Woman accused of killing son ‘planned to murder husband’

New details have emerged indicating that a 34-year-old mother, accused of stabbing to death her three-year-old son at the weekend, had initially plotted to murder her husband on Friday night.

The suspect, a mother of three and resident of Vanguard Ward in Laroo-Pece Division in Gulu City, survived lynching on Saturday afternoon after police intervened.

She is accused of stabbing to death her son, Evan Gimara and attempting to strangle her three-month-old daughter, who is currently in critical condition at an unnamed health facility.

Neighbours said the suspect acted out of rage following a heated disagreement with her husband on Friday evening.

“They have always had public disagreements and fights. They had one last evening. I suspect this was the cause,” a neighbour said.

According to him, the suspect on Saturday afternoon found her son playing with other children in the compound before she called him into the house. Moments later, she stabbed him to death.

She was intercepted as she tried to dump her unconscious daughter in a pit-latrine.

The baby was found injured around the neck before she was taken to the hospital.

Meanwhile, new accounts from neighbours have indicated that Ayaa had planned to kill her husband on Friday night.

The Daily Monitor has established that she descended on her children the following day after her husband did not return home on Friday night.

“We lived with Opiyo at our other home in Aywee until 8pm and we thought he returned home but he did not. Even at the time the incident occurred, he had not returned home yet,” Justine Onyac, one of Opiyo’s cousins, said.

According to him, the couple’s relationship has been marred by conflicts and tension. “We severally asked him to divorce the woman because at one point he told Opiyo that he would kill him.”

It is also established that the couple had a bitter quarrel that ended in a fight last week over an incident in which she accused Opiyo of infidelity and that Opiyo declined her access to his smartphone, which she claimed he was using to chat with another woman.

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said Ayaa bought a new knife on Friday afternoon to allegedly discipline her husband.

“We ignored it since she has been borrowing knives from us to cook and we saw her use it to prepare vegetables,” she said.

According to her, Ayaa on Saturday did her laundry and later cooked food for the children before the incident.

“She did all her chores with a very light mood and none of us could read what was set to happen. She called her son to eat and later walked out laughing to herself and we wondered. But when she returned inside the house, she walked out with the toddler whose abdomen she had sliced with a knife and the intestines popped out.”

According to the source, she moved towards the toilet to throw the child into the toilet and that when people gathered.

By the time Mr Andrew Nyeko, the chairperson of Vanguard Cell, arrived at the suspect’s home, angry residents had pounced on her.

“I called the police. She (suspect) was also taken to Gulu regional referral hospital where she is getting treatment for injuries she sustained from the beating,” Mr Nyeko  said.

Mr Nyeko said the suspect’s husband fainted upon learning of the incident and was admitted to the same hospital.

“He is also receiving treatment at the hospital, along with his wife who is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). I did not receive any complaints from either of them having family disputes,” he said.

By press time, police officers headed by Mr Patrick Kidega, the OC Station, Gulu Central Police Station, were recording statements from witnesses and had sealed off the scene of  crime.

Kidega, who called for calm among the neighbours and relatives of the family, said once investigations are complete, charges of murder and attempted murder would be preferred against the suspect.