Fifty-six-year-old indigene of Rivers State, Mr Chijoku Ihunwo, shares his pain and frustration with CHUKWUDI AKASIKE over the disappearance of his wife’s corpse from a mortuary a few weeks after depositing it there
When did your wife die?
She died on the 6th of May 2025.
When did you take her remains to the mortuary?
I took her body to the mortuary on that same day. It was deposited in Pamax Hospital Mortuary. It is located in Omagwa in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State.
How much did you pay as a deposit to those managing the place?
When we took my wife’s remains to the place, the secretary was not around. They called the owner of the mortuary. So, it was the owner of the mortuary who registered me. They told me that embalming was N70,000, but I paid N50,000 that day.
What happened thereafter?
My wife and I were very close while she was alive. So, each time I went to the mortuary, my relatives noticed that I was always crying. I was later told not to go to the mortuary again. I started sending my children to the place.
On the 6th of June or thereabout, I made another payment of N25,000. I didn’t have enough money for the burial. That was why I was paying the mortuary cost in instalments. So, my children had been visiting the mortuary every month.
I remember that when they went there in August, they saw my wife’s corpse. In September, they (my children) did not go there. On October 8, 2025, my children went to the mortuary again to check the condition of the body. They were told that they were treating her body.
So, when they (my children) called to tell me the situation, I told them that I did not know how those working in the mortuary preserved corpses because I never worked there before. On that day, they made another payment of N30,000.
What date was your wife supposed to be buried?
My wife was to be buried on December 13, 2025. We fixed the date in November. After fixing the burial date, I told my children and other relatives to go to the mortuary to calculate how much we would pay as balance.
When they got to the mortuary, they called me to say that my wife’s corpse was nowhere to be found. I was shocked, but I asked them if they were joking. They said they were not joking. My children entered the mortuary again and checked; they called me again to say that they did not see my wife’s body.
I told them that I would come down to look for it. I took permission from my office and went to the mortuary. Immediately I got there, I met the owner of the facility. I said, ‘Madam, I handed over my wife’s body to you for preservation pending when she would be buried, but we cannot find her body.’
She told me to give her my tally. I gave her the tally, and she said my wife must be inside the mortuary. Yes, that was what she told me. I told her to go and bring out the body. She, alongside the mortician, went into the mortuary.
It wasn’t up to three minutes after they entered that the mortician ran out through the back door, scaled the fence, and disappeared.
What about the owner of the facility?
She later came out and asked for the whereabouts of the mortician. We told her that he ran away through the back door. She called the mortician on the phone, but he did not respond. I told myself that this was becoming too much, and I immediately went to report the matter at the Omagwa Police Station.
Credit: Punch
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