The proposed burial ceremony of late Mrs. Eunice Azala has ended in fiasco, following the confusion over the missing of her corpse. Late Mrs. Azala had died on April 17, this year and her body deposited at Bex Memorial Hospi-tal Mortuary, Onitsha but when the relations went to take it home for burial, confusion ensued. The confusion started when husband to the de-ceased, Mr. Nelson Azala and relations came to take the corpse for burial in Umuezeala, Nneato in Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State, and the morticians brought out a corpse which they claimed did not have any semblance with that of their departed wife. According to them, the corpse looked like that of another woman older than the late 42-year old Eunice, even as they said it had signs of wounds on the leg, while Eunice never had such before her demise. Following this, some mourners who accompa-nied Mr. Azala to the mortuary, reported the matter to Awada Police Station on the missing corpse.
Nelson told the Divi-sional Police Officer, Mr. Emeka Ugwu, that her wife died in April, after a brief illness and her corpse deposited at Bex Memorial Hospital Mor-tuary, Onitsha, adding that on arrival to take the corpse home for burial, the mortuary attendants presented a different corpse to them.
He further told the DPO that he would not bury a strange corpse in place of his own wife, as he accused the hospital of stealing his wife’s corpse. According to him, “Af-ter we deposited the corpse and signed all necessary documents, the mortician gave us a copy of the docu-ment that would permit us visit the mortuary.
For the two times my brother visited, he was not allowed to see the corpse and later, we discovered her body had been removed.
All the marks I used to recognize my wife were not on the body they showed to us”. He recalled that his wife’s health condition started deteriorating when he rushed her to the hospital where she was admitted and later con-firmed dead by the doctor, adding that, the family wanted to take the corpse home, but was persuaded to deposit it in the hospi-tal mortuary.
“My wife just graduat-ed from the university last year and her condition took turn for the worse in April and she was taken to the hospital, even as the doctor insisted we pay for admission card to en-able her get medical treat-ment.
After she was con-firmed dead, we wanted to take the body home, but the doctor advised against that, saying it would be easier to deposit the corpse in the mortuary”.
Backing the claim, the traditional Prime Minister of Umuezeala community, Chief Oliver Adimora, said more than 100 persons, including siblings of the deceased claim the corpse was not their sister’s.
“Even a corpse of more than five years, could still be identified by close re-lations, but only a month after, the hospital manage-ment is telling us that she suddenly changed and be-came so old that she could not be recognized even by her husband”.