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Police probe of last month’s death of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife,MBA student, Timothy Adegoke, appears to have thrown up a challenge for detectives following the emergence of two autopsy reports on the cause of his death.
Adegoke, 37, died at Hilton Hotel, Ile-Ife shortly after checking into the facility on Friday November 5, and his corpse was dumped in a grave on the outskirts of the city.
The owner of the hotel, Dr. Ramon Adedoyin, and some of his employees are being detained over Adegoke’s death.
The autopsy conducted on the corpse is now generating claims and counter claims from the family of the victim and the suspects.
The bone of contention is the phrase ‘severe trauma’ used by the pathologists in one of the reports as the cause of Adegoke’s death.
The official reports are yet to be made public.
The autopsy was conducted on November 22 by six experts including three pathologists. Their reports were presented to the Police Headquarters, Abuja with a copy submitted to the Osun State Police Command penultimate Thursday.
The four-hour autopsy, The Nation gathered, took place at the Department of Morbid Anatomy, Osun State University Teaching Hospital with all sides, including the bereaved family and their lawyers as well as those of Adedoyin and the police, present.
The process started with the identification of the body by the elder brother of the deceased, Gbade Adegoke.
One of the autopsy reports, sources told The Nation, attributed Adegoke’s death to ‘severe trauma’ while the other report said the cause of death could not be medically determined due to the advanced stage of decomposition of the body.
There is no mention of the time he suffered the trauma relative to the time of death and the type of trauma.
But the two reports agree that the deceased’s internal and external organs (including the genitalia) were complete, untouched and in their normal positions.
The internal organs like the heart, kidney, livers and others could not be subjected to the test because they were said to be already in advanced decomposition stage.
“The stomach had decomposed and was melting while they were carrying out the test,” a source said.
“Pathologists agreed that no incision, cut or blood injuries, bruises or wound were found on his neck. The deceased suffered no fracture wounds or injuries to his ribs,” one of the reports said.
However, the corpse had a sub-capital fracture on its femur.
The report did not state when this occurred; whether before or after his death.
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It added: “Furthermore, due to the advanced nature of the decomposition of the body and the internal organs, no toxicology tests were conducted on the body and other internal organs to determine whether the deceased died of poison, chemical inhalation or other harmful substance (s) or of natural causes or diseases.
“If it is truly established that this is the position, then it will be medically and scientifically wrong to rule out that the deceased did not die of natural causes.”
Also, the partial decomposition of the body was attributed to the exposure of the body to the elements for about four days.
Police sources told The Nation that officials of the Water and Environmental Sanitation Department of the Ife Central Local Government Area buried the corpse after obtaining clearance from the Nigerian Police Force, “A” Division, Moore, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
A medical doctor who does not want his name mentioned described the severe trauma phrase as an open-ended conclusion.
“Trauma could be as a result of hitting him with sticks or sickness, or anything,” the source said.
Another medical doctor said pathologists could come up with different results on a single autopsy, adding that interpretations of the result of the test would be determined by the circumstances and perspective they are looking at the report.
He said: “The one who will look or interpret the result, based on forensics, is different from the way others are going to perceive it.
“For example, if someone is strangled, the test will show the marks and how it has been constrained. The test will reveal the marks on the neck. You will see where carotid arteries, jugular veins were restrained and constrained from taking in blood supply or passing out blood supply. He will now conclude that the person had been strangled.
“Yet the same pathologist, having checked the body, now discovers poison in the corpse’s system that is different from hydrochloric acid which is natural in people’s stomach in the gastric area.
“Now, he could see the acid and discover that it is not hydrochloric acid but sulphuric acid, but he read it was truly the person was strangled, but to cover that the deceased was strangled, acid was poured on the deceased person’s stomach. That is one aspect.
“Another person might look at it from another perspective that when the victim was strangled, acid was poured into his stomach or mistakenly drank something that could be acidic, but because the acid in the victim’s stomach would automatically cause choking episodes, the victim might hold on to his neck and start struggling.
As you can see, they both have the same scenario and different episodes; two different opinions, two different ideas and different medical write-ups.”
He also said it would be difficult to carry out a toxicology test on the corpse because right now Nigeria does not have the technology to do that.
“I doubt if we have the technology of carbon dating in Nigeria, but the country is advanced in the medical field to a very reasonable extent. I still believe that the pathologists should be able, to a large extent, determine the cause of death.”
While the controversies rage, a source warned that “it is the Consultant Pathologists that can, individually or collectively, explain the reason(s) why there was no unanimity in their findings and conclusions.”
