How I Stabbed My Wife To Death With A Spoon – Convict Confesses

A man identified as Edet Okon has been sentenced to death by hanging by a Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos for stabbing his wife to death with a spoon in the dead of night.
Okon, who had earlier been found guilty of the offence of murder by a Lagos State High Court and sentenced to death by hanging, had approached the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal in 2010 to reverse the decision of the lower court but a three-man panel of the court of appeal, led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, ordered that Okon be hanged for intentionally killing his wife.
Justice Ikyegh, who read the lead judgement, held that Mrs. Okon's blood was crying for vengeance and the "appellant should reap what he has sown blood for blood."
Okon had claimed at the court that he was insane at the time he stabbed his wife to death with a 'spoon' in the middle of the night. He said he had thypoid and was not with his senses. Two family members had also testified that mental illness was a common trait in the Okon family.
Okon's evidence that he suffered typhoid and suddenly woke up at night and engaged in a struggle with his wife, the court held, was rightly rejected by the lower court.
According to the court of appeal, the burden of proving insanity was entirely on the appellant and Okon failed to prove that he was not only insane, but was also not in control of himself at the time of committing the offence.
The justices of the Court of Appeal said there was no medical evidence to prove the state of the mind of the appellant at the point of the offence.

NAIJ.