Missing Benue NSCDC officer found buried in shallow grave

Almost two years after she went missing, the decomposed corpse of a female officer with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Josephine Cynthia Inalegwu Onche has been found in a shallow grave in Obi Local Government Area of Benue State.

It was learnt that the deceased, an Assistant Superintendent of Corps (ASC11), was declared missing by her family on December 20, 2019, a few days to her wedding.

Cynthia Onche was said to have gone to the market to buy some wedding items when she disappeared.

It was learnt that all efforts to locate her by the family hit the rocks until an informant who allegedly saw how she was gruesomely murdered by her would-be husband for ritual purpose, informed her family about her discovery.

The information the informant produced assisted police detectives to nab her would-be husband and an herbalist who was fingered in the killing.

A close family source who pleaded anonymity said: “Cynthia, the daughter of the former Mayor of Otukpo was found but allegedly killed and buried by her proposed husband for ritual purpose.

“An Okada man who knew what happened to the late Cynthia Onche went to her family members and gave them the news. He led them to arrest her proposed husband who is an Igbo man who led the police to Ogun State where they arrested the native doctor, a Yoruba man who performed the ritual at Obi Local Government before he returned to the South West state.

“The proposed husband and the native doctor have both confessed to committing the crime and are presently in police custody in Otukpo,” the source added.

It is said that the corpse of the deceased which had been exhumed, was buried Tuesday.

Efforts to get the reaction of the state Command’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Catherine Anene failed, just as her counterpart, the State Command’s Public Relations Officer (CPRO), NSCDC, ASC Ejelikwu Michael, also declined comments on the matter, but another source said “the report is true”.

(New Telegraph)