he police at Area E, Festac, Lagos, recently made
a breakthrough by arresting a 33-year-old man,
Kelechi Willaims Mojekwu, for strangulating his 39-
year-old lover, Njideka Lizzy Nzewe, to death in
her apartment at Green Estate, Amuwo-Odofin,
Lagos. The arrest of the suspect within seven days
of committing the offence was spectacular going by
the fact that he eloped to Ghana soon after killing
the mother of four.
After his arrest in Cote d’ ivoire, he claimed he
committed the heinous act because of jealousy.
What was not told was the circumstances that led
to his arrest, how detectives battled to achieve that
seemingly impossible feat and the type of life the
suspect lived, his family background and the
circumstances that led to the whole ugly scenario.
Our Crime Editor, Emma Nnadozie, dug deeply and
was able to unearth startling facts about the
murder. His report is revealing.
Excerpts:
REPORT
The relations of the woman came to Festac division
to report a case of the murder of their sister,
Njideka Lizzy at her residence in Green Estate,
Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos. The incident happened on
July 19, 2014, between the hours of 1am and 3am.
The suspected killer, Kelechukw Williams Mojekwu
is about 33, he reportedly strangulated the woman
in the early hours of that day and took her jewelries,
four handsets, I-Pad, Gold, Trinkets and thousands
of dollars and Naira kept by the woman because
she was to pack out of that very house on that
fateful day to a new apartment in Festac town.
By Thursday, she was supposed to leave for USA
on vacation with her family. She has four children
and they were in the same building and in their own
room when this incident occurred. The young man
settled down after killing her, using a rope and a
cloth round her neck, packed all her properties,
locked the door, picked up her car key, a Range
Rover SUV and drove off.
TRIP TO GHANA
He drove confidently with an International passport
bearing the woman’s surname that he changed, all
for the purpose of making sure that the vehicle was
driven into Ghana without any confrontation with
law enforcement agencies. He passed through
Seme to Benin Republic to Togo to Ghana. When he
got into Ghana, he went to a pastor to bless the car
and he did and celebrated for having a new car with
drinks.
HOW PHONE CALLS EXPOSED SUSPECT
When he was in Ghana, he did not switch off the
phones he collected from the woman and when the
complaint came to the Area Commander at Area E,
Festac, ACP Okoro, he worked on the phones and
discovered that they were open.
He made a call, somebody activated the phone but
was not talking, invariably, he was listening to the
background. He deduced from that and forensic
audit that if any criminal suspect had taken away
any social media and activated, invariably, the
person must be trying to censure what was going
on at the end. The police knew that he was trying to
get information on what was going on in Lagos.
Equally, detectives got to know from relations of the
woman that because of anger, they were sending
text messages to him and saying, ‘” you are not
picking the phone but you don’t want to talk, God
will punish you, you will be caught, we know that
you are in Ghana”. That alerted the suspect to know
that the family was aware that he was residing in
Ghana and because of that, he made a move,
packed his things from Ghana and started heading
towards Cote d’ ivore.
TRACKING HIS ESCAPE VEHICLE
When the family told detectives that the suspect left
with the Jeep, the Area Commander asked them if
the Jeep was with any devise and they said that a
man used to come to them and he handled the first
car, that he must have equally handled the second
car.
I requested to see the man, we saw, discussed and
he confirmed that there is a devise in the car. The
Commander then opened his system and started
tracking the vehicle.
He tracked it and discovered that it was in Ghana.
From the tracking coordinates, he was able to
deduce that the suspect was not settled from the
indicators on the tracking, he was spending ten to
15 minutes in areas he visited.
That indicated that he was making moves, and
because of that indication that he was spending less
than 20 minutes and knowing that he was already
having the information, the commander started
monitoring the movement of the vehicle and advised
that the vehicle should not be stopped because if
the vehicle is stopped, he will have a firm idea that
the vehicle was under a devise and was being
tracked.
The commander continued monitoring the
movement of the vehicle on the chat system. He
now contracted one of his friends who is a
Ghanaian Police officer that is serving at the
intelligence unit of the Ghanaian Police, told him
what was happening and he said the only way
detectives can establish the fact in that area was to
make an entry.
The Commander then called the relations of the
dead woman and asked if they have anybody in
Ghana and they sad yes, they gave him his number,
he discussed with him and asked him to meet his
police friend there and that was how they incidented
the case at the International police office. He gave
them the coordinates on the tracking code and they
were able to open up and follow up.
ARREST
That was how they discovered that the suspect was
moving towards the border indicating that he was
moving into Cote d’ ivoire and eventually into
Abidjan. That was how they started going into that
area to arrange his arrest. The suspect did not
know that he was being monitored and when he got
into Cote d’ ivore, he had a little problem with the
vehicle tires.
He successfully repaired the tires and decided to
continue with the journey. He was all alone in the
car and was confidently moving it to his destination.
He was then trapped by the information given to
Cote d’ivoire border patrol police whom the
Ghanaian officer related with. They accosted him
and he was arrested and taken to Cote d’ivoire
Interpol office.
CONTACT WITH DETECTIVES IN NIGERIA
They contacted detectives in Nigeria immediately,
the Area Commander informed the Commissioner of
Police, Lagos, Umaru Manko who directed him to
follow up with Nigerian Interpol which he did
immediately by contacting them on phone before
following up with a letter.
The DCP in-charge of Interpol, Nwobodo quickly
made a call to Abidjan and put them on notice that
the suspect they arrested is wanted and on our
trial. They now said detectives from Nigeria should
come over the next day.
TRIP TO COTE D’IVOIRE
The problem Nigerian detectives had was that
Francophone and Anglophone legal systems differ
to some extent. The francophone legal system
arraigns suspects immediately after arrests. They
don’t detain as long as the Anglophone countries do
here in Africa. They didn’t want to keep a suspect
for long in Abidjan and for them to hand over to
Ghana where the case was incidented they insisted
the case must pass through Interpol. And because
of that contact made in Ghana earlier, they were
able to detain the suspect.
As soon as detectives in Nigeria got that
information, they got in touch with Ghana Interpol
and flew in four detectives into Abidjan the next
morning. They moved straight to their Interpol office
and after the processes, the man was handed over
to them. The suspect was intercepted at a junction
called Abuasso in Cote d’ivoire. They eventually
handed over to Ghanaian Interpol who moved him
into their own area being that the case was
incidented there.
IN GHANA
From there, officers from Nigeria proceeded to
court in Ghana to endorse a warrant which they did.
After that, they searched and recovered some of
the properties of the woman in the suspect’s house
in Ghana. Thereafter, the Ghanain interpol handed
the suspect over to their counterparts from Nigeria
and they came back by road.
INVESTIGATIONS
From investigation, detectives discovered that the
suspect was staying in South Africa where reliable
information alleged that he equally murdered
somebody and decided to flee. That was what made
him to be hibernating in Ghana. Further more, they
discovered that his eldest brother was killed for
armed robbery in Anambra.
The immediate senior brother was equally killed
about two months ago after he got himself involved
in a case of kidnapping and the victim was killed
after collecting some ransom. Detectives therefore,
deduced from this information that it runs in their
blood and this is a family of killers.
They were equally reliably informed that the death
of their father was celebrated in their village
because he was alleged to be a notoriously
cannibalistic person, a terror who was capable of
eating fresh chickens alive after sucking their blood.
That must account for a young man of 33, seeing
such a huge lady with four children, brought her
down and strangulated her up to the point of death.
Detectives are equally suspecting that he must
have used drug to subdue the lady before
strangulating her to death because looking at the
lady, you cannot imagine how he was able to bring
her down before killing her. Further more, they
suspect a pre-meditated action because of the
issue of changing her passport to his own name. It
shows he was all prepared prior to the time he was
able to execute his action.
This was a lady that was well known and she made
a mark at Edmark by winning the highest prize of
N37 million for her efforts in selling the product. She
has a very big edifice in Satellite town, She owns
exotic SUVs, She has two edifices at her hometown,
Nnewi., Anambra State. She was a successful
business woman and the killer is from neighboring
Umuoji also in Anambra State.
DIVORCE WITH HUSBAND
Police handled a case between her and the husband
over issues concerning marital problems sometime
ago. They have a subsisting divorce issue in court.
Divorce had not been granted. They were still
undergoing the process.
HOW THE CASE WAS CRACKED
It took detectives about seven days to crack this
case. They were able to accomplish this by having
sleepless nights and working on the system
because this was completely a forensic
investigation and it had to do with tracking. So for
you to crack such case, you should be able to know
what is tracking and its coordinate’s, getting to
know the coordinating signals coming from the
tracking device and the indicators. That was how
they were able to ascertain where he was at a given
time before apprehending him.
They achieved this through personal efforts in
terms of logistics because the Area Commander is
a forensic analyst and in forensic investigation
which he mastered when he was in Bosnia and
Herzegovina where he was trained in human rights
investigation and establishment of coordinates.
He equally did administration engineering in forensic
analysis. This probably accounted for the success
of this case. The Commander was interacting with
the team sent to Ghana every 20 minutes and made
more than sixty- five calls altogether in getting this
case cracked.
ABOUT THE SUSPECT
The suspect told his life story: “My name is
Kenechukwu William Mojekwu from Aguma village,
Umuoji, Idemili North LGA, Anambra State. I was
born in Umuoji in 1983 and went to primary school
at Aguma Primary School in Umoji. I spent two
years there before going to Aba where my senior
sister was living and got into Good Shepherd
primary Schooll in Uratta, Abia State.
I finished there, came back to Anambra and started
my secondary eduction at Our Ladys Secondary
School, Nkpor. After that, I went to Nnewi to start
apprenticeship on electrical sales.
After five years, I was freed and I opened my own
shop there. I did it for six months before a friend
who came back from South Africa encouraged me
to seek papers and travel out for greener pastures.
I came over to Lagos and was able to get my
papers after which I traveled to South Africa in
2005. When I got to South Africa, before I could get
engaged in any meaningful venture, the person I
was staying in his house had a problem and when
the police came for him, he disappeared and I was
arrested together with one other friend staying
there.
That was how we were deported to Nigeria after
two months. We were not told what he did. After
coming back to Nigeria, I later traveled to Abidjan,
after six months I got there, I went into the sale of
second hand clothes. I was coming to Ghana to buy
clothes until war broke out in Abidjan and I shifted
base to Ghana.
After the war, I went back to Abidjan but could not
get a place to stay, I lost a lot and that made me
relocate finally to Ghana where I started loading and
offloading goods including selling second-hand
clothes. I was homeless and was sleeping in the
church until I was able to save enough money to
come back home and raised more money from
members of my family. I then started taking goods
from Nigeria to Ghana for sale.
HOW THEY MET
I got to know Lizzy during this period. I met her the
first time at Hotel de Horses in Ghana, where she
came to buy shoes. We met one day when I heard
her speaking Igbo with some friends and we all
exchanged pleasantries. We did not see again until
February this year after I returned to Nigeria to see
my mother. I went to Nnewi to see my sister whose
husband died. I was going to eat when I saw her
waiting for commercial motorcyclist, her face was
familiar because she had changed a lot.
I stopped and greeted her after which I reminded
her where we met and she was happy seeing me.
We exchanged numbers after greeting and that
evening, she called me to know where I was and I
told her the name of the hotel, she came and
stayed with me and later went back to their place
that night. The next day. I visited her in her hotel
and that was how we started serious relationship.
She told me from day one that she was married but
divorced. She also told me that she divorced
because her husband impregnated their maid after
all the sacrifices she made to make life comfortable
for both of them.
Initially, I wanted to know if she had children but
she told me to forget that aspect then, that I would
know at the right time. It was only when I visited
her house in Lagos later that I met her children. I
used to visit her each time I came from Ghana and
she stayed in my house any time she came to
Ghana. She visited me in my village during one of
those trips to Nigeria.
HER TRIPS TO GHANA
She usually spent one or two weeks in my house in
Ghana and all my friends knew her as my wife. We
never discussed marriage but she used to send
messages saying that I was the man of her dream.
Even her relations have been telling me to get
interested in marrying her because she would take
very good care of me, that a lot of people have
disappointed her after she helped them.
I must say that while the relationship lasted, I
noticed that she was very rich. It became open to
me the day she visited my village with an exotic
SUV. Initially, I taught she was into drugs but later I
found out that she worked hard for her money
through business ventures.
In fact, she was secretive over her business
interests to me. The much I got to know was
through her brother who was putting pressure on
me to marry her. He kept on advising me not to
break her heart because a lot of people had broken
her heart in the past, that I should try to be a better
husband than her former husband. She even
encouraged me to expand my sales to Nigeria and
went to the extent of opening a shop for me at
Festac where I sell shoes bought from Ghana.
She wanted to settle down in Ghana but I advised
her to rather re-locate to America, that it will be
better for her children. She was the one that invited
me to Nigeria during this trip that resulted in her
death.
GROWTH
WE are eight in a family, three boys and five girls.
All the male issues had died except me. The first
issue died when I was very small, I don’t know
what killed him. The second died after my family
quarreled with one native doctor over land dispute
in my village. People believe the native doctor killed
that my brother. Whatever they say about my father
should be attributed to the olden days when men
used to show power. None of my brothers was
killed in Enugu over robbery or kidnapping.
The rest of my sisters are happily married.
Members of my family wanted me to marry one girl
from our village but I did not love her. I impregnated
a girl from Cote d’ivoire but we quarreled over my
relationship with Lizzy after she found out about us.
I swear, I did not kill her deliberately.
After she came back drunk, because I must tell
you, she likes drinks, she was hostile to me when I
wanted to know why she stayed out long. She held
my manhood and I tightened the wrapper over her
neck. She quickly released me but slumped. I
examined her and noticed that she was dead.
Perhaps, she died because she was dead drunk.
The shock made me to flee. I was restless
throughout my stay in Ghana after that.
That was why I decided to flee to Cote d’ ivoire to
stay with that my girlfriend. I know I have done an
abominable thing but I plead for mercy. I am the
only son of my mother and she would die if she
hears this (sobs…) This is the work of devil.

That dude should be imprisoned.

mizkeleke:
That dude should be imprisoned.

Not just that.

He should be made to rot in jail.