Ogun Family Murder: Three To Die By Hanging or Lethal Injection

Three men, Lekan Adekanbi, Ahmed Odetola, and Waheed Adeniyi, were on Monday handed the death sentence by an Ogun state High Court over the murder of Kehinde Fatinoye, his wife, Bukola Fatinoye, and son, Oreoluwa.

The couple were attacked and killed at their Ibara GRA residence on January 1, 2023 shortly after returning from a crossover service.

The attackers invaded the home of the deceased at about 2am and forced the husband to transfer over One Million Naira to one of their (attacker's) account before going ahead to kill him and his wife. Thereafter, they set the house on fire, the victim's bodies left to burn inside.

Not done, the killers took both the couple's biological and adopted sons both of whom were bound with rope and threw them into the Ogun River. Albeit, the adopted son managed to escaped the watery death while the biological son didn't survive.

One of the attackers, Adekanbi, later confessed to the crime, admitting that he was the one that organized the crime. He added that invited his other two accomplices, noting that he attacked the man and his family with the hope of robbing them for refusing to increase his salary or grant him a loan.

According to him, he decided to kill them when his identity was unveiled in the course of forcing the man to transfer the money to his (Adekanbi's) account.

“I took the step because the couple refused to increase my salary, and when I approached them for a loan to buy a motorcycle, they didn’t oblige,” he admitted.

"The three of us waited for the couple until they came back from the crossover service. We pounced on them immediately after they entered the house,” he said.

“When I realised that my identity had been exposed through my bank account, I decided with others to terminate the lives of the couple,” he confessed.

Whereas they slit the man's neck with a knife, they struck his wife with a sledgehammer on her head.

The trio are members of the Aiye confraternity.

The court equally sentenced Adekambi's wife, Temitope Fadairo, to a two-year term for hiding her husband, and a one-year term to his mother, Adenike Adekambi's, for false statements to the police.

Others are the welder, Azeez Usman, who dismantled the stolen vehicle. He is to spent the next 14 years behind bars for receiving stolen property and an additional one year, while Anuoluwapo Owolaja to two years imprisonment.

The prison terms are to run concurrently.

However, the Court discharged and acquited Abass Odetola and Lukmon Adewusi for lack of evidence.

While delivering on Monday, trial Judge, Justice Basirat Adebowale averred:

“The trio of Adekanbi, Odetola, and Adeniyi are guilty of nine counts because the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

“You, Adekanbi, Odetola, and Adeniyi, for killing a father, mother, and son, do not deserve mercy. You are hereby sentenced to be hanged by the neck until you are dead or by lethal injection. May God have mercy on your souls,” she ruled.