Son Butchers father to death…Sets body ablaze

What would have led a son to kill his father and set his corpse ablaze? This is the riddle residents of 16 Ikogba Street, Monkey Village, Lagos are still unable to solve since June 30, 2014 when the heinous crime was committed.

The suspect, Arinze Agwanze who neighbours claimed, is men­tally challenged, butchered his father to death with a machete and went ahead to set his corpse and the entire house ablaze in an attempt to cover up his evil deed.

Arinze from Anambra State lived with his parents at 16 Ikogba Street, Monkey Village, in Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos State. Close neighbours claimed they overheard him murmuring to himself that his late father, Mr Agwanze who was suffering from stroke had been getting on his ways and promised to deal with him. Nobody knew what really trans­pired between Arinze and his father that led the son to kill his father that fateful day. However, a neighbour who did not want her name in print said Arinze has always been stub­born. On the day of the incident, his father was said to have sent him on an errand, but instead of attending to his father’s needs, he was busy pressing his phone. This got his father infuriated, prompting him to smash his son’s phone. This action of the father made Arinze angry and he in return smashed his father’s phone.Not done yet, the boy took a cutlass and attacked his father cut­ting his head in the process resulting in the man bleeding to death. When Arinze observed that his father was dead from the injuries he inflicted on him, he feared that he would be arrested and perhaps beaten up. To cover up, he quickly set the house with his late father’s body inside on fire and went into hiding to avoid the wrath of relatives and resi­dents. Neighbours’ attention were, however, drawn to the scene by the flaming fire and on getting to the house, they sighted the dead man with his head skull ripped open and blood gushing out inside the burn­ing house. The suspect has since ran away from the house.

When Sunday Sun visited the street, there were still the hush voices of sympathisers and the remnant of the burnt house, even as carpenters and other repair workers are working day and night to bring it back to normalcy.

Some neighbours claimed that before Arinze sent his father to his untimely death on that day, he was seen at noon burning some family members’ cloths downstairs before moving upstairs to spread the entire house with petrol and set the house on fire while his father was in a pool of his blood.

One of Arinze`s siblings who is yet to come to terms with what could have transpired between Arinze and their father, as all members of the family went out for their normal business on that fateful day, said they came back to find their father murdered and the entire parlour of their house wrecked by fire. “I don’t believe whatever Arinze is say­ing to defend this tragedy that befell our household. At a young age, he had brain damage and it is not everybody that knows. It is only us members of his family that are aware of his situation. Whenever he gets upset, it’s always uncontrollable. It comes to him in a flash like an evil spirit. That he claimed that our father offended him is the one thing I don’t believe.”

A neighbour who spoke under anonymity, revealed that Arinze has this rage of anger that he flares up intermittently. He said though every­one has been keeping close eyes on him, he maintained that one hardly believes that Arinze is insane because the suspect sales recharge cards and do other normal things like every other normal person and also browses with his phone. He asked rhetorically, how can someone who is not normal browse and sale recharge cards? The neighbour who lives opposite the sus­pect said that he was on his way to his house when he sighted Arinze burning some items in front of the house. When he confronted him to know what was going on, he said the suspect was laughing. But when he left the suspect’s compound in not less two hours, residents shouted fire and he was able to join them to stop the fire from burning down the whole house. “When I came into their compound, I saw him burning his siblings’ clothes and I thought maybe it could be old clothes not knowing that his father has warned him not to burn his relatives’ cloths but he refused and went ahead to do it. I actually left because I thought it was old clothes that he was burning, but after two hours, we saw fire in the house and we all went to rescue the situation. After we stopped the fire and rushed inside the house, we discovered that Arinze`s father was burnt and his head butchered with machete. It was a gory sight,” the source said.

Narrating what could have led to the suspect fighting with his sick father, another resident who doesn’t want her name in print said that she saw Arinze`s father with blood com­ing out from his head and running down his body while his skull was ripped wide open. “His father had al­ways been calling him to order, telling him to obey his mother whenever they sent him (Arinze) on an errand but he always despised him.”

Sunday Sun learnt that the residents and family of the suspect initially deposited the dead man’s body at the mortuary after the incident, but the next day they took the body to his village in Awka, Anambra State for proper burial. A source close to the family revealed that the suspect had ran away from their house and is sus­pected to be hiding within the neigh­bourhood. “My brother, we are still in shock why he killed his father and set him on fire. This is where he got the fuel, from that generator over there (pointing at generator stand) and he moved upstairs and spread the house with the fuel and set it on fire while his father was there. It is an abomina­tion, lamented the neighbour.”

When Sunday Sun contacted the Agboju Police Station to confirm the incident, the DPO said that they are unaware of the case and referred the reporter to the PPRO’s office in Ikeja.