Blessing Okorite, Port Harcourt
The dead body of an online businesswoman, identified as Precious Steve, was found, over the weekend, at Odili Road in Abuloma Town, in the Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Deborah Ogolo, a Port Harcourt-based journalist told The Nigerian Xpress in Port Harcourt that the victim, who was her university coursemate, was murdered when she went to deliver products ordered by yet-to-be identified killer.
Ogolo disclosed that the victim, a single mother of three children and a native of Edo State by paternal birth, studied Mass Communication at the Rivers State University between 2006-2011.
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“Precious is into online business, so a supposed client called her to bring products for him at Abuloma. But before she left her house, she informed people around her that she was going to make the supply.
“Five days after she left for the supply, her dead body was found along the Odili Road in Abuloma.”
Before now, it was reports on strangulation of sex workers by their customers, who picked them up from different brothels in the town but the latest incident involving a businesswoman is suggestive of a suspected serial killer, killing young ladies for ritual purposes or for fun.
The Nigerian Xpress gathered that Precious is the fifth female killed in this manner between May and September 6, 2019 in Port Harcourt.
Aside from the five women strangulated in the past five months in Port Harcourt, on Friday morning September 13, 2019, a young girl was also found dead in a hotel at Omoku, headquarters of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of the state.
It was learnt that the victim, suspected to be a sex worker in the area, was found dead in LA Steph Hotel in Omoku.
A source from Omoku disclosed that a kitchen knife was found in her hand bag in the hotel room where she was suspected to have lodged with her client, who is suspected to have killed her.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, also told our correspondent that the police authority in the LGA has deposited her body to the General Hospital, Omoku.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Police Command has declared war on the yet to be identified serial killer of women in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The State’s Deputy Commissioner of Police in Charge of Administration, DCP Chuks Enweonwu, disclosed this on Friday while addressing women protesters under the orgies of ‘Rivers Females’ who protested to the Command Headquarters on Moscow Road over the incessant killing of young ladies in the state capital.
The women, with their placards, lamented that the serial killer no longer targets sex workers in the streets but has advance dto killing women, who are out there in the city doing businesses to support their families.
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Leader of the protesters, Miss Soibi Jack, urged the state Commissioner of Police to quickly intervene and stop the women killings.
She said: “Why we are here is because as young girls we are concerned about the serial killer on the streets of Rivers State. We want to go out and come back without fear that if we go out it might be the last time our parents will see us and somebody out there will take our lives. While we acknowledge that the police are doing what they could, we still need more effort from the police for the arrest of the serial killer. The police, after arresting the serial killer, should make sure he faces the full wrath of the law.”
Receiving the protest letter from the young women, Enweonwu, assured that the police would ensure that the serial killer is arrested. He disclosed that they had arrested some suspects, who are already making useful statements.
He further disclosed that the state police command had put in strategies to eliminate crime in the state and also in partnership with hoteliers to end the menace.
