The suspect after he was apprehended
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He meant everything to her. She demonstrated this in her actions and utterances because she lived and laboured for him. Her world apparently revolved around Victor.
But like the saying goes, you only know those you love, you don't with all certainty know those that love you.
That was the story of Ngozi. Convinced that she had found her Mr Right she probably became blind to any observation from a third party on the relationship when it contrasted with her feeling and understanding of what she was into..
In economic terms, she played the role of a man in the relationship. She sold vegetable for a lady at a spot styled Fruit Market on Kaduna Street in Port Harcourt to eke out a living.
Nobody could really say how she met her lover but Ngozi rented a small apartment, not the size of a standard one-room, on Ogbunabali area of Port Harcourt. The apartment was probably what her meagre take home from hawking vegetable for her employee at the Fruit Market could afford.
Her lover allegedly painted the picture of a homeless young man before her. So she accepted his plea to live with her in the poorly ventilated and lighted room.
While Ngozi would wake up in the morning and head straight to her vegetable business, neighbours around said Victor would hang around the compound till noon time and then take a stroll out to no specific place only to come back in the evening when Ngozi would have been back. Ngozi on her way back would buy some food items for meals at home.
They would eat and sleep off. It became the routine neighbours were aware off.
On May 27 this year, the story changed. They both came in that Thursday evening.
According to Victor she prepared food, they ate after which "I had marathon sex with her". Later she slept off. He said in the midnight he stealthily opened the door to get a rod and came back in.
The rod on his right hand, he looked at her cheerful face on the bed and the thought of killing her flooded his mind. He said he raised the rod to hit her but suddenly as if she had a sign, she shifted on the bed, apparently to change her sleeping position.
This caused him to wait a while to thoroughly observe if she was awake. Satisfied that she was in deep sleep, her lover said he raised the rod and brought it down very hard on her head.
From her sleep, the girl screamed "Jesus". And quickly he went for her neck, the intention being to complete the job by strangling her with one of her clothes lying on the floor. He said he applied his weight on a pillow he had already used to cover her nose and mouth.
And gradually his lover gave up the ghost. After killing her, he remained with the corpse in the room till morning when he was sure the main gate in the compound would have been opened.
Quietly, he locked the door and sneaked away. A day after, being the 29 while the nation was marking its democracy day, he resurfaced in the compound this time with a taxi driver.
He went to the room, forced the remains of his deceased lover into a waste bin but he had difficulty in doing this because of rigor mortis had set in. He had to rush out to get a big bag and forced the corpse into it.
And assisted by the taxi driver they deposited it in the boot of the car. It is not clear if the taxi driver knew what was in the bag. Together they drove to a burrow pit on Ada George area to dump it.
Before he left with the big bag neighbours were already getting suspicious that something fishy was going on. When they asked him of his girl he said she was on admission at the state owned Braithwaite Memorial Hospital.
One of the neighbours told the Vanguard Metro that when he zoomed off with the taxi he quickly ran to the female ward at BMH to verify if she was truly admitted there. He said he combed the hospital for her but could not find her. So when he came back he told his other neighbours about his suspicion.
They had to peep through the window into her room and what they saw on the floor rattled them. "There was blood everwhere. And quickly we concluded that he had killed the girl," he said.
Meantime, after disposing the corpse, Victor came back to clean up the room. As he stepped into the apartment the neighbours again demanded to know the whereabouts of his girl friend.
This time he sensed that they were becoming suspicious and he took to his heels. Already the landlord of the compound had been alerted on phone about the development.
And he had instructed that the neighbours should hold him pending when he returned from his business place. Like a wounded lion, Victor ran for his life. At a point he shook off those chasing him.
The landlord who does not want his name in print said when he got to a junction close to his house he saw some of those he asked to hold the suspect. They told him that Victor had escaped. While they were still rubbing minds on what next to do he said Victor was sighted some metres away running towards their direction.
Under his instruction they all ducked behind his car And as the Victor ran close to the spot they pounced on him. Some security men around the traffic light stepped in immediately, threatening to shoot Victor after he confessed to the murder. He told the gathering there that he did not regret his action.
When asked why he killed the girl, he told the crowd that it was because his late lover was always buying cheap clothes for him with her money.
The clothes, according to him, made him appear shabby before her whenever they went to church on Sundays.
He said he would have fled after killing her but he had to come back to dispose of the corpse because he did not want the family of the deceased girl to perform any ritual on it that would make her ghost to start haunting him.
He later led the crowd to the burrow pit where he dumped the corpse. Those around had to exhume the corpse which was already fast decomposing.
It is not clear how the case is being handled at press time but Vanguard Metro gathered that Victor was in prison custody. Nobody could say if he was being tried or if he was remanded in custody on account of his confession.
Meanwhile, some people who spoke to the Vanguard Metro on the incident said they alerted rights groups in the state when it happened but they were disappointed by their lack of response.
"They did not show any interest probably because there was no donor agency fund for such. This is why I disagree with most of them when they say they are fighting for the people because they only come out when they have donor agency funds on an issue," one of them lamented to the Vanguard Metro.
From all indications, the yearnings of those familiar with the incident is that justice should be done on the matter. "It is possible the family of the deceased may not have the means to pursue justice on this matter but it should not be traded with," one of them said.
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