An Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure has condemned to death by hanging Dare Ojo who raped and murdered an 11-year-old girl, Zainab Adeyemo, along  Ese/Irun-Akoko Road, Akoko North-East local government area of the state.

The accused was alleged to have committed the offences on July 17, 2020 while conveying the deceased on his commercial motorcycle to the market at Irun-Akoko.

During the proceedings, the mother of the deceased had called Dare Ojo, who was a commercial motorcycle rider, popularly known as okada, to take the late Zainab Adeyemo from Ese-Akoko to the market at Irun-Akoko.

But when the parents of the deceased did not see her, they contacted her mother’s colleagues at the market only to be told that they did not see her in the market.

They then contacted  Ojo who took her away on his motorcycle  and told them that he dropped her off at the market.

A search party was therefore set up in the community and eventually found the dead body of Zainab naked.

Handing down his verdict, Justice Yemi Fasanmi said that the accused was guilty of the charges based on findings of the pathologist from Federal Medical Centre, Owo, who carried out a test on remains of the deceased.

He established that there was struggle and the vaginal of the deceased was forcefully penetrated.

Besides, the police investigator also told the court that the accused led him and some policemen to the scene of the incident in a bush.