Tosin Kolade (20 years old), church cleaner’s son, has allegedly raped and killed a 17-year-old girl inside a church in the Ibadan area of Oyo State.

Report has it that Kolade on his return from work, requested the girl to help him carry some chairs inside the church.

The girl was said to be running the errands when Kolade pounced on her and allegedly raped her in the church.

In a bid to conceal the crime, Kolade allegedly killed the 17-year-old girl and dumped her corpse at an undisclosed location.

It was gathered that when the victim did not return home on time, her parents became worried and contacted members of the church, who could not ascertain the whereabouts of the teenager.

However, a search was conducted but to no avail. The victim’s parents alongside members of the church reported a case of a missing person at the Iyana-Offa police station for investigation.

The state Commissioner of Police, Adebowale Williams, during a parade of criminal suspects at the command headquarters on Tuesday, said immediately after the command was notified, policemen swung into action and arrested Kolade.

He said, “A search party was immediately raised to know what caused her disappearance. While this was ongoing, a call was placed to the parents of the deceased by an unknown caller stating clearly the deceased had been abducted.”

“Preliminary investigation revealed that the corpse was found beside a bible school at Olodo area, with bloody genitalia, coupled with signs of struggling indicating she might have been manhandled before her eventual untimely death.”

Narrating how he perpetrated the crime at the parade ground, Kolade said after luring the victim into the church, he threatened her with a knife and raped her, adding that he killed her because she gave her the wrong password when he wanted to access her phone.

He said, “On September 17, 2022, I returned home, took our church’s key because my mum is the cleaner of the church, opened the door, and entered the church. I knew the time the girl would pass through our church on the way to her church.

“So, I started packing all the chairs in the church together; when she eventually passed, I quickly asked her to assist me in carrying some of the chairs.

“She was assisting me when I brought out a knife from my pocket and instructed her not to shout. I wanted to attack her to collect her phone but she dragged the knife with me and the knife fell.

“While trying to escape, she also fell and hit her head on the ground. She became weak and I raped her. I took her phone and asked her for the password to her phone; she gave me the wrong password and when I discovered that the password was wrong, I strangled her.”

Meanwhile, Williams said the command’s monitoring unit also arrested one Abolaji Alese and Adewale Abolarinwa at their respective hideouts for kidnapping in the state.

He explained that two pump action rifles, three live cartridges, an ML-350 Mercedes Benz jeep, a Toyota Corolla car which they used for the criminal activities, and a cash sum of N2.5m which was part of the ransom they allegedly collected from their victims’ families, among others, were recovered from the suspects.”

One of the suspected kidnappers, Afeez Abolaji, during the parade, said their targets were occupants of big cars, adding that they made over N30m from five operations.

He added, “People should desist from illegal jobs; my friend lured me into it, and nobody is requesting money from me in my family, I just got married.”