A 30-year-old Nigerian man, Onoseta Oribhabor has reportedly killed himself after murdering his 27-year-old girlfriend, Essozinam “Martine” Assali, in Toronto, Canada.
Oribhabor graduated from Babcock University, Ogun State, before leaving for Canada.
Police characterize the case as a murder-suicide.
According to The Star Toronto, the incident happened earlier this month. Police found Essozinam Assali suffering from obvious signs of trauma inside a North York condo apartment on March 6. Police had been called to the scene over reports of a man screaming on a balcony at the building on Graydon Dr., near Don Mills and York Mills Rds.
Assali, a bilingual sustainability marketing intern who had studied at Seneca College and overseas at England’s Oxford Brookes University, was treated for her injuries, but ultimately died.
Police found her boyfriend, Onoseta Oribhabor of Edmonton, dead on the balcony.
Investigators on Tuesday called the case a murder-suicide and listed Assali, affectionately called “Martine” by loved ones, as the victim of the city’s 10th homicide in a total of 14 so far this year.
Friends and family expressed their shock at the couple’s death.
“The last time I saw the them was in December at a wedding,” said Chuks Andrew Okeleke, a childhood friend of Oribhabor who studied with him in Nigeria. “They seemed happy and they were dancing. He told me that he was planning on proposing to her.”
Okeleke said Oribhabor immigrated to Canada in 2013, and later helped him settle in the country.
“Oribhabor was working in Alberta and visited his girlfriend in Toronto often. They met in the city at an event they both attended,” Okeleke said, adding that the condo belonged to Assali.
Okeleke contacted The Star after Oribhabor’s parents called from Nigeria to say they hadn’t heard from their son in more than a week.
“They still don’t know they are dead,” Okeleke said.
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