A 22-year-old suspected female kidnapper has revealed how she had been kidnapping toddlers in communities in Ondo State in the past two years.
The suspect, Adeola Omoniyi, disclosed that she had been delivering the kidnapped children to her father, Ilesanmi Omoniyi, who, in turn, pays her the sum of N30,000 for each operation.
According to the suspected kidnapper, who was paraded at the police headquarters alongside her father, she was apprehended at Ore in Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State while on her third mission.
Confessing how she had been carrying out the crime, she said, “I’m a kidnapper. I do kidnap little children, and I always deliver them to my father in his house at Igbotako. I was successful with the first two children I took, but I was caught with the third one.
“After delivering the kids to my father, he used to give me N30,000 for each operation. I do use the money to take care of myself. I don’t know what he normally uses the children for. All I do is just take them to him.
“He was the one who told me to always bring the children to him. I picked the first child from Ilutitun and the second from Ilowo.
“It was when I was taking the child away that the mother raised alarm. People gathered to beat me, and I was taken to the police station before I was moved to Akure.
“I have been doing the business for about two years. The first one was in 2021, and the second one this year. I always ask the children when they are alone where they are going, and I hold their hand, and they will follow me.”
However, the father of the suspected criminal, who said that her daughter lied against him, stated that she had been battling mental issues.
“My daughter used to stay in Lagos. She used about two years in Lagos. She got sick and they brought her to me in Igbotako. She was stacked naked when they brought her to me.
“I later took her to a church where the pastor said I should pay N80,000. I sold my cassava and I paid the pastor. He later told me that she is better, but a few days after, he called again to say that he could not find her as she had left the church.
“I’m the one that she used to bring the kids to. I have never given her N30,000. It was six months after she left the church that we had been looking for her when I heard that she had gone to steal a child.”
Meanwhile, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Funmi Odunlami, maintained that the suspects would be charged to court after the conclusion of the investigation.
