{"id":17545,"date":"2020-09-09T11:06:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T15:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=17545"},"modified":"2020-09-09T11:12:09","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T15:12:09","slug":"fifth-murder-trial-finds-man-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/09\/09\/fifth-murder-trial-finds-man-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth murder trial finds man guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man who faced an unprecedented five trials over four years for the shooting of a mother-of-nine and her nephew has been found guilty of murder.<\/p>\n<p>Annie Ekofo, 53, and Bervil Ekofo, 21, were killed in their home in East Finchley, north London, in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Obina Ezeoke first went on trial in 2017 but it collapsed, while juries in two more failed to reach verdicts and the other was halted by coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>At his fifth trial, the 28-year-old was found guilty of two counts of murder.<\/p>\n<p>An Old Bailey jury convicted Ezeoke by a majority of 11 to one after deliberating for 41 hours over eight days.<\/p>\n<p>The court heard Ezeoke, of Cambridge Heath, had &#8220;crept noiselessly&#8221; into Mrs Ekofo&#8217;s home on 15 September 2016 just after dawn.<\/p>\n<p>He then shot her 21-year-old nephew, who happened to be staying there that night, while he slept and killed Ms Ekofo in the hall when she went to investigate what had happened.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"css-1759m9z-StyledFigure e34k3c20\">\n<div class=\"css-kwaqyc-StyledFigureContainer e34k3c22\"><span class=\"css-v8twmm-Placeholder e16icw910\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"css-evoj7m-Image ee0ct7c0\" src=\"http:\/\/c.files.bbci.co.uk\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/240\/cpsprodpb\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg 240w, https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg 320w, https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg 480w, https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg 624w, https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/800\/cpsprodpb\/59B8\/production\/_91286922_annie_bervil_met.jpg 800w\" alt=\"Annie Besala Ekofo, Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" \/><\/span><\/div><figcaption class=\"css-1rnnz6t-StyledFigureCaption e34k3c21\">Obina Ezeoke denied murdering Annie Besala Ekofo and Bervil Kalikaka-Ekofo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC said the 28-year-old drug dealer had gone to kill one of the teenage boys in the family as &#8220;part of a vendetta of violence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His hate was such that he did not falter when confronted by a second person &#8211; he simply took her life as well,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The key evidence centred around firearms residue found in Ezeoke&#8217;s car, which was used in the getaway, and on his top recovered from a female friend&#8217;s home.<\/p>\n<p>Ezeoke, who denied murder, told successive trials he had an alibi for the time of the shootings and suggested the gunshot residue in the vehicle must have been from a previous shooting.<\/p>\n<p>When the fourth trial was halted, the defendant&#8217;s lawyer James Scobie QC claimed the case should not go to a fifth trial, saying it &#8220;would be oppressive&#8221; and &#8220;enough is enough&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr Heywood successfully argued the &#8220;public interest&#8221; in a case &#8220;of this exceptional kind and such gravity&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Sally-Anne Russell, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Ezeoke&#8217;s actions &#8220;have devastated a family&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He went to the flat to carry out a revenge attack&#8230; When he couldn&#8217;t find the person he was looking for, he murdered a young man and a mother-of-nine instead,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Ezeoke will be sentenced on 1 October.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-london-54086620\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A man who faced an unprecedented five trials over four years for the shooting of a mother-of-nine and her nephew has been found guilty of murder. Annie Ekofo, 53, and Bervil Ekofo, 21, were killed <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2020\/09\/09\/fifth-murder-trial-finds-man-guilty\/\" title=\"Fifth murder trial finds man guilty\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[7341,1240,300],"class_list":{"0":"post-17545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-east-finchley","10":"tag-old-bailey","11":"tag-shooting","12":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17545"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17549,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17545\/revisions\/17549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}