The family says she did not commit suicide, while her husband told the police his wife was insane
NONE of Mrs. Elizabeth Andrew’s brothers and sisters believes she committed suicide by hanging as the photographs could have suggested.
They think there are reasons to strongly suspect foul play in the death of their sister and are asking the police to look into the matter and do what is right so that the murderer will face justice.
One of Mrs. Elizabeth Andrew’s brothers, Johnny Okechukwu Ezurike, a native of Ahaba Oloko in Abia State, told The Guardian the circumstances surrounding her death were hazy and required investigations.
His late sister, he said, was working at the Ministry of Defence in Ikoyi, Lagos, when she met and married Mr. Andrew Chinedu, who hails from Isiala Ngwa, also in Abia State.
“That was three years ago and all through that period, it was a turbulent and very unhappy marriage for my sister.
“There were frequent, violent confrontations during which her husband would beat my sister mercilessly.
“Hardly would a day go by without his beating her up and she would run to my house, with bruises all over her body, for safety.
“As an employee of the Defence Ministry, she lived in the official quarters and her husband was living with her.
“A time came and the authorities warned her not to live in the quarters with her and she pleaded with him that they should move out, but he refused.
“Due to this, my sister was dismissed from the ministry without any benefits after 19 years of service.
“At last, they looked for and got an alternative accommodation in the Isheri-Ikotun area but the beating continued.
“On July 1, 2011, following another beating from her husband, my sister again, ran to my apartment.
“Later, I called Chinedu Andrew and asked him to bring some dresses so she could change the dresses she came in with.
“On Sunday, July 3, I went for a family meeting and my sister’s husband came and she left with him.
She called to tell me she was going back with him and I warned her not to go, but she refused.
“She said what she had in her shop would go bad if she did not go back.
“I warned her that the information we were getting about her husband was not good, how his first wife died without any explanation as to why, but she would not listen.”
Now in tears, Ezurike continued: “She went back on Sunday and on Wednesday, her husband called very late in the night that he went out to the market and came back, only for my sister to lock him outside.
He wanted me to come to their house that night but I refused.
“I told him I could not leave my family that late in the night and that he should go inside but he said unless I came that night, he would not go in.
He called me again the following morning and when I asked where he slept, he said in the corridor.
“I hung up but he kept calling me until in the evening.
“ I asked him that I hoped he did not do any wrong since he was scared of his house and his wife.”
Unable to hold back the avalanche of tears, Ezurike said Chinedu Andrew told him he climbed the roof of his house and saw that his wife had hanged herself with a rope.
“I was shocked and immediately called my relations to go see what was going on, only for me to learn that he had called them all earlier.
“I was surprised, because he had never visited nor seen any of them since after the marriage.
“When we got there, we asked him to open the door but he refused, unless the police were called.
“We met two people and he identified them as his brother and neighbour though he had always claimed he had no siblings, or relations in Lagos and claimed he lived in Amukoko before he met my sister.”
“When he would not budge, we called the police at Isheri and the police photographer we went with kicked the door and it opened.
“What we saw was unbelievable.
“ My sister’s lifeless body was hanging by the window, stark naked.
“One of her legs was on the ground, the other on a chair and her two hands resting on a huge plastic container in the room.
“Blood was coming out from her ears and there were marks like bruises on her head and legs.
“Her genital organ had been shaved and she was wearing a wig.
“The police man with us asked him why her artery was cut, and he said it was when she was struggling for life.”
The grieving brother said after Chinedu Andrew’s arrest, by the Isheri Police, he was transferred to State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) Panti, Yaba.
“But since then, we do not know what has happened to Chinedu Andrew, whether he is still in detention or not and the answers to the many questions about the death of my sister.
“Till now, whether her body is still in the morgue or not, I cannot say.
“We are begging the police to help us get justice because the posture we saw my sister was not that of someone who committed suicide by hanging.
“In his statement to the police, he lied that my sister was mad, and that she had high blood pressure.
“Till now, we have not heard anything about the autopsy. When I got to the General Hospital Ikeja, they brought out an unrecongnised body with Number 1362, and asked me to go ahead and bury it but I refused.
“One, I was not sure it was my sister’s and second, in our culture, it is the husband’s duty to claim the body and bury his wife.”
He is appealing to the police not to let the matter die without being properly investigated and the result known.
“My sister is dead, but we should, at least, be satisfied that anybody who killed her and made it look like suicide by hanging is not walking about a free man
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