An Ikeja high court have sentenced a 36 year old woman by name Stella Gilbert to death for stabbing her neighbour to death during a fight in their ajegunle residence in Lagos state, News Agency of Nigeria reports.
According to NAN, The convict had stabbed the deceased by name Stella Godwin with a knife during an argument on who should posses a bench left by a former neighbour.
Delivering the judgement, Justice Raliatu Adebiyi sentenced Gilbert after dismissing her claim of self defense.
She said “The defendant, in this case, used a knife on the deceased; by any standard, a knife is a lethal weapon.
“The evidence of PW2, Prosecution Witness 2, the cousin of PW1, the deceased’s husband, and that of PW3, the female police officer, was that the deceased was stabbed on the chest.
“The coroner’s report tendered in evidence by PW4 confirmed that the deceased was stabbed on the chest.
“The chest is where the heart is; the defendant, by stabbing the deceased on the chest, a very fragile part of the body, clearly intended to cause the most harm to her.
“The death of the deceased occurred as a result of a grievous injury caused by the defendant. The defendant is culpable of the offense of murder,”
Counsel to Gilbert, Mr Y. E. Yusuf, prayed the court to temper justice with mercy as she had been in detention for six years.
According to Yusuf, Gilbert had lost her parents and her brother while in detention and that she had no intention of killing the deceased.
However, the judge passed death sentence on Gilbert.
“The defendant, Stella Gilbert, is hereby sentenced to death. May God that grants life have mercy on your soul,” she said.
On hearing the sentence, Gilbert collapsed on the dock screaming “please ma, temper justice with mercy, why me oh, only me…”
She was carried out of the court premises by a prison official and police officer to avoid disrupting proceedings in other court rooms.
