A FIVE-month-old girl and her two-year-old sister were found stone dead on Thursday in Calabar, Cross River State after their mother allegedly smashed their heads on the wall in the belief that they were possed by demons.
The mother was said to have believed that the demons needed such an extreme measure to be forced to vacate the bodies of the children. The two kids did not survive the ordeal.
The incident occurred at the Ikot Enebong axis of 8 Miles, in Calabar municipality.
The name of the suckling baby was given as Fedora, while that of the two-year-old was Blessing.
The mother, who was simply identified as Mrs. Temple Peter, was said to have committed the act after putting drugs in her husband’s meal and inducing him into a deep sleep from 7am till 2.00 pm. He was effectively put out of the way.
It was alleged that she advised her husband to ‘rest’ while she prayed with the children. As the husband fell into sleep, she was busy smashing the babies’ fragile heads on the floor after successfully scraping the heads with a broken bottle.
It was after the unwholesome deed that her husband, a Rivers State-born Mr Temple Peter, woke up and saw the kids in a pool of their blood.
The Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), which the family attends, Gabriel Ojugbo, told us on Saturday that the butchered bodies of the two children had been deposited in the morgue of the General Hospital, Calabar.
Ojogbo, of the Lifeline Assembly, a parish of the RCCG, said that it was about 2.30pm that the children’s father rushed to him, panting, to disclose that the children had been killed by their mother.
His words: “I rushed to their apartment and what I saw was as if I was dreaming. The baby’s head was scraped, most probably with a bottle. The sitting room was messy with blood stains everywhere.”
The cleric continued: “I met her on top of the two-year-old girl with her full weight, shaking the child terribly and with an open Bible close to the girl’s head. By the time I shove her aside, the girl was stone dead.
“I confronted her and she said that she was trying to cast away demons from the children because any time she looked at them, she was seeing an old man in their eyes. She accused the husband of not being sensitive to the things of the spirit”.
Further investigations revealed that the bottle that must have been used to scrape baby Fedora’s head was also used by the wife to put marks around Peter’s head while he was unconscious in his bedroom.
Pastor Ojugbo believed that the mark was to render Peter incapable of taking any action instantly.
Meanwhile, Peter is being detained at the Federal Housing Police station, but an impeccable Police source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the man was in protective custody.
He added that investigations into the murder was on-going.
The State Police Public Relations officer (PPRO, Hogan Bassey confirmed the report.
Another source said that even in Police custody, the man was screaming that he ed his wife by his side.
The woman was said to have fled the house, but she was caught along the Eta Agbor Road, where she was behaving like a mentally retarded person.
As at press time, she was said to be receiving treatment at the Federal Psychiatric hospital, Calabar. Efforts to speak with her or her husband proved abortive.
Our correspondent who visited the hospital could not get access to the accused as the Chief Medical Director of the hospital was not available to grant permission.
Some neighbours said that the woman had always be reclusive.
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