Paynesville – Nancy Miller, believe to be in her early 40’s, was one of those joyous graduates, who Wednesday walked out of the Undergraduate section of the University of Liberia.
However, this joy was short lived when she and seven others, including two adult males, where found dead on the morning of Thursday, February 25, inside the very house they had celebrated the graduation party up till midnight Wednesday before retiring to bed and never to wakeup again in this life.
It is said that Ms. Miller had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting. Now, that joy she and other family members had throughout Wednesday, may never be the same as the cold hands of death snatched she and others, leaving her not to enjoy the sweat of her labor.
The 8 persons’ passing in such manner, especially Ms. Miller, was being described in many ways, including “unfortunate,” “untimely”, “witch,” etc. especially, just a day after bagging an academic achievement.
Circumstances surrounding the cause of death according to Representative Samuel Enders, in whose District #6 the 8 persons were found dead, is Carbon Monoxide.
According to him, the cause of death was established by the ELWA Hospital.
The lifeless bodies of the eight persons were taken to the Abraham Roberts Funeral Home.
Rep. Enders also informed journalists that the dead included the graduate’s mother and her (graduate’s) daughter.
“The death certificates are with me; I deposited their bodies at the funeral home,” Rep. Enders stated.
According to one of the neighbors, who are tenants in the next apartments attached to the home of Ms. Miller, they and the graduates had planned to go out on Wednesday night after the party at the house ended since, according to him, the home party had no alcohol.
Jefferson Larkay, a neighbor, told FrontPageAfrica: “She told me, we were going to go hang out a bit after the party at the house. I kept reminding her and she kept promising me that we would go out. By the time the PA system had gone off, I came calling her thinking she might be ready but when I got to the front door, it was already locked. I assumed they were now sleeping and there was no need to bother her since she has had a stressful day so I went back to my apartment.”
He also told this newspaper that they became concern when the owner of the PA system came by 10 a.m. Thursday morning to collect his balance payment for his service, and their neighbors (the deceased) weren’t outside and no sign of any movement in the house even after they had banged on the front door.
Another neighbor interjected: “He (PA system owner) than said, ‘Oh what happening these people are still sleeping?’ We got concern and tried to peep through the windows. It was when we saw one of them lying on the ground. We started shouting and it drew the attention of other neighbors.”
It took the residents and Police officers who had gone to secure the area took more than one hour to have ambulances to come and get the bodies.
The two Ministry of Health-marked ambulances that came, were insufficient to carry the eight bodies. Rep. Enders intervened by offering his vehicle to take the remaining four bodies.
The unfortunate incident occurred in a community behind the SKD Sports Complex, in Paynesville.
Neighbors had said it was strange for their deceased neighbors to bring the generators inside their home as there is a generator house few feet from their home.