A hotel manager in the Otowe area of Delta State, Godwin Iboirode, has narrated how he killed a female Point of Sale operator identified simply as Bethel over a N10,000 dispute.
Iboirode confessed in an interrogation video shared on the X page of the Delta State Police Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, on Tuesday.
PUNCH Metro reports that Ibiorode and the hotel owner, Joseph Ogbole, alongside two other staff members, were arrested sometime in March over the death of a Lagos-based pastor, Sunday Ogofotha, who was found dead in the hotel after he had lodged to attend the burial of a relative.
The pastor had travelled from Lagos to Delta but arrived the city late and decided to lodge at the Century Home Hotel before proceeding on his journey the next day.
When Ogofotha’s wife could not reach him the next day, she called his family members to inform them of the situation and what her husband had told her about his whereabouts.
The family visited the hotel, but the hotel management denied that Ogofotha had lodged in the hotel. This prompted them to report to the police.
Upon investigation by the police, it was discovered that the pastor was allegedly killed and buried in the hotel.
Giving an update on the incident on Tuesday, Edafe disclosed that the police recovered a PoS machine from the hotel manager during the arrest, but he claimed that the machine belonged to a lady who visited the hotel and forgot it.
He added that after a painstaking investigation, the police discovered that the PoS machine belonged to a lady who was declared missing in December 2024, and after interrogation, the hotel manager confessed to having killed the lady following a dispute over a transaction of N10,000.
Edafe said, “During the investigation, we recovered a PoS machine from the hotel manager, and he claimed that it was a lady who came and forgot the machine.
“After the investigation, the lady who went missing in December 2024 had a business transaction with the hotel manager in the sum of N10,000, which the lady claimed he transferred to her, but she did not receive the money.
“That was how their quarrel started, and according to the manager, the lady was defaming him in the community, and he swore to deal with her. The lady went to him to demand her money, but he dragged her to the back of the hotel and strangled her to death.”
During interrogation, Iboirode narrated that he was angered by the decision of Bethel to accuse him of scamming her because she did not receive the money he had transferred to her.
He added that when Bethel came to demand her money, he dragged her to the back of the hotel and strangled her to death, left her body there, and used her phone to demand a ransom from her father.
“My name is Godwin Iboirode. What brought us together is about a N10,000 transaction.”
She went around to spoil my name, that I scammed her, and that was what angered me.
“I carried the girl into the bush. I strangled her and left her body there. I am the only one who killed her. After I killed her, I used her phone to text her father to demand ransom,” Iboirode said in Pidgin (now translated).
Edafe concluded that Iboirode also used Bethel’s phone to contact the family of the slain pastor to demand a ransom.
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