“I took the quilt and a burlap and wrapped it up … put it in the closet and went to make a snack for the kids,” the 42-year-old man accused of killing his wife in November 2024 in their apartment in Vineyard Gardens described in his plea before the MOP.
The defendant told judges that he killed the 32-year-old mother of his children because he was “blinded” when she told him she would take their two children and leave him.
And he justified hiding the woman’s body in the attic of their home because “I wasn’t normal”, saying it was a solution he thought of until he said what happened.
According to the accused, for a number of years they had been experiencing serious relationship problems and he said the victim had been having an extramarital affair with a childhood friend. He insisted, however, that he himself loved her.
Chairman: You knew she was having an extramarital affair, you knew and with whom. Did you consider divorcing her? The notions of family, as you put it, were lost…
Were you aware that you knew?
Defendant: No. I never wanted my children to experience separation. I had told her: “You can do whatever you want. My love for you will not change.” I had accepted it…
I had accepted it.
About the crime, the 42-year-old said he hit the woman once with a hammer, who immediately fell to the ground. “He told me earlier that he was going to leave and take the children with him. He told me that the boy was not my child. At that moment I was blurred. My whole life was my children. I did CPR but to no avail.”
What did you do immediately afterwards?
Defendant: I took a bag and put it on my head so that it would not leave a mark, so that the children would not be frightened by the blood. I took the quilt and a burlap and wrapped it up … put it in the closet and went to make a snack for the children.
President: you didn’t think to call an ambulance, in case she was alive?
Accused: I put her in the cupboard. I got up in the morning, took the kids to school. I wasn’t feeling well… I was trying to get up the courage to explain to the kids, to see what I was going to do… I went to work and they were asking me what was wrong with me. I told them he supposedly left… Saturday morning I sent the kids to my brother’s house to study. I thought I’d put it in the attic. I was thinking about how to tell everyone. To the kids… that’s what I was thinking…
President: why would you go to the trouble of putting it up in the loft if you were going to say it? You took it, you wrapped it, you carried it, you put it in the loft….
Defendant: I was not normal. I put her up in the attic.
President: if you say you wanted time to tell, why was the body so well wrapped? Eight layers of bags on the body plus two layers on the head you had put…
Defendant: I don’t remember… if I wanted to disappear, I could. But I never thought of hiding it… But where could I leave the body? In the closet for the kids to open it and be scared? It was a small apartment…
The defendant had alerted police about a week after the crime. The 32-year-old’s mother, who testified in court at the previous hearing, said that until the wife’s killer called the police, he misled her relatives with reassuring messages sent from her mobile phone.
The trial continues.
