The Court of Appeal in Akure, the Ondo State capital has affirmed the death sentence of a popular hotel owner, Dr Ramon Adedoyin, who was found guilty in the murder case of Timothy Adegoke, an ex-Master’s student of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
The appellate court on Thursday, noted that the judgment by the Osun State High Court which sentenced Adedoyin to death stands.
“The judgment of the High Court of Ọ̀ṣun State stands. Adedoyin’s appeal is dismissed in part. The Court of Appeal held that Adedoyin was properly convicted and sentenced to death.”
It further noted that the “Order of forfeiture of Hilton Hotel quashed and set aside. Order of education scholarship to children of Timothy Adegoke by Adedoyin and others quashed and set aside.”
Adegoke was found dead in November 2021 at Adedoyin’s Hilton Honours Hotel, Ile-Ife, where he had lodged.
On January 29, 2022, the late 37-year-old Master of Business Administration student was buried beside the house he built for his parents in the New Eruwa part of Eruwa town, the Ibarapa East Local Government Area of Oyo State.
In March same year, Afeez Olaniyan, the Investigative Police Officer who undertook the first probe into Adegoke’s death, narrated how some defendants arraigned in connection with the deceased’s death, evacuated and dumped Adegoke’s corpse in the bush.
Being led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, M. Omosun, during the continuation of the trial, Olaniyan said from the statement extracted from two of the staffers of the Hilton Hotels–Adeniyi Aderogba and Oyetunde Kazeem, after the death of the late Adegoke, his corpse was wrapped with a duvet, and taken out in a Hilux van driven by the son of the hotel owner, Roheem Adedoyin, to where it was dumped.
Further investigation into the crime by a consultant pathologist at the Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Osogbo, Dr Waheed Oluogun, said Adegoke’s death was caused by severe hemorrhage secondary to severe traumatic injury.