By Ijeoma Igwesi
Little did Mrs. Joseph know that the CCTV installed in their house, which almost caused a rift between her and her husband would be the saving grace to unravel the mystery behind a very unfortunate incident that would change the atmosphere in her home permanently. Mrs. Joseph came back from work a few days before the ugly incident and met some guys from the technical department of their church working on certain installations. When she enquired about what was going on her husband, Pastor Kim Joseph told her that he brought those brothers from their church to come and help install a CCTV camera in their home.
This response did not go down well with Mrs. Joseph who felt that her dear husband should have discussed with her before going into such project for the home. Agreed, they had talked over it some months back and even brought in some experts to survey the house and get some other technical details, but they later agreed that the project should be suspended till their son Dave, returned from NYSC.
However, Pastor Joseph explained to her that while he was praying in the house that morning after she had gone to work it was strongly impressed on his heart to get that work done without further delay. He is a full-time pastor with one of the pentecostal churches in Lagos, South-West, Nigeria while his wife, Dupe was a manager in one of the commercial banks in the same city. The wife still could not understand the sense of urgency in the whole thing or why he could not wait till at least the next day so they could talk about it once again. Anyway, that’s that for the issue of CCTV installation in their home.
Mrs. Joseph was still nursing the wound from her husband’s rash decision before tragedy struck in their home. Three days later, while at work, at about 1:00p.m. Mrs. Joseph got a call from her husband to come home immediately. The tone of his voice did not give her any room to question him further. Even before she could open her mouth to ask any question he had hung up. She quickly put necessary things in order in the office, called her driver and headed home not knowing what to expect. As she approached her home, she started having this kind of heavy heartedness, an indication that something was wrong somewhere. When she got to their estate gate, the forlorn look on the faces of the security men who opened the gate for her car did not pass her unnoticed. Her house was just a few blocks away from the gate.
She arrived at her house in time just to see the police and some paramedics from the estate medical centre putting a body into an ambulance. At that instant, her whole world came to a standstill. She could not immediately make out what was happening or whose body it was. Before her eyes could span round the pockets of people gathered in the compound some women surrounded her and held her while leading her into the house.
On getting into the living room she met her husband sitting on the floor wearing a pair of trousers and no shirt. That was probably the first time any of the people in that room had seen him that way. Pastor Joseph’s family was one decent and lovely family, which many residents of that estate admired so much. They are the kind of neighbours any person would like to have. Their two children are so homely and well-mannered that other parents use them to give example to their own children. Mrs. Joseph could still not fathom what was happening in her home.
Pastor Joseph had just rounded off their Wednesday ‘Hour of Grace’ prayer meeting in the church when his phone rang at about 11:30a.m. It was their nanny that called and tearfully said, “Oga I beg come home ooo! I no know wetin happen to Bisi ooo! (Sir please come home. I don’t know what happened to Bisi). She cut the line before he could say anything further, but not until the pastor heard some yelling and commotion at the background. He quickly jumped into his car with deacon Udoh and Sister Margaret who were with him when the call came in.
Without wasting time with further details let me tell you what happened. The nanny said that she came back from the market and met the front door open, which is very unusual. She entered into the house, went straight to the living room and saw the only daughter of the Josephs, Bisola stone dead on the sofa. She ran outside the compound in fear and alerted the neighbours and the security men at the estate gate. That is the summary of what happened there. Let us leave other events that happened in-between and address this sad incident: What do you think happened to Bisola? Who is the first suspect in this case assuming you are assigned to investigate this incident? Your guess is as good as mine. But let us see more facts as they unveil…
Amid the uproar and confusion, one of the police officers who came there asked them if there was anything like CCTV in their house. And Pastor Joseph answered in the affirmative. He then led the team to make the most painful discovery of their lives so far. From the CCTV recordings, they saw that a male figure came into the house at about 10:15a.m. and Bisola opened the door to him. He came in and sat a while talking with the girl before other ugly things followed. From the moment he came in he went straight and sat near the girl on the 3-seater sofa she was reclining on reading a novel. Bisola was relaxed and smiling heartily with him all the while. Suddenly the scene changed. He pinned her down on the floor and raped her. He was raping her and using the pillow to snuff the life out of her at the same time. When he was done the first round he got up and moved round the house in search of God-knows-what.
After walking round, he came back to the motionless body of the girl and raped her again then picked her and dropped her on the seat. He went further to bring out a small bottle from his pocket, opened it and tried to force some of the content into her mouth. When it was obvious the liquid was not going down, he went into the kitchen and poured the content into the kitchen sink, came back and placed the empty bottle near the sofa where the girl lay; he made sure he opened it and dropped the cover on the floor. When he was done, he quietly opened the door and left. Don’t cry yet because more horrifying revelations are coming. Let’s check this place tomorrow to know what happened next.
©Ijeoma Igwesi, 2020
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