By Godwin Anene
Gracious David West, the suspected serial killer in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has made fresh confession to killing over 17 women, and not the six he had earlier confessed to when he was arrested weeks ago.
This is even as the Rivers State House of Assembly has appealed to the Nigeria Police Force in the state to expand its dragnet to other members of the gang, saying that David West was not operating alone.
The David West’s new confession was revealed to members of the Rivers State Assembly’s Adhoc Committee on Serial Killings when they visited Rivers Command of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) on Saturday.
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Chairman of the House Adhoc Committee on Serial Killings, Kelechi Wogu, who led other members of the committee, told the Police to look beyond the arrested suspect to fish out probable collaborators at large.
The notorious killer had confessed killing only six women in Rivers, Imo and Lagos States, but the numbers have increased following further interrogations by the police on his atrocities.
West in the new confession also revealed how a hotel director in the state who saw him with his ‘killer knife’ failed to report to the police about his atrocities.
However, the Chairman of the House Adhoc Committee on Serial Killings, Wogu said, “The police should continue its good works over the matter. We want the serial killers, not just a serial killer. This young man is not alone. As police, you have given us hope.
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“All we are begging of you people is that whatever those murdered girls may have done, they deserve justice. Let these miscreants not go free. You have not only saved lives of Rivers people, but lives of Nigerians. People like this (Gracious) can’t be in our midst.
“Having named over six to seven states where he had committed this crime and escaped all only to have been apprehended through efforts of SARS and others in Rivers, who knows the extent he has really gone.
“First he said it was seven, next he said nine, 15 and today it is 17. I know it will get to 20 tomorrow by the time we come back here. There are so many things this man hasn’t said. Let him not go free.
“For him to tell us that he went to a hotel and a Director saw him with a knife and concealed it without coming to report to the police is worrisome. That hotel should be sealed and the Director arrested.”
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Meanwhile, the police in Rivers State have urged the lawmakers to enact laws that will help security agencies to tackle emerging security challenges specifically manner of killings in the hospitality business in the state.
Speaking at the visit, SARS Commander in Rivers, Geovinus Uchena, said, “Hotel security, like the CCTV cameras the Commissioner of Police directed should be looked into by House to ensure compliance. Am sure at the end of your assignment, you should come out with a bill to address security in hospitality businesses.
“I say so because this is the first time in Nigeria we are witnessing this typed of organised killings, but to God be the glory, since his arrest, we have not witnessed any related incident from anywhere.”
