JUN 30, 2019
Wife of Utah murder suspect says he once slashed her hand with a butcher's knife | Daily Mail Online
[...]
The estranged wife of Utah murder suspect Ayoola Ajayi says she was forced to flee their turbulent marriage when he slashed her with a butcher's knife and threatened to kidnap her.
[...]
He is still legally married to mother-of-four TJA, but the pair have not seen one another for years after she went into hiding and changed her cell phone because of his violent outbursts.
[...]
TJA, 35, insists she married Nigerian IT worker Ajayi, nicknamed AJ, for love rather than any form of financial or immigration arrangement.
They were introduced to one another in 2011 by a family friend and were married by June of that year.
[...]
'My kids liked him. He used to buy them clothes, do stuff for them. He paid for my apartment, my childcare, everything.
‘The wedding was in downtown Dallas. Nobody came but we didn’t invite nobody. Me and mom were into it at the time. He didn't invite any of his family either. His mama don’t speak English.'
[...]
Tenisha was already pregnant with the youngest of her two sons when she met Ajayi.
[...]
'AJ told me he was going back to his hometown in Utah and I didn't want to go with him. That made him angry but I have kids, I couldn't just leave Dallas,' she said.
‘He was telling me not to talk to anybody. He used to check up on me. He started to get more and more aggressive. Eventually he said he would kill me if I didn’t go to Utah.'
The last time Tenisha says she saw her estranged husband was at a friend's house in Dallas where he repeated his threat before trying to grab her.
'He tried to tie me up with a phone chord. When I went to run he blocked the door. I ended up jumping through a window and cutting my arm on the glass' she told DailyMail.com.
'He chased me into the street with a knife and and cut me in the hand. I didn't go to the police but I moved out of my apartment so he couldn’t find me.
'I kept telling him I don’t want to be with you, I want a divorce. He wouldn’t sign the papers. His friend from the Army kept calling me, saying they were going to kidnap me.
[...]
She never saw any evidence her estranged husband had violent sexual fantasies.
But, in fact, they never even consummated the marriage.
'I never had sex with him because I was kinda scared of him. Not once. When he drank he became aggressive,' she revealed.
[...]
The lasting legacy of their relationship is a permanently damaged tendon in her severed left hand, which she says has given her years of pain and left her unable to work.
'This is not the person I knew. He’s an alcoholic, I do know that. He smoked some weed. I think he lost his mind.
'There's no excuse for what he's done to that girl. He's had a lot of good jobs, he’s had opportunities in life.
[...]
'I knew he was dangerous but not this dangerous. I feel like he had to be on drugs, maybe PCP or something,' she added.