It was a bloody weekend at No. 21b Ntueke Street, Awada Obosi, Idemili

North Local Government Area of Anambra State, as a man, Mr. Stephen Nnadiogo, reportedly lost his mind and killed his four children, as well as his sister-in-law, before taking his own life. The children are said to be aged, two, six, eight and ten years old.

Investigations have it that there had been a running battle in their home over his wife’s alleged infidelity and the paternity of their children.

It was learnt that the man’s wife, whose name was given as Chika, the owner of a patent medicine store, had boldly used the issue to abuse his husband each time they quarrelled.

According to a neighbour who spoke to News Express, anytime the couple quarrelled, the woman would tell her husband that he was claiming to be a man while he could not impregnate her and that he was not the biological father of their four children. The man, in return, would usually call her a whore who could not stay with one man.

Tragedy came knocking weekend when the woman left their house for her medication store to attend to patients in the evening, leaving their four children behind with her husband and her sister.

In an apparent bid to carry out the evil plan, the man sent the house help on an errand and then got hold of a knife and started stabbing the children as well as his sister-in-law until they took their last breath.

Satisfied that they were dead, he went and hid himself in one of the rooms in the flat of a four-storey building where they lived and took his own life by reportedly drinking poison.

The ugly incident was however unraveled by their house help who, upon return from the errand, opened the door to find the four children and the sister-in-law in a pool of their own blood.

She immediately screamed and ran out to the patent medicine store to tell her madam that her children had been murdered. The woman promptly ran to the police station to file a report.

When contacted, the Awada Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mr. Martin Mbajunwa, confirmed the incident, saying that the corpses have been deposited in the morgue.

He added that investigation into matter is ongoing.

The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Nkiru Nwode, while confirming the incident through phone said that Nnadiogo, who returned from abroad years back to settle in Nigeria and had been having a mental problem, recently came back from Arochukwu in Imo State where he went to for mental treatment. She said that some unidentified substances were found around where his body was found, adding that the nature of the substances would be ascertained when the autopsy is concluded.

Her words: “The incident happened. The man has mental issues and he just returned from Arochukwu where he goes for treatment few days before he committed the crime.

“Some unidentified substances where found around where his body was found but we cannot ascertain the cause of his death until autopsy is concluded.”