Olubunmi Abodunde, a Nigerian residing in the United Kingdom, reportedly fatally assaulted his wife, Taiwo, using their son’s skateboard.
The couple, parents to three children, migrated from Nigeria to the UK in 2022 and frequently clashed over alleged extramarital affairs and disputes concerning finances.
According to reports, 48-year-old Abodunde had been the subject of multiple domestic violence investigations by Suffolk Police.
Despite being scheduled for a murder trial, he pleaded guilty on Wednesday after a jury had been sworn in.
Authorities were alerted to the abuse after hearing several loud noises emanating from the house, where Abodunde had entered, flouting bail conditions imposed the previous day following another violent incident.
When they finally entered 25 minutes later, they found the wife, 41-year-old Taiwo, with her’skull smashed in’.
However, Judge Martyn Levett, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, warned him the only possible sentence was life imprisonment.
Abodunde had a history of jealousy and suspicion and accused his wife of having affairs. He had been investigated by police a number of times over alleged domestic violence incidents before his wife’s death.
He was arrested on April 27 last year when police arrived at the couple’s home in Newmarket, Suffolk, and found Mrs Abodunde with a split lip.
Later that day, he was freed on police bail with the condition that he stayed away from the marital home and didn’t approach his wife.
But after working a night shift at Tesco, he went home just after 9 am to allegedly pick up his mobile phone.
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Two officers arrived at 9.20 am to take a statement from Mrs Abodunde about the previous night’s incident and heard repeated banging noises inside.
But it wasn’t until 9.55 am that they forced their way in after getting approval from senior officers and found Mrs Abodunde ‘obviously dead’ near the front door.
A post-mortem examination later showed she had been throttled until she fell unconscious, then stamped on until her ribs were broken before her husband used the skateboard to finish her off. The blows were so violent that the skateboard was damaged.
Prosecutor Simon Spence KC told the court the banging officers heard was likely to have been Abodunde continuing to attack his wife after she was unconscious or dead.
Mrs Abodunde had a job as a care home assistant in Cambridge, but her husband, who had trained as a civil engineer, was unable to find work in his profession and took shifts at Tesco and Wickes.
After his arrest for the murder, Abodunde was taken to hospital “because he appeared to have some sort of mental episode.”
He later claimed in a police statement that he had acted in self-defence, saying, “My wife has subjected me to physical abuse for a number of years.”
