by Reuben Daba

The circumstances surrounding the death last weekend of Mrs. Grace Nwangwu, an eight-month-old pregnant woman, who was killed  in Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State remains hazy. Reports say the woman was killed while trying to steal some food crops in a farm near her house at midnight. Strange indeed!

As her husband, Mgbebu Nwangwu narrates it, his wife was sleeping on the same bed with him, till around midnight when she left supposedly to ease herself outside but reportedly went instead to a farm at Igbudu Community to harvest some food crops and was killed by her assailant.

“My wife got up around 12  midnight and left the house,” he said. “She said she was going to ease herself. As she did not come back after some time, I became panicky and went looking for her but to no avail. For the fact that she was nearing delivery, I increased my search.

“I took a short cut and it paid off. The footpath shortened my search as I suddenly met the lifeless corpse of my wife, lying face down on the ground with the pregnancy.

“When I saw the lifeless body of my wife I raised an alarm which attracted other villagers to the scene; who then alerted the police before we made a random search for her killer. In the process, I learnt that the villagers traced spills of blood to a nearby cassava farm where it was suspected that she met her Waterloo,” said Nwangwu.

When the body of the deceased was discovered, it was lying face down. When it was later turned, a deep wound was discovered around her abdomen as the body was still oozing out blood.’

The Ebonyi State Police public relations officer, Deputy Superintendent Sylvester Igbo,  who confirmed the story, said that the police have commenced investigation into the murder.