Two murder suspects who were paraded today by the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, Echezona Nwabufor, 33, and Ezekiel Nnechuwu Olisa Eloka, 23, have narrated how they drugged the daughter of a retired General, Miss Cynthia Akuzogwu Udoka, 25, and strangled her in order to steal her money.
One of the suspects, Eloka, said they killed Cynthia because they thought she had a lot of money in her possession. But after the dastardly act, they did not find a reasonable amount of money on her.
Covering their faces: The twi suspected killers of Cynthia, a retired General’s daughter, paraded today in Lagos. Photo: Oluwasanmi Joseph.
According to the suspects, “we met her on the facebook on our Blackberry. We invited her to come to Lagos to buy goods at cheap prices.
“When she got to Lagos, we took her to a hotel in Festac. We thought she had a lot of money, but she said she didn’t have any money. We gave her Reflon tablet in her Ribena drink. After this, we slept with her for 12 hours in that hotel. We discovered that the tablet did not work quickly on her.
“We then attacked her, tied her up and used cellotape to cover her mouth. After that, we beat her to tell us where she kept the money.
“When we didn’t get any money from her, we tied her mouth and strangled her and then we abandoned her in the hotel and fled.”
The suspects and the General’s daughter became friends on Facebook and were exchanging messages and phone calls.
She told them she was coming to Lagos. They met her at Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja from where they ushered her into a hotel in Festac town, Lagos.
Briefing journalists on how policemen were able to arrest the suspects, Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Umar Abubakar Manko, said detectives made use of the close circuit television, CCTV, at the hotel where the crime was committed to identify them.
The late Miss Cynthia Akuzogwu Udoka
The Area Commander, Area ‘E’ Police Command, ACP Okoro added that the suspects who are undergraduates of Nigerian universities were nabbed through the call logs of the telephone conversations they had with the late Cynthia who was a post graduate student of Nasarawa State University.
When the suspected killers strangled Cynthia, they deposited her corpse at the mortuary of Isolo General Hospital in Lagos.
ACP Okoro stated that many ATM cards, about 23 SIM cards, different identity cards were recovered from the suspects.
Police sources said the two suspects will soon be arraigned in court to answer a charge of murder.
Meanwhile, the late Cynthia’s best friend, Aishatu Ene Ella, has paid a glowing tribute to the deceased.
She said: “In the last few days, I have seen my heart torn, stripped and broken into pieces, first by the disappearance and death of my dearest friend and secondly by the wickedness exhibited by Nigerians passing judgement on someone they never knew or met.”