. They went and recovered it, though after her confession anyway,” the PRO said, adding investigation continues.