ALLEGED Port Harcourt serial killer, Gracious David West, has admitted to the murder of five women during a parade by the State Commissioner of Police, Mustapha Dandaura, on Friday.
West, 26 was on Thursday apprehended by the police in Portharcourt along East-West Road enroute to Uyo .
Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer, Omoni Nnamdi confirmed to The ICIR that the suspect has claimed responsibility for five out of about nine recent killings in the state capital.
He further revealed that the police have other suspects in custody who are going to be subsequently paraded the following week while investigations continue.
READ ALSO:
- NGO recommends how to reform FSARS, suggests alternative police unit
- Again, Nigeria approaches World Bank for $2.5b loan to address power sector
- One day after it took off, Reps ask CBN to suspend charges on deposits
- 27 days after rejecting her resignation, Buhari removes Oyo-Ita as head of civil service
- Labour unions, CSOs move to stop import of ‘stolen’ natural resources from Morocco
- Premium Times editor under threat over report on arrested female journalist
Asked if there is any connection between the paraded suspect and the ones in custody, Omoni said, “There’s no connection now but at the end of the day we’ll be able to bring them side by side because we got this one (David West) yesterday. After parading others we’ll be able to confirm from them if they know each other.”
The State Police Commissioner, Mustapha Dandaura stated that the police recovered another corpse along Peter Odili road, Port Harcourt who he said was discovered to be one of the victims of the suspect but the hotel conspired to drop the corpse by the road side so as to avoid police investigation.
According to PM News,West revealed he has an uncontrollable urge to kill women and that he has approached a church to heal him spiritually but to no avail.
He also said he did not kill all of the women he has slept with and after killings he regrets his action but still does it again. West further admitted to have started his killings from Ikeja, Lagos State before moving to Imo State and now Port Harcourt.
“Before I strangulated them after love-making, I would use knife to cut the hotel bed sheets into a semblance of a twine or rope which I used to bind their hands and feet,” he was quoted to have said.
“I used the knife also to threaten them. The kitchen knife was sold to me by an aboki. I threatened that if my victims raised alarm I would kill them with the knife. Out of fear, they would keep quiet while I raised the volume of the television set in the hotel room to dwarf any noise. I never killed with the knife.”
West also confessed that he slept in hotel rooms because he does not have a home. The police questioned him on his means of survival and he replied, “After strangulating them, I would steal their ATM cards, empty their accounts from any nearby ATM machine and move on.”
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94