Yebel Bateg Emmanuel: portrait of an assassin with an atypical background

Public opinion is still horrified by the vile assassination of Louisette Ngo Yebel, communications manager at Comifac, killed last Saturday in Yaoundé by her own son. On social networks, comments are going well and everyone goes about it according to their sensitivity. But those who know him are trying to understand how Yebel Bateg Emmanuel Landry, a seemingly quiet young man, shifted, becoming the murderer of both his grandmother in December 2023, and then his mother last Saturday.

At first glance, Yebel Bateg doesn’t seem like a delinquent. One of his relatives remembers a “kind, candid, and polite” boy. His teacher at Saint Benoit College in Yaoundé speaks of a young student who looked like an adult. Both his temperament and his intelligence commanded the respect of the supervisors. “Plus he was a spoiled child”, a bit like other students who attend this prestigious college owned by the missionaries of the Immaculate Conception and built on the lands of the archdiocese of Yaoundé, just opposite the headquarters of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (CENC).

According to a member of his family, Yebel Batek was a withdrawn, solitary man who did not suffer from any pathology. A cycle B general administration student at the National School of Administration and Magistracy, he was a very brilliant student. “He was really brilliant but very discreet. He was just making himself heard during his speeches which, it must be said, were of a finesse which sometimes went beyond the comprehension of the rest of us,” confides one of his comrades.

One of the best in his class

Moreover, during the exam counting towards the end of his studies at Enam, he obtained an average of 15.57/20, occupying the prestigious rank of 5th ex aequo in his promotion. Holder of a master’s degree in Political Science obtained at the University of Yaoundé II, before joining Enam, the 28-year-old man was among the most successful in his class.

Despite his intelligence, “we felt that he had sociability problems. He had almost no friends at school, always stayed in his own corner, and never participated in extracurricular activities, even if they were compulsory activities,” we learn from another friend. “He was also absentee, but this was not reflected in his results at school,” he adds.

According to one of his close relatives, “his associations at college led him to make strange choices and that is when he became dependent on narcotics. He consumed it at will and this was known to several people. Moreover, he had been examined several times by specialists, and he had refused to follow the therapy recommended for this purpose. But the whole family was far from imagining him capable of such savagery,” reveals our informant.

During his training at Enam, the young 28-year-old administrator was arrested for cases of repeat theft, but the alleged offender was released after strong negotiations with his parents, we learn.

But it was last December that this eldest son of a family of around fifty children committed the worst. “He had strangled his own grandmother and the crime was covered up by his mother who did everything to keep him from going to prison. Since then he was kept very far from his younger brothers and sisters,” we are told.

Since this crime, his mother has worked hard to ensure that he follows both clinical and spiritual therapies. She did not fail to visit him in his home located in the Damas district of Yaoundé until last Saturday when she was butchered by the fruit of his womb.

The horror

According to the Daily Intelligence Bulletin (BRQ) of the Gendarmerie dated 04/09/2024 with the subject: criminal activities, the name Batek Yebel Landry arrested following an investigation into the disappearance of Dame Ngo Yebel, went directly to the confession. The newly released Enam administration secretary claimed to have killed his mother after an argument in her home in the Damascus district of Yaoundé. The alleged murderer confessed to suffocating his mother. Once she died, he cut her with a hacksaw in his house. He then stored the parts of his body in 02 suitcases and was helped by his friend Lonti Junior, still on the run, to transport the said suitcases to Etoa-Meki. He threw the remains of his mother into a stream not far from the family residence. The alleged assassin also confessed to having killed his grandmother 3 months ago.

“Mama died in an accident”

Taken to safety in the home of a friend of their father, absent from Cameroon, his 16-year-old little sister is a first grader at Vogt college and his little brothers know that their mother died following an accident. It was their murderous brother who took the trouble to inform them, even though they were worried that their mother, who was the only one looking after them in their home in the Odza district, had disappeared since Saturday. “He told his little sister that their mother died in an accident. And the last time he spoke to them was Sunday. On Monday, he would have visited Odza’s house, but his brothers and sisters were no longer there,” our source further informs.