As at last week, we brought you a report on the death of two siblings that died inside a deep freezer in Akure, Ondo State capital, which occurred last week.
The demise of these two brothers has become something that people residing in the area, are seeing as a mystery. The police also are still carrying out their proper investigations to unravel the mysterious demise of these siblings.
Some residents, however, assumed that the demise of the two brothers and primary school pupils, Olufemitan Olaitan, 9, and Oluwafifunmi Olaitan, 7, was something suspicious. They argued that the freezer was not a big size and that, with the ages of these children, they should have the capability to open the door of the freezer if of a truth it was mistakenly closed.
The deceased brothers, according to findings carried out, had been locked indoors by their mother, by name Olubunmi, who has gone out to the market to purchase foodstuff on Monday at about 3 pm.
A family source revealed that the mother, on getting back home, initially couldn’t find his two sons and she became so worried.
She was said to have searched all the nook and cranny of her rooms and still she couldn’t find the boys only to raise an alarm which attracted her co-neighbours and a search party was carried out.
Nobody thought that these two boys could be inside the condemn deep freezer that is being kept at a corner in the house.
It learnt that after it was found that the door of the house was not tampered with when their mum came back from the market, one of the neighbours reportedly opened the faulty freezer only to find the boys inside, dead.
The siblings were removed and were taken to hospital with the hope that they could still be brought back to life.
A police source said the two boys may have been playing in the faulty freezer and its door shut against them and that, because of the weight of the door, the boys could not free themselves.
The source added that if their mother or anybody was at home, the cries of the deceased would have attracted her/him and they would have been saved.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that the two boys, after struggling to rescue themselves, may have given up the ghost a result of suffocation inside the faulty freezer.
However, another source from police said that the kids might have been killed before they were dropped inside the freezer by their assailant.
The source said that the assailant may have dumped their corpse inside the freezer to in order to create an impression that they have suffocated after being trapped in the fridge.
According to the source, the two boys, with their ages, should have been able to force the freezer open if actually it mistakenly closed up on them.
Also, he said that the freezer was a small one that could be easily opened by the boys if they were actually playing inside the freezer as suspected.
But the same source hinted that the door of the flat was intact when the mother of the deceased boys arrived from the market. However, he added that investigation into the death of the minors was still in progress and that all avenues would be explored to unravel the mystery behind their death.
The source said, “Anything can still come up during our investigation. Don’t be surprised if we come up with something fresh in the course of our investigation”.
He added that autopsy will bring to the open the cause of the death of the two brothers.
“All we have been told was that the boys were left alone in the house and that when their mother returned they were found inside a freezer that had not been working for over a year”, the source stated.
“How they got inside the freezer is unknown. We are only suspecting that they may be playing inside and the door of the freezer closed on them and in the process they were suffocated”.
It was gathered that when the boys were discovered inside the freezer, one of them had blood in his mouth while the other was alleged to have defecated on himself.
The parents reportedly buried the boys last Wednesday.
Contacted, Ondo State police spokesperson, Femi Joseph, said no arrest had been made as nobody was suspected to have murdered the boys.
Joseph said that the father of the boys, Olusegun Olaitan, reported the matter at a police station.
He described the death of the two minors as sad and unfortunate.
“There was no trace that the boys were killed and so far we have not made any arrest on the matter”, the spokesperson said.
“We did not suspect foul play because it appeared as if the kids were playing inside the deep freezer and the door locked on them when there was nobody at home to help them open the door. It is really a sad and unfortunate incident”.
