A woman alleged to be mentally deranged, Folake Falade, has denied knowing anything about human parts found in her possession in Aiyetoro, Cele-Nizer, on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway.

The 40-year-old said the body parts found with her on Monday, August 27, belonged to men who usually had sex with her in a tunnel where she lived.

A mob was said to have gathered and would have lynched her but for the intervention of some officials of the Lagos State Neighbourhood Safety Corps and policemen from the Ijanikin division.

The case was subsequently transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba.

Falade, who claimed to be from Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the body parts belonged to men who had sex with her after paying her between N200 and N300.

“On the day I was caught, I was sitting when a man came to offer me a gin. The second person came and asked if I had a mobile phone and I said no. Not long after, I saw some people with canes and they started beating me up. They also removed all the things I used to cover myself whenever it rained. They asked me if I took gin and I said once in a while.

They asked where I used to get money to buy it and I told them that some men had been having sex with me and they gave me money – N200 or N300.”

A source said the suspect claimed that one of the photos was that of her child, who she did not know his whereabouts.

The charges read, “That you, Folake Falade, and others at large, on August 27, 2018, around 7am, at Aiyetoro, Cele-nizer, on the Lagos- Badagry Expressway, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did conspire among yourselves to commit felony, to wit: unlawful possession of human parts.

The police prosecutor, Inspector Adedayo Oladele, said the offences were punishable under sections 411 and 238 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2015.

At the resumption of the case for facts and sentence on Tuesday, the police prosecutor, Oladele, said forensic experts had visited the scene of the crime.

“The defendant was asked what happened at the scene. She said one of the men sleeping with her owned the human parts. She was asked to produce the men, but she could not,” he added.

The odour of the suspected decomposing human bodies filled the courtroom and the Chief Magistrate, O.O. Olatunji, ordered they be taken outside the court for inspection.

A court orderly and a friend of the court, who were appointed by the chief magistrate for the inspection, later returned to confirm the prosecutor’s evidence.

“I was not found with any human skull and flesh. What they found on me was ponmo (cowhide), which I was cutting; I don’t know anything about human skull and flesh; they were found far from where I was. Some people beat me up, saying I had a phone, which I denied. It was ponmo they found on me,” she said in Yoruba.

She was subsequently granted bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum as the chief magistrate ordered that the case file be duplicated for legal advice from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.

– Copyright PUNCH