Cordelia Onuwabhagbe, the grieving 56-year-old mother of the late Augusta, allegedly killed by her boyfriend, has told a Lagos High Court sitting in the Igbosere area of the state that she once regarded the defendant, Benjamin Nnayereugo, as a member of her family, but never knew he was capable of murder.
While testifying during cross-examination, the grieving mother said the defendant, also known as ‘Killaboi,’ frequently visited her home, where he ate, rested, and sometimes slept.
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“Until this ugly incident that led to my daughter’s death, he was like a son to me. He came to my house, ate, rested, and slept, but I didn’t know he was a killer,” she said.
The witness, who put her daughter’s age at the time of death as 21 years, five months, 10 days, and 11 hours, also denied knowing that his alias was ‘Killaboi’ but said she got to know this after Augusta’s death.
She told Justice Ibironke Harrison that the defendant attended her church twice and she thought he was a good person but it turned out to be a ploy to deceive her.
Mauritius, Seychelles Trips
While recounting what she knew of the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s death, Cordelia testified that the defendant had taken the late Augusta on trips to Mauritius in 2021 and Seychelles in 2022.
According to her, the Seychelles trip was when the defendant first physically abused the deceased.
She said the two stayed about five days in Mauritius and about nine days in Seychelles.
Narrating what she knew of the conflicts between the pair in Seychelles, the witness said the defendant informed her that a quarrel erupted after he caught her daughter scantily dressed and making videos of herself to be posted online.
“Benjamin told me that he broke her phone and then used his phone to do a video, which he sent to me. The cause of the fight was that she was videoing herself, so he snatched the phone and asked why she was videoing herself, but he was the same person who videod her for the job she went to do, and she posted it online”, the witness said.
Defence counsel, Marcel Oru, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, suggested to the witness that the disagreement occurred because the defendant did not like the videos posted online by the deceased, which showed her “virtually naked,” but the witness rejected the claim, insisting that her daughter was in her bikinis for jobs.
The witness also dismissed allegations that during the altercation, her daughter damaged hotel property worth thousands of dollars, saying the defendant did not tell her this, nor did the video sent to her show such destruction.
Augusta’s mother also denied insinuations by the defendant’s counsel that her daughter was violent.
She testified that even though ‘Killaboi’ sent her a stab wound allegedly inflicted on his hand by her daughter, she knew that the wound occurred as a result of him stabbing her repeatedly on the stomach when he killed her.
The court also heard that the defendant spent ₦10m to organise a birthday party for the deceased during which time he bought her expensive gifts, including designer bags, jewellery, and an iPhone.
The witness acknowledged seeing the gifts posted online but added that the defendant collected the iPhone back when he killed her daughter.
