Kimball Perry

The Cincinnati Enquirer

CINCINNATI — To his mother, Samuel Onyenweaku was God's gift who took care of her as she aged.

To a 92-year-old victim, though, the nurse's aide was the devil, raping her as she lay helpless in a Deer Park nursing home in the final days of her life.

Rachael Onyenweaku told Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Melba Marsh, who sentenced Samuel Onyenweaku to 11 years in prison Monday, that her son was a "gift from God." After she gave birth to her first child, doctors told Rachel Onyenweaku she could have no more children. She prayed, though, and was rewarded with Samuel who promised to take her out of the poverty they lived in in Nigeria.

"He is my life, my heart," his mother said. "My son is a good boy."

After coming to the U.S., Samuel Onyenweaku worked several jobs, one of which was as a nurse's aide at Deer Park's Amber Park Nursing Home, while also studying nursing. He was at the nursing home Nov. 24 when the woman — a former teacher in the advanced stages of dementia — was raped.

Onyenweaku, 22, of West Chester, insists he didn't do it, and testified to that in a bench trail before Marsh. He also was hurt, he told investigators, that no one believed him.

His supervisor, though, walked into the woman's room that day to find her naked from the neck down, her gown pushed up, her vagina bleeding. The supervisor also saw Onyenweaku's pants, underwear and shoes at her bed and a naked Onyenweaku locked in the victim's bathroom. His semen was found in the victim's vagina and other parts of her body.

"I believe he selected this particular victim," Assistant Prosecutor Anita Vizedom said, "based on her condition. She wouldn't be able to tell anyone what happened. She wouldn't be able to fight back."

Deer Park Police Chief Michael Schlie was so upset that he came to court Monday to ask the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence of 11 years on Onyenweaku.

"This case undoubtedly is going to stick with me the rest of my career," Schlie said. "Hopefully, the federal government will deport him afterward."

Onyenweaku didn't talk at his sentencing, but told investigators after his conviction, that he masturbated while wearing a latex glove he later used to examine the woman, his explanation for why his body fluids were found inside the woman.

Vizedom also believes Onyenweaku did the same thing to the elderly woman twice before based on the woman's instances of vaginal bleeding, something that only happened when Onyenweaku cared for her.

After the rape, the victim was taken to the hospital but released to hospice where she died weeks later.

In addition to serving the 11 years in prison, Onyenweaku also has to report as a sex offender for the rest of his life.