One year after, family cries for justice over slain mother of 3

LAGOS—A year after the murder of a mother of three, Mrs Helen Peters, by a security guard and six other suspected accomplices in Lagos, her family members are crying foul, alleging a grand design to deny them justice.

On January 19, 2016, the security guard was alleged to had lured the deceased to his house and, with the help of six others, including an uncertified nurse, bound Mrs Peters’ limbs, gagged her and injected her with an unidentified substance, which led to her death.

While the security guard is currently cooling his heels at the Kirikiri Prisons awaiting trial, the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, in his legal advice dated June 6, 2016, exonerated the nurse and four others, describing them as “victims of circumstance in the criminal act perpetuated by the security guard” and ordering their release from police custody.

Late Helen’s husband, who spoke to Vanguard at the one year remembrance service of his late wife, appealed to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State to order a review of the case, saying “the conspicuously influenced DPP’s legal advice which, when contested, was also upheld by the Attorney General is injustice. “Justice has been compromised.

The witnesses to my wife’s murder have been exonerated and could decide to abscond. Is it not obvious that this case has been killed? Even the phone call the security guard reportedly made to some people, saying the show had ended as the woman had died, was not investigated by the police.”

In his argument also, Prosecuting Counsel to the Plaintiff, Mr. Emenike Onuamah, said the security guard’s accomplices had actually confessed to the crime before the police and therefore should be charged for at least lesser offences, having aided and abetted the crime.

The incident

Mr. Peters told Vanguard his wife had informed him that the security guard, who used to be a guard at Gowon Estate, Lagos, where they reside, approached her at her shop within the estate, saying he was planning his wedding but had only N200,000. 

He said: “The guard claimed he needed my wife to stand as surety for a hall he will use. On January 19, 2016, both of them proceeded to see the hall.

“But according to police investigation, he told her he wanted to collect money from his house at 36, Fashola Street, Papa Ashafa, in Agege area of Lagos, so he could pay for the hall immediately. “From the confessional statements of one of his accomplices to the police, I learned that my wife sat outside, while the guard went inside.

Then he came from behind, gagged her while the other boys tied her up and dragged her inside his house where the said nurse injected her. “He had told them that she was his sister and was mentally deranged; that he needed to take her to the village.”

However, the landlady’s son, who noticed strange movements around the guard’s apartment, called the police and Mrs. Peters was subsequently taken to Orile-Agege General Hospital, where she was confirmed dead, leading to the guard’s arrest by officers from Dopemu Police Station.
Source:Vanguard