Woman kills own baby, dumps corpse in Ogun river

Operatives of the Ogun State police command have arrested a 35-year-old woman, Sukurat Olajoke, for allegedly killing her own one-month-old baby and dumping the corpse in a river.

The suspect was arrested on Saturday by a team of police officers on patrol.

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The spokesman of police in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said policemen at the Enugada division,  Abeokuta, led by the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Baba Hamzat, saw the woman while she was throwing something suspicious into the river.

According to him, the suspicious behaviour of the woman after throwing the object into the river attracted the policemen, who quickly apprehended her for questioning.

Oyeyemi said the woman, who hails from Igbo Ora, Oyo State, when interrogated, confessed that she killed the baby and threw the body into the river.

She blamed her action on frustration, Oyeyemi said.

“It was on interrogation that the suspect, who lives at the Agboole Alakoye area of Igbo Ora in Oyo State, confessed that what she threw into the river was the corpse of her one-month-old baby, whom she killed out of frustration.

“She confessed further that the person responsible for the pregnancy of the baby rejected her, and since she has no means of taking care of the child, she decided to kill and throw it into the river,” Oyeyemi said.

According to him, preliminary investigation revealed that “the suspect had given birth to six other children for three different men before she got pregnant for one man identified as Hakeem, who refused to accept the paternity of the child.”

Oyeyemi said the DPO later engaged the service of local divers who helped in recovering the corpse of the child, adding that the body had been deposited at the general hospital mortuary.

He said the commissioner of police, Edward Awolowo Ajogun, had ordered the immediate transfer of the suspect to the homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for further investigation and prosecution.