Police appeal to Cynthia Osokogu's family to come for her corpse

Cynthia Osokogu is still lying at the morgue a week after the Lagos State Police Command reportedly informed her family to come for her body. Following the completion of a postmortem examination on the deceased, who was killed in Lagos by her social media friends on July 22, the command said that her family was yet to show up.

It was gathered that Professor John Obafunwa, Chief pathologist at the State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, had submitted the autopsy report to the police since last Friday, September 14.

Though the report is yet to be made public, it was gathered  from a source at TOS Funerals, a private morgue where the autopsy was done, that she might have died of asphyxia respiratory paralysis, as a result of suffocation.

Cynthia's burial, which was earlier slated for September 8, 2012, was postponed indefinitely after a delay occasioned by the autopsy.

A police source however, absolved the police of any blame that Cynthia's corpse continued to remain at the morgue.

Ngozi Braide, command spokesperson said the police had been "talking with her parents on the need to come and pick her corpse."

"The pathologist has submitted his report since Friday last week, so we are waiting for her parents to come forward for the collection,” she added.

In his reaction, Flt. Lt. Ken Osokogu speaking on behalf of Cynthia's dad, General Frank Osokogu said, "The question of abandonment does not arise in the first place. The police have not called the family in respect to picking the corpse. The case is still at the Magistrate level, magistrate is just a holding court, and cannot try murder. The second hearing has been fixed for 3 October, during which we believe that the case would be transfered to the High Court and afterwards the police can seek for permission to release the corpse for burial. We are not in a haste to bury her as justice must take its full course."

Cynthia Osokogu was killed by friends she met on the social media at the Cosmilla Hotel in Festac Town, Lagos.

A funeral mass has been held for her, while her grave has also reportedly been dug at her hometown in Delta state.