Mr James Aiyepeku, father of 26-year-old photojournalist Ayo Aiyepeku, who was gruesomely murdered in Lokoja, Kogi State  has died, just days after collapsing in the wake of his son’s killing.

Family sources confirmed the sad news on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, describing James’s passing as “grief too heavy to bear.”

It will be recalled that Ayo, an indigene of Ekinrin Adde in Ijumu Local Government Area, was allegedly lured to his death by a correctional service officer, Adebayo Pelumi. Pelumi fled with the young journalist’s body, sparking a frantic manhunt across Lokoja.

The search took a darker turn when Pelumi himself was found dead in a hotel room, with a bottle of suspected poison and a handwritten note.

Days later, Ayo’s decomposing remains were discovered in a bush along the outskirts of the Crusher axis in Lokoja. 

Before his own passing, a visibly broken James had spoken to journalists, demanding justice for his son. His voice, heavy with pain, now echoes as a posthumous plea for accountability in a case that has shocked Kogi State and beyond.

The twin tragedies have left the community of Ekinrin Adde in mourning not just for the loss of a promising storyteller whose lens captured the world, but also for a father whose heart could not survive the shattering silence his son left behind.