Police Arrest A Vice-principal Over Mother’s Death

A-64-old retired secondary school vice principal, Chief Chimezie Osigweh, has been arrested for allegedly killing his mother, Mrs. Lucy Osigweh, whose body was found in a cupboard in his room at Ejemekwuru Alaoma community in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State.
The suspect was arrested yesterday in his house by a team of police after a tip off. Mrs. Osigweh, 78, was declared missing in 2003.
Her body was found in a large cupboard inside her son’s private room in a circumstance depicting ritual practice. When the body was found, it was discovered to have been embalmed by the suspect, who is strongly believed to be a member of a secret cult.
According to the police preliminary assessment of the scene, the woman may have been murdered...
for ritual purpose.
Addressing journalists, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mohammed Musa Katsina, disclosed that the body of Mrs. Osigweh was found in a wardrobe in a room where members of the secret cult usually hold nocturnal meetings.
Katsina, however, said the woman’s dried body would be taken to the laboratory for autopsy to determine the cause of her death.
He said: “We are going to determine the cause of death before prosecution. We are holding the suspect for first degree murder. The police will also go to court to get warrant to excavate the man’s room because it is suspected that more bodies could still be found there.”
But the suspect claimed that his mother was not dead, saying: “She is only transcending. My mother is not dead.”
Explaining how the woman died, he said: “In 2003 when my mother went out to answer nature’s call around 1:am while I was mediating, I heard a loud crash and I rushed out to see what has happened only to discover that she hit her head on an object and died.
“I decided to preserve her body through the help of a doctor and placed her in the room and later in the cupboard.”
However, the late Mrs. Osigweh’s family and members of the community said that they were shocked to have discovered that the woman was dead and kept in a cupboard by her son. The deceased’s younger brother, Onima Macedonia, said: “We don’t know that my sister is dead because we have been asking her son of his mother’s whereabouts for the past years, he would tell us that she travelled.”
A resident, Mr. Chukwukere Amadi, said: “We did not suspect him because he is a native of this community, but nobody comes to his compound and when you ask him of his mother’s whereabouts, he would say she travelled abroad.
We are aware that he is a member of a secret cult, that is why he did not want to get close to the people.”