A 29-year-old Jos-based mason, Barry Chayi had explained why he killed his estranged wife and also cut off his eight-year-old daughter’s hand at his residence in Kamapala Community, Jos North local council, Plateau State.
In an interview with Punch, the embattled husband claimed he killed his wife unknowingly. “It was a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kill her. I regret my action.”
Chayi told Punch that he had been married to the deceased for 10 years. But things started falling apart when he fell sick recently. WikkiTimes understands that Chayi’s approach to treating his illness did not go well with his wife and she decided to relocate to her father’s house.
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She would later return with their daughter to pack her belongings, unfortunately, that became her last moment on earth. Chayi, her husband was trying to restrain her from moving out as she struggled to outpower him.
The face-off continued until Chayi got a grip of an axe he used to butcher her on the neck. He used the same axe to decimate his young daughter’s hand.
His words: “I married my wife properly and we lived together. The problem started when I fell sick. The sickness made me unstable. Any time I took ill, my body used to shake. I needed a solution, so I went for treatment. The person who treated me gave me soap and instructed me to use it for bathing and that it would cure the sickness. When I returned home and told my wife, the condition did not go down well with her. It became a problem. Later, she left our house with our daughter and went to her father’s house and she never came back.
“After some time, she came back to our house with my daughter and said she wanted to pack her belongings. When I asked where she was going, she only said she was leaving the house but she did not tell me where she was going. I did not want her to leave so I tried to stop her from moving out of the house. In the process, we started fighting. We started struggling and I fell near an axe. It was then that I took the axe and hit her on the neck and she fell and started bleeding. That was what happened.”
Chayi was in detention when his wife died. A neighbour had gone to inform him. “Some community people arrived in the house and security agents also came, and I was arrested and taken into custody. She was taken to the hospital. I was in custody when somebody came to inform me that my wife died because of the deep cut from the axe,” he continued.
Chayi is pleading with authority to have mercy on him. “What I did was not good. The authorities should forgive me. It was anger that caused the whole thing. Men who fight with their wives should learn from my experience,” he pleaded.
