Sylvester Ofori, a self-styled prophet and the former leader of Floodgates of Heaven International Ministries in Orlando, Florida, who fatally shot his estranged wife in 2020, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for first-degree murder.
The Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office said Thursday nearly a dozen people testified in court against Ofori, 39, in the shooting death of his late wife, Barbara Tommey, on Sept. 8, 2020. Ofori also received a minimum mandatory 25 years to life sentence for using a firearm.
Police say Ofori, who had more than 60,000 followers on his now disabled social media, attacked Tommey, 27, just before 9 a.m. near the front door of her workplace at the Navy Federal Credit Union on the 4600 block of Gardens Park Boulevard.
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Witnesses cited in an affidavit told detectives that Ofori was holding a gun and was following his wife as she walked toward the credit union. She knocked on the doors to get someone to let her in, but Ofori shot her once, and she collapsed a few feet away from her husband.
Ofori allegedly then walked over to her and shot her a few more times in the head. He then walked back to his rented Dodge Journey and drove away “as though nothing happened.” His wife was pronounced dead at Orlando Regional Medical Center later that morning.
Tommey’s sister recorded a fight between the estranged pair just a day earlier in which he promised to kill his wife, detectives confirmed.
“Can I promise you something? If I don’t kill your sister, then I am fake,” Ofori told his brother-in-law in a video posted on Facebook.
In the video, Tommey’s brother encouraged his sister to call the police and press charges for the threat her husband made against her life, but she brushed him off.
“You don’t play with threats like this. I’m calling the cops,” Tommey’s brother warned her.
“This is only going to escalate [if you call the cops],” Tommey told her brother.
“It should escalate. He is threatening you in front of me,” her brother, who appeared bigger and stronger than her husband, shot back.
“He said he is going to kill you. What are you waiting for?” he pleaded.
Tommey’s brother joined employees of the credit union and customers who witnessed the murder while waiting outside for the business to open in testifying against Ofori for the state.
On its website, Floodgates of Heaven International Ministries described Ofori, born in Accra, Ghana, as “a powerful internationally known prophet of the Most High God.”
“Prophet Ofori accepted God’s sovereign commission for his life at an early age. He attributes his zeal for God to his parents, who instilled the fear of the Lord in the hearts of all five of their children,” it said. “He and his three brothers are highly sought after crusade and revival speakers.”
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