According to reports, suspected ritualists have gruesomely murdered and dismembered a 32-year-old woman named Dorcas Shangev in Adem village, near the Welfare Quarters area of Makurdi, Benue state capital.
Tragically, she met her untimely end on her own birthday. Her lifeless and dismembered body was discovered in Adem village after being missing for about a week.
A family source of the deceased who relayed the events leading to her disappearance and death, disclosed that the incident was already generating controversy as her family had started questioning the manner her remains were recovered and buried by the authorities.
“We gathered that on Friday, July 14, 2023 Dorcas escorted a friend of hers to the burial of her brother in-law. They returned back to Makurdi on Saturday after the burial. When they returned, she didn’t go back home but slept at her friend’s house around the modern market area.
However, when she didn’t call back as arranged, the friend called to find out why she hadn’t called, but she didn’t pick her calls. The friend kept calling the whole of Sunday and continued till Monday, but she still didn’t pick the phone.
On Monday, the friend got a message that was sent from the lady’s (deceased) phone, but later on realised that she may not have been the one that actually sent the message, asking her to come to a certain address and when her friend got to the place, she discovered that she was dead and dismembered and some of her body parts scattered all over the place.
While in a state of shock she called her husband to the scene and the husband in turn called the police and it was discovered that her eyes, ears, tongue, breasts among other body parts were removed and taken away by whoever may have perpetrated the act.
When the Police saw that the corpse had started to decompose, they called in one of the Benue State Environmental Sanitation Agency, BENSESA, which came, gathered the body parts into a plastic bag, and buried her. This deceased lady had been through a lot in recent times. She had gone through one trauma and another. Only recently, she lost her elder sister.”
“We didn’t recover the body. The police at ‘B’ Division wrote to us that they have discovered an unknown corpse at Adem village, near Welfare Quarters. It was based on the report that they (Police) said we should evacuate the body for burial and that was what we did. We didn’t contact anyone because how do we know the family. But the family came to my office this (Monday) morning and I directed them to go back to the police from where we got the story of the unclaimed corpse. We were working based on the report from the police.” he said
Also confirming the incident, the spokesperson of the command, SP, Catherine Anene, said the police are currently carrying out a detailed investigation into the incident.
Confirming the incident, the acting General Manager of BENSESA, Martin Tseuma, said the agency buried the lady on the directives of the police.
