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Suspected Port Harcourt says killings started in Lagos

By Abisola Olasupo and Ann Godwin, Port-Harcourt
20 September 2019   |   2:51 pm
Suspected Port Harcourt serial killer Gracious David West has told the Nigerian police that he got money to fund his operation from his first victim in Lagos where he started killing. "I started the killing in Lagos, that was where I got money because the first girl had N52,000 in her account," West told the…

Suspected Port Harcourt serial killer Gracious David West has told the Nigerian police that he got money to fund his operation from his first victim in Lagos where he started killing.

“I started the killing in Lagos, that was where I got money because the first girl had N52,000 in her account,” West told the police.

“After that, I went to Port Harcourt, then Owerri. I returned to Port Harcourt. The last girl I killed I met her at the club.”

He confessed to killing five girls in Port Harcourt, seven in Owerri and three in Lagos.

West said he was on his way to Akwa-Ibom when he was arrested by operatives of the special anti-robbery squad, Bori in Rivers.

He said the urge of killing comes to him like hunger which leaves him with no other option than to carry out his action on his victims.

“When the urge comes, I move into a hotel, invite a girl after and after eating and making love, I will bring out a kitchen knife and threaten her not to shout,” West said.

26-year-old West, whom the police said is a cultist, was arrested on Wednesday on East-West Road en route to Uyo from Port Harcourt.

West said in a video the Nigerian police posted0 to its official Twitter handle he had transactional sex with a nameless victim. Hours later, the victim was killed.

He said he used pillowcases to tie a victim before she was allegedly killed in a hotel room in Rukpokwu, about 18 kilometers from Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital city.

Although the video did not contain West’s explicit admission of the crime, the Nigerian police, however, tagged the video “confession of a serial killer.”

“We went to the hotel,” West said in the confessional video. “I paid for the place. So they took her up [to the room].”

He said he ordered for food to be prepared for him and the victim after which they “slept,”, which seemed to be a euphemism for having sex.

The crime, he told the police, was committed in the early hours of the following morning.

“Around that 5:30 am – let’s say 4 or 5:30 – I brought out a knife and now threatened her.

“With that fear, she couldn’t shout. By then, the television…the volume was loud. So she kept quiet. After that, I used the wrapper to tie her hands at the back and then tie her legs.”

When asked by his interrogator, who was off the camera what sort wrapper he used, West said he did not use a wrapper but pillowcases.

“Investigation is on with a view to ascertaining his motives and possible accomplices,” police said on Thursday evening.

He started the killing in Lagos, proceeded to PortHarcourt, Owerri, and was on his way to Akwa- Ibom when he was arrested by operatives of the special anti-robbery squad, Bori in Rivers.

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