It was a horrifying scene Tuesday at Alesa, near Port Harcourt, in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, as a man killed his four sleeping children, after chasing his wife away, set his house ablaze and hanged himself.
It was learnt that the incident happened around 1 a.m., when the escaping wife raised the alarm that her husband, who hailed from Ogoja in Cross River State, wanted to kill her and their children, but before neighbours could move to the two-room apartment, the deed had already been done.
It was also gathered that the four sleeping children were strangled to death, giving them no chance of fleeing to safety.
One of the neighbours, who spoke in confidence, revealed that the husband was notorious for always beating his wife of many years, with the frustrated woman making moves to seek divorce, which the husband got wind of, leading to the sad incident.
The source disclosed that when the wife later returned home, she saw the dead bodies of all the members of her family, with the burnt house, and she almost ran mad, but for sympathisers who came to her rescue and took her to an unknown destination.
The dead bodies were later evacuated by policemen and deposited in the morgue of an undisclosed hospital in Rivers state.
Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO, Nnamdi Omoni, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), confirmed the incident through the telephone.
When asked if any arrest had been made by the Rivers police command, Omoni said: “Who are you going to arrest, when the man chased away his wife, before killing their four children? He did not stop at killing the children, but he decided to set his house ablaze, before hanging himself.”
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