Four suspects who were reportedly apprehended by the police have reportedly admitted to committing the gruesome murder of Justice Margaret Igbetar, a retired justice of the Benue State customary court of appeal.

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In her own apartment at No. 1, Wantor Kwange Street, across from the College of Health Sciences, CHS, Benue State University in Makurdi, the state capital, Justice Igbetar was assassinated in August.
As her body was allegedly already starting to decompose when the Police found her in a pool of her own blood in her kitchen, it is believed that the justice was murdered with no sign of her killers.

However, this was done as part of a police search operation to find the late justice, whose son had reported her missing and asked the police for assistance after failing to reach her for several days.

Justice Margaret

Recall that the Police had sworn to solve the murder mystery and prosecute the perpetrators after the retired judge was killed.

The retiring President of the Benue State Customary Court of Appeal was brutally murdered, according to a recent development, by a four-man gang that police officers in the state recently apprehended.

The murder was allegedly motivated by a dispute over the ownership and inheritance of a land.

The four suspects who were paraded yesterday at the State Police Command Headquarters each admitted their roles in the horrific act and their motivations for killing the retiring justices.

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23 years old nephew of the deceased, Joseph Aondohemba who confessed to leading other suspects to murder Justice Igbeta said, “it was due to the documents of my late father’s landed property which she held on to that made us to kill her.

“She refused to give me the papers and our village people used to call her over the papers which she held on to but she would always refuse to attend the meeting to discuss the matter.

“She also bought a land from my uncle who is also part of us that killed her. After buying the land she did not give him all his money so he needed his papers and I also needed the papers to my father’s land with her but she refused to release the papers.

“When we got into the house after her driver helped us gain entrance into the house on that day, my uncle, Ukor Dzungwe stabbed her on the chest and behind, while I used a stick to hit her.
“After that we dragged her on the floor to the kitchen. This was around 9pm.”

As for his part, 40-year-old Dzungwe said that because the deceased refused to release the paperwork pertaining to his land, he was forced to take part in her murder. He also admitted to repeatedly stabbing the retired jurist.

The nephew of the deceased, Aondohemba, was detained right away after the murder incident was reported, according to Mr. Batholomew Onyeka, the commissioner of the Benue State Police.

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“These suspects admitted that, Aondohemba Joseph had reported to them that his father died and left so much property in the hands of his aunty (the deceased) and she had refused to hand the said property over to him. They agreed to join him in eliminating her so that he could have access to his property.

When the case was moved to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, and given to the Operation Zenda investigative team to continue, a more thorough and advanced investigation got underway.

Igbazenda Gbidye, 63, and Dzungwenen Ukor, 40, were detained in Adikpo, Kwande Local Government Area, LGA, by the suspect who later admitted to having planned the murder of his aunt and recruited others to assist him.

These suspects acknowledged that Aondohemba Joseph had told them that his father had passed away and left his aunt (the deceased) in charge of plenty of properties, but she had refused to give it to him. They consented to help him kill her so he could have access to his property.

In support of their claims, one Barnabas Akuhwa, the deceased’s 32-year-old brother who was also detained, admitted that he had given the gang permission to enter the home and had manned the gate for them while they carried out the assassination.