The heinous act was discovered when relatives of the deceased––51-year-old Mary Ehinlaiye––came to pick her body for burial.
Chioma Igbokwe
It is traumatic for bereaved relatives to discover that the corpse of their deceased kin had been mutilated while lying in a hospital mortuary. This was the bitter experience of Oke Sunday and his wife who lost their one- and-half-year-old daughter only to be handed a corpse whose eyes had been removed six weeks later when they wanted the body for burial. As reported in Saturday Sun of September 29, 2018, mortuary attendants at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, where the drama of the absurd happened, claimed ignorance of the crime.
READ ALSO: Bizzare! Mortuary attendants remove eyes of dead child
Barely two months later, a similar incident is reenacted in Lagos. Presently, the Lagos State Police Command has arrested mortuary attendants of St. Raphael Divine Mercy Specialist Hospital at Ijede, Ikorodu and gravediggers at Sabo cemetery over the mutilation of a corpse.
The heinous act was discovered when relatives of the deceased––51-year-old Mary Ehinlaiye––came to pick her body for burial.
Weird saga
The family got an initial shock when all efforts to locate the body inside the morgue failed. The mortuary attendant on duty, after hours of trying to understand what happened, discovered that the corpse had been given to another family. Both families are from Edo State.
The family given the wrong corpse were said to have buried the body in a Lagos cemetery without confirming if it was indeed their late kin.
Mortuary attendants were able to get hold of the second family, had the body exhumed and handed over to the rightful family. But alas, upon a closer look, the corpse had been mutilated with body parts––including womb, eyes, and hands––reportedly removed.
Anthony Lawani, brother of the deceased, immediately reported the matter at the Area N Police Command.
Detectives working under the directives of the Area Commander, Mohammed Ahmadu, extended their investigation to the cemetery where the corpse was buried and also arrested attendants at the mortuary in an attempt not to leave any loose end.
Mortuary attendants at the hospital, Michael Olusegun and Olusesi Owamade were arrested alongside five gravediggers at Sabo cemetery in Ikorodu, identified as Razaki Abesopiti, Okeowo Kazeem, Babatunde Giwa, Ade Aliu and Musiliu Yakubu.
We’re shocked
Saturday Sun visited St. Raphael Divine Mercy Specialist Hospital and spoke with the administrator, Reverend Sister Hyacinth Mary, who expressed shock at the news, but affirmed that they are still awaiting the outcome of police investigation.
“We are still in shock over the matter but police have made some arrests and investigation is ongoing. I can only tell you that the police arrested some of our staff who work at the morgue. We are ready to give them all the support that they need because we want to know the truth,” she said. “At the end of the investigation, the church will formally come up with an official statement.”
One of the nurses who spoke with Saturday Sun claimed it took the timely intervention of the police to save the mortuary attendants from being lynched by the family of the deceased. According to her, the mortuary attendants denied any illegal activity, insisting that it could have happened at the cemetery after the burial.
“It was a terrible situation, the people hurriedly buried the woman without cross-checking. They claimed that it is against their custom to do so,” she said.
Our story
Pleading that he had no hands in the act, the supervisor of the mortuary, Michael Olusegun claimed that the corpse was intact when it was handed over to the wrong family. “I have worked in the hospital since 2012 and my record is there for you to crosscheck. We have never had such an incident and if I was involved, I will not last this long,” he stated.
His story: “I was in my office when my assistant Olusesi requested my approval to release a corpse. The routine is that the family will take a look at the corpse before it is handed over. Unfortunately, in this very case, the members of the (wrong) family were weeping and not interested in examining the entire body. That was why the error was not detected.
“Days later, another family came requesting for the same corpse. I quickly linked them up with the other family and we went to exhume the body. I was also shocked that it had been tampered with.”
Olusesi corroborated his supervisor’s claim that the entire body parts were complete before the corpse was handed over to the wrong family. “There were two women of the same height in our morgue. Normally, the family member is expected to check properly before signing. In this case, the man in tears just briefly looked at her face and said it was their sister.”
Gravedigger on the run
From the gravediggers came a collective denial but a unanimous indictment of one of their ilk currently at large.
One of the diggers Razaki Abesopiti however claimed the Sabo cemetery does not have good security, which makes it easy for anyone to stroll in and dig up a grave.
“We do not have good security here, we have just gatemen whose duty is to control the movement of people in and out of the cemetery during burial. Everyone goes to sleep at night because it takes the devil to dig up a grave.” And the devil, according to him, goes by the name Kola Anifowoshe, who is currently on the run.
“They have arrested him severally and charged him to court. After some months, they would release him and he comes back to Ikorodu. As soon as they release him, you will notice that some of the graves have been tampered with,” he said.
Police reaction
Area Commander Ahmadu confirmed the arrest of 10 persons in connection with the incident.
“We are screening them to be sure who and who participated in the act. The family are from Edo State, but their wife who is deceased was from the eastern part of the country,” he stated asserting that it is the responsibility of the police “to investigate and unravel what happened.”
Lagos State Commissioner of Police Imohimi Edgal paraded the suspects on November 20 at the State Command.
Edgal, summarizing the findings of the preliminary investigation, recounted how “Olusesi Owamade, a mortuary attendant with the approval of his supervisor, Michael Olusegun erroneously released the corpse to another family.”
To recover the corpse, the mortuary attendants contacted gravediggers at Sabo cemetery to exhume the corpse for onward handover to the rightful owner.
“At present, it is established that the suspects conspired among themselves and dismembered the body of the deceased by cutting off the two wrists and removing her eyes for a yet-to-be determined reason. Investigation is ongoing while an effort is on to arrest one of the gravediggers by name Anifowoshe currently at large,” he stated.
Edgal warned hospitals and owners of morgues in the state to be wary of the kind of people they employ to manage their facilities.