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| James Maddy |
The Lagos State Police Command have
arrested a housewife, who stole her mistress jewelry, valued at over N20m and sold
it at a mere N1.3m.
The housewife, identified as Freedom
James, 25, a mother of a nine-year-old girl, will definitely be kissing goodbye
to her name, freedom for a while, if she is found guilty of her crime in a
court of law.
She said that she stole the jewelry
after her mistress and husband left home for their respective places of work.
And she was said to have committed
this crime, just a day after she resumed working for the couple. She resumed on
a Wednesday, by Thursday, the deed was done and she had flown the nest.
She and her husband, James Maddy had
been arrested, but one Denise, who allegedly masterminded the crime, is still
at large.
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| James Maddy with the buyer of the jewelry Bawa |
According to detectives, on October
3, 2012, the owner of the jewelry reported at area F Command Headquarters, Ikeja
that on September 20, 2012, while she was looking for a house help, one John
and Joseph Obong brought one Rejoice to work for her.
But Rejoice worked for only two days
and disappeared.
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| She's calls Freedom, but poses as Comfort |
The mistress complained to James and
Joseph who brought another house help named Comfort (Freedom). She worked for
only a day, ransacked the woman’s home and stole her jewelry worth about N20m
and vanished into thin air.
The case was transferred to SARS,
Ikeja, on October 5, 2012. During investigation, with the help of Aisha Haruna,
Superintendent of Police (SP), who is the Divisional Police Officer (DPO),
Ikoyi, Freedom Maddy was arrested.
She was later identified as Comfort,
the principal suspect.
Freedom/Comfort told policemen that
she took the gold home to her husband, Maddy James, in company of Denise who
had earlier presented himself as Agent John, who usually assists people in
recruiting househelps.
Freedom, James and Denise sold the
jewelry at the rate of N1.3m, to one Hassan Bawa.
Police spokesperson, Ngozi Braide,
said: “This group and many others at large specialize in gaining employment as
house helps or driver with false names, addresses, guarantors and phone numbers
and then escape with the employers’ goods, cars, etc. All three suspects are
still undergoing interrogation and efforts are on top gear to recover the
stolen gold.”
Freedom, who said that her madam is a
trader, revealed how she was able to cart away her stolen wares in spite of the
presence of a security guard and giant Alsatian dogs.
She said: “It was after my Madam and
her husband left that I took the jewelry. It was Denise who got me the job as a
househelp with those people. It was also him, who told me to look around the
house and tell him items I could see.
“Denise is a friend to my husband.
When he got me the job, he bought me a phone. He insisted that I should never
use the phone to call anybody except him. He called and asked items I could see
in the house I said jewelry, he said I should bring them. I packed them into
nylon, put it under my cloth, around my stomach area and walked to the gate.”
She knew the security guard would
want to stop her, thus she pretended she was having serious stomach cramps,
cleverly hiding the bulge of the nylon.
She told the man that she was
suffering from an habitual stomach pains and desperately needed to go out to
buy drugs for her ailment.
The security guard offered to go for
her, but she said no. She further pleaded with him to cage the dogs, which the
security guard did, fearing the worst.
As soon as she walked out of the
gate, she disappeared, thinking she had won.
She insisted that she did not know
what came over her on that day, which made her to commit the crime.
She further claimed that if not for
Denise that pushed her into committing the crime, she would never have done so
in a million years.
“I don’t know what came over me. I
was even surprised at myself,” said Freedom in an amazed voice, which
detectives did not buy for a minute.
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