A 34-year-old man, identified simply as Sunday, has raped a 13-year-old girl to death in a cocoa plantation in Eyio Ekiti in the Irepodun/Ifelodun Council area of Ekiti State. Sunday, who was a co-labourer with parents of the girl in the plantation, was said to have tricked the unsuspecting victim to the place where he forcibly had canal knowledge of her on Monday.
Speculating on the cause of the victim's death, sources in the community said the nylon which the suspect stuffed into the girl's mouth to prevent her from crying while the action lasted could have suffocated her to death. It took the community and the police three days before the decomposing body of the girl could be located at the scene.
The Police Public Relations Officer for Ekiti State Command, Mr Victor Babayemi, who confirmed the incident, said that "the suspect is being detained at the Criminal Investigations Department in Ado Ekiti". The body of the girl has been deposited at the morgue of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital.
The source said: "When the parents of the girl could not find their child till 8pm on Monday, they raised the alarm. The following day, the Eyio-in-Council held a meeting and insisted that the girl must be found at all cost.
So members of the O'odua Peoples' Congress mobilised into the bush and combed everywhere. When they could not find her, they contacted the Police. "The Police subsequently joined the search party.
When they got to a portion in the farm, the police perceived an odour and they traced the spot and found her lifeless body with thick blood oozing from her private part. Sunday was immediately arrested by the OPC, being the only person on the farm that day." The suspect is said to have confessed to the crime before he was handed over to the Police.