Lady Dies After Having Sex With Pastor
Folake Sokoya
When Yemisi John left her home in Akure to visit her social media boyfriend who resides in Benin City, little did she know that the journey she embarked on would be her last.
Her disappearance was a mystery for five months until detectives attached to Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team, IRT headed by DCP Abba Kyari traced her footsteps to her last known whereabouts at Summit Road, opposite Radio Nigeria, Benin City, Edo State capital residence of Pastor Joseph Kofi Martey of City of Fire Ministry.
After searching for their missing daughter to no avail, Yemisi’s relatives on November 5, wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police about their daughter who went missing since she left her home on July 28, 2019.
When they got to the IRT office in Osogbo, Osun State, all they could tell detectives was that a certain Pastor Kofi who was Yemisi’s Facebook friend had chatted with her days before she left the house, but when contacted, the man claimed they were just friends on Facebook and has never met her in person.
The Osogbo IRT team swung into action and discovered that the pastor and Yemisi had communicated severally on the day she left her home in Akure till she arrived in Benin City.
It was also discovered that their Facebook chats and text messages showed that they had agreed to consummate their relationship, prompting Yemisi to volunteer to visit Martey in Benin.
The evidence was enough warrant to arrest the pastor and so IRT operatives subsequently tracked him down to his residence in Benin City and arrested him.
Pastor Martey confessed to the crime when he was apprehended. He didn’t give the police too much trouble. He confessed that Yemisi died in his house hours after they had sex and had to dump her corpse by the roadside for fear of being lynched by neighbours.
“My father is a Ghanaian, but I was born and raised in Offa, Kwara State. He was a pastor and because of that, I was drawn towards serving God. As the child of a pastor, I was always in the church for one programme or the other. At a point, I wanted to stop because they were gradually turning me into a pastor. I became sick and was at the point of death, when one of the prophets, who is close to my father said I must be a pastor for the rest of my life.
“After my secondary education, I relocated to Lagos and started to learn how to make shoes. I also found a good church and became a member. I started with Life and Life Christian church where I attended Bible school and was ordained as a pastor. I relocated to Edo State with my wife due to some challenges and joined City of Fire Ministry where I was made an assistant pastor.
“I could not work because of my wife’s ill health and our baby that needed attention. We barely survived on the little allowance that the church was paying me. When her illness became worse, her family took her away and she died months later. Months after the death of my wife, I joined a Facebook group known as Single Parents which was where I met Yemisi but she was bearing Titilola John on Facebook.
According to him, both of them became friends, exchanged phone numbers and they started communicating.
Martey stated further that Yemisi started helping him edit his books that he had written for free and that she was the one that encouraged their relationship to be intimate.
“She was based in Akure and had been disturbing that I should visit her. I told her I did not have much money to send to her. She then volunteered to travel to Benin. She kept saying I should allow her to be part of my life and help me take care of my son.
“On July 28, she called me that she was already in Benin and cannot trace my house. I was surprised but because she was already in Benin I decided to go to the bus stop and pick her up. She was carrying a small bag. As soon as we got home, she took her bath and relaxed. I prepared noodles for her and she ate a little with a soft drink.
“Around 9 pm after praying, she asked me if I was just going to allow her sleep without touching her. I told her I need to remarry and have children and cant marry her because of her age. She kept pleading that we were a good match, arguing that I am a writer and she was good at editing and she could get pregnant by the grace of God.
“She pleaded with me that since her husband left her, no man had touched her and that she needed sex. I agreed. We made love. It did not last more than 20 minutes because I was tired. She was satisfied with the little time we spent and we slept afterwards.
“Around 4 am, I tried to wake her up so that we would pray. Her body was cold and when I turned her around there was foam on her mouth.
“I panicked and did not know what to do. I have not lived for long in that area. If neighbours discovered that a woman died in my house, they would kill me before I get to the police station. I am the only one living in the compound, so no one saw us when we walked into the compound. I decided to dispose her body before the day break. I dragged her from the bed to the street and dumped her by the roadside and when I came out around 5am, people had gathered around the corpse taking pictures.
“They wondered who dropped the dead body there. I walked past them pretending to be an onlooker too and went back to my house, knelt down and prayed. At 6 am, I came out again and discovered the body was gone.
“Three days later, I received a call but refused to pick it because I was scared the caller could become suspicious about my shaky voice. No one called again till three months later when I received another call from her family member. They asked me if I knew who Yemisi was and I said yes. They asked if I had seen her recently and I said no. I told the caller that we were just Facebook friends and I have never seen her in person.
“I couldn’t even tell the General Overseer of the church because I was scared that they will condemn me”. Martey narrated.
He added that he became restless and never had peace of mind since the incidence and that his mind told him he might be arrested some day and that was why, according to him, he kept the deceases belongings.
However, police investigation is still ongoing to recover Yemisi’s corpse.
“We are still looking for Yemisi, dead or alive. Whatever Martey is saying is his own side of the story. It is only when the body is found and an autopsy performed that we can ascertain the circumstances surrounding her death. Finding the corpse will confirm or refute his claim. It is possible that she was murdered”. a police source said.