Mum’s embalmed body found in son’s wardrobe…

The village of Ezuru Umuagwu in Ejemekwuru community in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State was yesterday thrown into uproar and disbelief when the police brought out the embalmed body of 78-year-old Mrs. Lucy Osigwe, assumed to have been missing for the past 10 years from the wardrobe of his son, Dr. Chimezie Osigwe, a retired school principal. Dr. Chimezie, 64, who claimed to be a member of Sat Guru Maharaji religious sect, had hidden the body in a wardrobe in a room used as his shrine, told newsmen after his arrest by the police that the body was the embalmed staff of the General Hospitals in the state, who he also claimed, died afterwards.

Narrating how his mother died, the frail-looking Osigwe said, “that evening, sometime in 2003, I was meditating in my ‘Temple’ when my mother came in to ease herself. Suddenly I heard a big noise.

I went in and found her groaning, I took her to her room and laid her on the bed before she passed on. “But you see she is still here but I can’t tell you why she is here 10 years after because the enemies of Guru Maharaji are all over here I will talk to you people in camera, I have been a devotee of the Maharaji sect in the last 24 years and have also attained high spiritual level. So, I won’t like to speak in the public as doing so will send an erroneous impression of the sect”.

Briefing newsmen at the scene of the crime which was earlier cordoned off by stern-looking policemen, the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Muhammad Musa Katsina, said that the bizarre scene was uncovered by the Ambush Squad attached to the command after a tip-off.

He said that the house serves as a meeting point for ritualists who converge there to perpetrate atrocities. “We have information about the large number of devotees that patronize the shrine, which will help us identify those behind the heinous act”, he noted.

Meanwhile, a reliable police source who doesn’t want to be named, narrated how the son of the suspect whose identity is withheld for security reasons, made the startling revelation. According to him, the 22-year old boy who ventured into his father’s secret room in search of his credentials, opened a large wardrobe, which was securely locked and got the shock of his life when he found the mummified body of his grandmother, who they thought had been missing.

But for the heavy presence of the armed policemen, youths of the community would have lynched the suspect over what they described as the heinous crime. Celestine Agwu, a member of the community, told Naija Talk that the people were shocked to their marrow when the policemen brought the body of mother of Osigwe, who had told his kinsmen that the mother had travelled overseas to be with his other children.

He said, if it was not for the presence of the police, youths of the community would have lynched him.