A Pregnant widow, mother of two Commits Suicide

It was indeed a double tragedy for the people of Emu village, in Esan South East Local Government Area of Edo State when one of their own, a 38-year-old pregnant widow and mother-of-two, Mrs. Juliet Omoroge committed suicide by hanging.

The deceased, who was a widow and a big-time supplier of palm oil, hung herself with a rope on the ceiling fan of her room.

An eye witness, who identified himself as Moses Okpako, narrated to the press how the dead body of Juliet was discovered. According to him,

he went to the deceased house as agreed by both of them around 2 p.m., on that fateful day “to collect the money she owed him.”

He continued: “When I got to her house, I met her two little kids, Franca, 6, and Francis, 4, crying heavily in the living room. I asked Franca what the matter was, why she was crying; then she told me that since they both woke up; they hadn’t seen their mother, that she was still sleeping in her room. She further said they were hungry as there was nobody to prepare food for them.”

Okpako was surprised, knowing well that the deceased was too business-minded to still be in bed by that time.

“I asked Franca if she was sure her mother was still inside the room, which she said yes, that the parlour door was locked, that she had opened all the doors and windows in the house and they had knocked her room several times but she refused to open or even answered them,” Okpako recalled.

He subsequently went to the room and knocked the door to no avail.

“I then went to call a neighbour in the compound named Odion; we both knocked again, still no reply, so we had to break the door after which we saw her hanging. We immediately raised an alarm that brought the villagers to the scene”.

When asked the amount of money owed him by the deceased, Okpako affirmed that it was N3, 000. He also asserted that, it couldn’t have been the reason she took her life, “because she knows me very well, if she said she doesn’t have the money, I will go and come back on another day,” he vowed, Adding that “she just lost her husband few months back and also heavily pregnant”.

According to Mathew Aigbe, elder brother of the deceased, “my sister was doing well in her business to the best of my knowledge” I don’t see reason for her to take her own life, ”he said.

Still feeling so embittered, Mattew wondered if loneliness could have pushed his late sister over the brink, “because since her husband died, she has been behaving strange. She sometimes acts semi-mad. She and her husband were very much in love,” he affirmed.

It was further learnt from close relatives that the deceased, Juliet Omoroge, lost her husband, Festus, three months ago to asthma. All effort made to reach the Edo State Police Public Relations officer, Mr. Anthony Airhuoyo, to confirm the sad incident was met with walls.