The Delta State Police Command has uncovered a chilling case of kidnap and murder involving a 20-year-old herbalist, Amechi Okwuokenye, and his 26-year-old stepbrother, Smart Okwuokenye, both of Owa-Alidima in Ika North East Local Government Area.
According to a statement issued on Sunday, October 26, by the Command’s spokesperson, SP Bright Edafe, the suspects were arrested following the mysterious disappearance of a 22-year-old man, Friday Liberty, who went missing after visiting the herbalist’s shrine on September 30, 2025.
Liberty’s family, who had searched fruitlessly for him, later learned from his girlfriend that he had mentioned visiting a certain herbalist. When contacted, the herbalist denied seeing him but deceitfully offered to perform spiritual rites to help locate the missing man.
Following failed attempts to recover their son through the herbalist’s rituals, the family filed a petition at the Agbor Area Command on October 14, 2025.
Acting on the report, detectives launched an intelligence-driven investigation, which revealed that the herbalist was the last person in contact with the missing man.
After days of discreet surveillance, detectives swooped on the shrine on October 23, 2025, and found the herbalist crouched inside a refrigerator, desperately trying to evade arrest.
During interrogation, Amechi confessed to conspiring with his elder brother, Smart, to kidnap Liberty and a commercial motorcyclist, identified as Isioma Ugbeje, who had conveyed him to the shrine.
The suspects said they demanded a ransom of ₦10 million but killed both men when the ransom plan failed dumped their bodies in a soakaway pit beside the shrine.
Edafe added that the victims’ remains have been recovered and deposited in a mortuary for autopsy.
He further disclosed that the herbalist admitted Liberty had been a long-time client who sought his help to “hypnotize” people into giving him money.
