From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Suspected armed bandits, kidnappers and serial killers who were nabbed and brought to Benue State have said that kidnapped victims often die in captivity as a result of the trauma they go through in their abductors’ den.
Suspected criminals who were apprehended in Osun State and brought to Benue State recently led police operatives to abandoned wells and shallow graves where they had buried some of their victims.
In a press statement on Thursday, the Benue State Police Command disclosed that the suspects confessed that although some of their victims were killed because their families could not pay the ransoms demanded, others died due to the trauma they go through while in captivity.
The press statement, which was signed by the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Catherine Anene, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), added that: “Suspects confessed that some of the victims died due to inability to survive the trauma of being held hostage while others were killed for not paying the required ransom.’
Anene, who recalled that the Command, acting on intelligence about a 10-man gang of kidnapping suspects who escaped from Sankara axis of Benue State, had sent police detective who trailed and arrested eight of the suspects in Osun State and brought them back to Benue for further investigation.
‘On 10th May 2021 at about 1000hrs, these suspects opted to lead police detectives to Tavachan forest, Mbamon, Kastina-Ala Local Government Area where they buried their slain victims. Upon arrival at the scene, a deep well and a shallow grave were found in the forest with decomposed corpses of their victims,’ she stated.
The police spokesperson further disclosed that two of the suspects also confessed to having killed and buried their own wives for attempting to expose them.
She further revealed that four corpses were exhumed for autopsy, as an investigation is ongoing to enable the arrest of other suspects still at large, and to unravel more facts about the case.