Plain Old Justice

 

 She was 27 when, in an instant, her future changed. Forever.

Abere Karibi-Ikiriko, whose parents are Nigerian, had been blessed with huge scientific talent and a winning personality. While earning a bachelor’s degree at a midwestern tech college, Abere also wrote for the student newspaper and became active in a group seeking to help Nigerian women. In 1999, Glamour Magazine named her one of the 10 outstanding undergraduate women in America.

After graduation, Abere worked at a pharmaceutical firm, saving money for a home. When she began medical school at Howard University, she found a house in nearby Capitol Heights, Maryland. It was affordable, but because of the high crime rate there, she also decided to buy a pistol.

In school, Abere earned a 4.0 grade point average. She also fell in love with another medical student, a Nigerian named Okechukwu Ohiri, nicknamed "Will."

For two years their relationship was both passionate and tumultuous. In July 2004 they broke up, then made up, then broke up again. She loved him, except when he forced her to have sex.

After the breakup Will couldn't let go. He kept sending her emails and letters. In one he wrote, "God knows that I'll give up anything just to experience all these passions with you again One Last Time."

Abere put a deadbolt lock on her door.

When the evening of January 15, 2005 began, Abere had many reasons to be happy. In her final year in medical school, she ranked at the top of her class. And she was about to go to Austria to attend a scientific conference.

At 7:00 p.m., Abere was downstairs in her home, in her nightgown, doing laundry to prepare for the trip. Then, Will arrived and urged that they resume the relationship. In anger, she refused.

Will went upstairs and got Abere’s gun. Returning, he ordered her to a couch and pulled up her nightgown.

When he put the pistol down she grabbed it. During the ensuing struggle for the gun, it discharged, fatally wounding him.

The Prince George's County police took her into custody and a detective, well practiced in intimidation, questioned her aggressively. Ignoring Abere's repeated requests for a lawyer, he persisted grilling her until she screamed and sobbed, asking "How could you live if you knew you killed somebody you loved?"

Because the detective had violated her Miranda rights, the judge did not allow the jury to see the videotape of that emotional interview. But the judge also would not allow the defense to introduce the emails and letters Will had written.

Those emails and letters would have contradicted the prosecution's argument that Abere shot Will because he had gone to prostitutes. They also would have revealed him to be a man obsessed.

After deliberating 4 hours, the jury found Abere guilty of second degree murder. The court sentenced her to 15 years in prison, with an additional 15 years suspended.

The Maryland Court of Appeals found that the judge should not have excluded Will's emails and letters, and ordered a new trial, but the judicial system can be agonizingly slow. While waiting in jail for the new trial, Abere tried to commit suicide.

In the second trial, the defense introduced Will’s letters and emails. While the jury deliberated, Abere had an emotional breakdown.

Paramedics took her to the hospital. She wasn't in the courtroom when the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

The National Registry of Exonerations' website reports that Abere died 5 years later, in 2012.

Why did she die? Was it suicide? The Registry had no information and I searched the Internet without success. But I did find one thing, a poem Abere had written that is both poignant and prescient.

Abere’s poem, below, appeared in the Howard University student newspaper on January 23, 2004, almost exactly one year before the night that changed everything.

             Memory

   I will be a memory
   Unable to erase
   Yet you will have no trace
   Of the love you once had

   I will be the heart
   That you once broke
   From all the lies you spoke
   With no guilt in mind

   I will be the partner
   One you took for granted
   Seeing others you wanted
   Without any pride

   I will be the treasure
   That once was yours
   But took another course
   to deserving arms reside

   I will be a memory
   Its not so hard to see
   We were not meant to be
   Anything but a memory

          Abere Karibi-Ikiriko