Painter sentenced to death for murder

A 37- year-old painter, Olaniyi Abegunde, has been sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of a 69-year-old woman, Grace Ajibola, in Oyo State.

Late Ajibola, an evangelist with the Christ Apostolic Church, Oke Imole, Agbeni, Ibadan, was killed a few weeks before her 70th birthday in her home on Tuesday, March 17, 2020.

Justice K. B. Olawoyin, of the Oyo State Fiat Court 3, sitting in Iyaganku, Ibadan, on Thursday, March 16, 2023, found Olaniyi guilty of the two counts of armed robbery and murder and convicted him on the two charges.

Tribune reports that in his judgment, Justice Olawoyin told counsel that since the charges border on capital offenses, there would not be a need for allocates from counsel.

And for each count charge, he had sentenced Olaniyi to “death by hanging by the neck till death or by lethal injection.”

Olaniyi had been found to have used one of the deceased’s cards to withdraw N120,000 in three installments of N40,000 each from her account barely an hour after murdering evangelist Ajibola.

The prosecution presented the images from the Close Circuit Television of the ATM in a bank near the deceased house, showing Olaniyi’s image, as evidence.

According to witness testimony, the deceased had engaged Olaniyi’s services in November 2019 as a painter and, impressed by his excellent job, had taken a liking to him. He became a regular face in the house, running errands for her, including going to the ATM to collect money for her.

On one such errand, he decided to check her account balance and found she had over N2 million, which led to him killing her a week later by hitting her with a stick which was recovered by the police, and strangling her before absconding to Akure, Ondo State.