Police in Ebonyi State have been called upon to unravel the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the corpse of an 80-year-old woman, Late Madam Grace Orjiokoro, from a mortuary in Owutu Edda community, in the Afikpo South Local Government Area, where it was deposited for burial.

The brother of the deceased, Pastor Fred Okoro, said he got the shock of his life when the family members went to collect the remains of their sister on the burial day, only to discover that a different corpse was kept in the morgue for them.

That Late Madam Orjiokoro died on the 2nd of July, 2021 and was deposited in the mortuary located at the premises of General Hospital, Owutu Edda, the same day.

With the burial date fixed for 28th of December last month, sympathisers and relations converged on various canopies at the deceased compound singing and chanting only for news to filter in that the corpse was missing in the mortuary.

Pastor Okoro said the plot started a month after the deposit was made as several efforts made by family members to see the condition of the corpse were allegedly frustrated by the morticians as they always claimed that the morgue was fumigated.

He said it dawned on them when the family members went to the mortuary to get the corpse for lying in state and burial only to discover that a strange corpse was presented to them.

“The corpse presented to us was not ours because my sister is tall about 6ft tall and we discovered that the person was short. Not only that, my sister plaited hair that fell on her shoulder at the time of death but this one has low cut hair.

“I suspected a foul play as those alleged to have mistaken his sister’s corpse for theirs had refuted the allegation.

“It was discovered that those people deposited the body in May, whereas, my sister was deposited on July 2nd.”

A daughter of the deceased, Welsie Okoro, a Naval rating, described the development as unbelievable noting that when they dragged the morticians to Owutu Police Station, they claimed that they mistakenly handed her mother’s corpse to another family for burial.

“And even the mortuary attendant Mr Felix said one of his colleagues said he knows the person he gave mother’s corpse to,” she said.

When contacted, the Manager of the Mortuary, Mr Vincent Ude, said he was doing everything possible to recover the corpse.

“Investigations are still on now, I am sure we are going to recover the corpse,” he said.

It was gathered that it took the intervention of Naval personnel, who accompanied their bereaved colleague to prevent the situation from degenerating into a violent scene as sympathisers went home abandoning all that was prepared.