An Ekiti State High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti has sentenced a 26-year-old man, David Isaiah, to death by hanging for the kidnapping and murder of a commercial sex worker, Comfort James.
Isaiah faced three charges—conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder—alongside an accomplice, Saviour Daniel, who passed away during the course of the trial. The court found him guilty on all counts.
Justice Olalekan Olatawura, delivering the judgment on Monday, sentenced Isaiah to 21 years in prison for conspiracy, life imprisonment for kidnapping, and death by hanging for the murder charge.
According to the prosecution, the victim had managed to alert her colleagues that she had been abducted and that her captors were demanding a ransom of N100,000.
Her disappearance was reported to both the police and the Civil Defence Corps, who eventually tracked the suspects through their mobile phones.
The suspects led officers to the location where the victim’s body was dumped.
Prosecutor Wale Odetola called six witnesses and submitted multiple exhibits including the defendant’s statements, photographs of the deceased, a burial warrant, SIM cards, a pair of slippers, and a bottle of herbicide used in the murder.
In his testimony, Isaiah admitted that after having sex with the victim, he and his accomplice tied her up and used her phone to contact her colleagues, demanding a ransom.
When the ransom was not paid and fearing she could identify them, they poured herbicide into her mouth, resulting in her death.
Justice Olatawura held that the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
“Any sympathetic consideration in favour of the defendant cannot, therefore, be justified,” he said.
“For the offence of murder, the judgment of this court upon you is that you be hanged by the neck until you be dead.
May God have mercy on your soul.”