Man convicted of killing elderly woman called 'monster'

For more than a decade after the 1999 brutal killing of Helen Klocek, her family did not know who killed the 84-year-old Plymouth Township woman or why.

The answer to who came last month when a jury convicted Nosakhare Onumonu of Klocek's murder, 16 years after it happened. But at his sentencing today, Klocek's family said they still don't know why she was killed.

"You could have let her go," Klocek's daughter, Barbara, said while giving a victim impact statement on behalf of her family in a Detroit courtroom. "Instead, you severely beat and strangled her until she died and dumped her body in an alley. No one deserves that."

She called Onumonu a "monster" and said he should be in prison for the rest of his life.

Then Wayne County Circuit Judge Alexis Glendening sentenced Onumonu, 38, to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for Klocek's murder, saying it was a case of "wanton brutality."

The body of Klocek, a widowed mother of two, grandmother and great-grandmother, who loved life and her family, was discovered March 2, 1999, in an alley behind a church on Joy Road on Detroit's west side.

She died of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head and neck, the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office ruled.

Onumonu maintains his innocence in the case and had family members in court, who support him.

Onumonu has filed a motion asking for a new trial and spoke during his sentencing in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.

"It's hard for me to show any kind of remorse for something that I didn't do," he said. "I'm being framed."

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Mike Reynolds said there was "no framing" and the evidence they had was presented.

"We would not be here … if it weren't for karma," he said.

If Onumonu just stole Klocek's purse— for the $20 she probably had it in— he most likely would have avoided prosecution and Klocek could have lived out her life, Reynolds said.

"By choosing to take Klocek's life 16 years ago, he has forfeited his freedom for the rest of his life." he said.

A witness in the case, who said she saw an elderly woman driving with a worried look on her face and a young man in the front passenger's seat— just blocks from where Klocek's body was found— and a Kevlar glove found in the backseat of Klocek's partially charred 1992 Ford Escort, which was abandoned more than 3 miles from her body, helped police tie the case together.

Onumonu's DNA was taken in 2011, while he was in prison after convictions on four other crimes, and matched DNA on the glove entered into a national database years earlier, officials have said.

Once the match came back, investigators discovered that Onumonu worked at a glass shop in Plymouth in 1999, less than 3 miles from the restaurant where Klocek ate the day of her death, said Detroit Police Detective Bruce Christnagel, the officer in charge of the case.

Employees at the shop used gloves like the one found in Klocek's car to handle sheets of glass in 1999, he said. Investigators also said Onumonu lived on Mettetal in Detroit, less than a mile from where Klocek's car was dumped.

A Wayne County jury convicted him of first-degree murder and felony murder last month.

The case was circumstantial and testimony of the witness, who said she saw the defendant in the car, left “more than reasonable doubt,” Onumonu’s attorney, Mark Procida, said after sentencing.

“I respect the jury system … I respect the tough job that it is,” he said. “I just think they got it wrong this time.”

He has said his client will appeal.

Meanwhile, Klocek's family said Onumonu stole their joy when he took the life of the elderly woman, who stood just 4-feet, 5-inches tall.

"Our grief is still ongoing," Barbara said today. "Life is not, and will never be, the same."

Contact Elisha Anderson: eanderson@freepress.com or 313-222-5144. Follow on Twitter @elishaanderson