Gracious David-West born in 1980 is a suspected serial killer from Nigeria. From July until September 2019 David-West is suspected of killing at least 15 women, mostly in the city of Port Harcourt. He was apprehended on 19 September 2019. He later confessed to a total of 15 murders.
David-West reportedly had a tough childhood. He claims that his mother was poisoned and that as the only son of his father much was expected of him but he could not deliver. He claimed that he attended the branch of the Lord’s Chosen Church in Obigbo, where he said that he confessed to the pastor that he had been killing women. The pastor reportedly invited him to a crusade prayer service to heal him.
David-West was reportedly a member of the Deebham, a fraternity group that is notorious in Nigeria for engaging in acts of violence and Voodoo.
Although David-West reportedly belonged to a criminal group, David-West told authorities that he had acted alone.
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In a confession, David-West claimed that he had “an irresistible urge to kill” and every night from June to his capture in September he scoured the streets for women in his vehicle. He would proceed to then go to a local hotel where he and the woman would eat, have sex, and then go to bed. In the middle of the night David-West would wake up the victim and threaten her with a knife.
He would then turn the television or the radio on high volume, and using strips of cloth he had cut from the pillow cases, he would tie up the victim before manually strangling her.
He was arrested when in the early morning of 19 September 2019, a woman who had accompanied to a hotel woke up to David-West tying her up and preparing to suffocate her. David-West and another individual from Kaduna State were arrested and charged with homicide.
He was due for arraignment on 22 October 2019 but the absence of his lawyer frustrated his arraignment
However, when the case was called up the following day, David-West pleaded guilty to nine murder charges against him but pleaded not guilty to the charge of attempted murder of victim who survived his attack. Trial Judge, Justice Adolphus Enebeli adjourned till 18, 21, 27 and 29 November and 4 December 2019 for hearing and ordered that the suspect be remanded in prison custody.
On 23 March 2020 he shocked people in Court when he denied he was the person in any of the images on front page of a newspaper and on a short CCTV video clip of him in a hotel with his alleged last victim, adding that he did not know what the prosecuting state counsel was talking about, since he had not committed any offence.
The Judge allowed the video images to be admitted as exhibit, did not accept the copy of the newspaper and adjourned the matter to 27 March 2020 for continuation . On 11 June 2020, the Judge gave 21 days to counsels involved in the murder trial to file in their written addresses and adjourned the suit to 29 July 2020 for adoption of written addresses.
In August 2020, the presiding judge of the Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Justice Adolphus Enebeli fixed 9th of October 2020 for the delivery of judgment on the murder charges leveled against David-West.
On Friday, October 9, the Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt sentenced the notorious serial killer, Gracious David-West, to death by hanging.