By Chimaobi Nwaiwu

Controversy has continued to trail the death of an lady, suspected to be a prostitute, who allegedly hanged herself in her hotel room at Frontline Tourism and Hotels Limited Onitsha Anambra State.

According to an eye witness, the deceased simply identified as Chisom, from Enugu State was said to have hanged herself Monday morning after sweeping her corner and washing the plates she used to eat Sunday night.

Residents, who are conversant with the hotel, and visited the place before her corpse was taken away, at about 2.10pm, doubted the story of the girls hanging herself, following the positioning of her corpse.

Some residents, who went inside the rickety and environment unfriendly hotel room, argued that her legs were full on the ground and could not have possibly hanged herself.

Other reports of the incident said that she may have been been strangled by an early caller over a financial disagreement as ladies plying such trade are prone to disagreement with their callers over fees.

Another version of the story had it that the deceased allegedly had a disagreement with a caller last week, who allegedly paid her but she refused to give him assess, a situation they said led to a serious quarrel and a threat by the caller that she will not stay beyond this week.

According other accounts, the deceased, because of her attractive facial and bodily looks, gets more patronage from men, a situation that does not go down well with other competitors in the hotels, thereby attracting envy and jealousy for her.

A sympathizer and a close source to the hotel said that a friend of the deceased also from Enugu State, who is also on the run disclosed before she took off that she saw the deceased with a rope less than one hour before she was discovered dead Monday morning, but did not understand what the rope was meant for.

While sympathizers were hanging in front of the hotel located along Old Market road and Court road junction, Onitsha, trying to see if the locked entry gate of the hotel will be open for them to have a glimpse of her corpse, some of the ‘call girls’ in the hotel were hurriedly moving out with their belongings over fear of being arrested.

A woman between the age of 65 to 70 years, who is conversant with the environment of the hotel, disclosed that the call girls collects  between N2,000, N5,000 and N7000 depending on the class of girls and callers.

She questioned why the proprietors of the hotel should allow any of the ‘call girls’ to carry their personal belongings to leave the scene when the corpses of the deceased they alleged hanged herself has not been removed.

The woman, however, dismissed the claims that the lady hanged herself, saying that all the ‘call girls’ within the hotel have questions to answer.

According to her, “Is painful that this kind of death will happen in a notorious hotel like this and the proprietors will allow the prostitutes living there to be vacating the hotels in broad day light with their personal belongings when the corpse of their colleague they claimed hanged herself has not been removed. 

“Why are they running, the proprietors and people are looking at them and they are moving out with their personal belongings one after the other, and they want darts to believe that the girl killed herself. How can somebody who hanged herself be standing with her legs touching the floor.”

Some youths who had the same view about the circumstances of the death of the lady dismissed totally the theory of the call girl hanging herself, saying that nothing could have made her to take her life following the nature of the trade she plies, adding that ladies in such trade are strong hearted and can’t think of taking their lives. Wondering why she was standing on her feet.

Meanwhile, the Police from Onitsha Area Police Area Command, a walk distance of ten minutes to the scene of the incident, visited the hotel at about 12.30pm and left with some officials of the hotel, but they later returned.

Shortly after, an ambulance from General Hospital Onitsha mortuary attendant arrived and took the corpse of the deceased away.

Calls to the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Ikenga Tochukwu, for comments could not go through as his phone was indicating switched-off as at 3:45pm when Vanguard called him.