Cynthia's Murder:Facebook Is Evil?

Cynthia Osokogu

In case you’ve not heard it or you’ve heard but are yet to read the story and believe,that beautiful picture here is of a 24 year old girl,Cynthia Udoka Osokogu,the daughter of a retired army officer murdered by friends she met on facebook.She was an only daughter.

The guys had been caught and are in police custody presently.

Cynthia and the guys had come to be friends for sometime and they interacted not only on facebook but also via phone calls and sms. However, the whole story started from facebook.She was a very smart and enterprising woman; and a post-graduate of Nasarawa State University.

She came to trust these guys based on their conversation over time and they promised to host her when she came to Lagos. The young enterprising Cynthia was into clothing retailing and had planned to travel to Lagos for a re-stocking of her boutique.

Its even speculated that  The guys had paid for her air fare and came to pick her at the airport from where they took her to a hotel in Festac, where these devils held her hostage for twelve hours under untold inhuman treatment demanding money from the young innocent girl.

They collected all the money that she came to shop with, raped her, beat her mercilessly and later strangled her.

This incident had lead many people to conclude that the social media, especially facebook is evil and must be avoided or even closed down.

It quickly brings to mind a similar incident that was in the news some months back about a girl who was gang-raped by her ‘‘2GO’’ friends in one of higher institutions, who shamelessly recorded the act and posted it on the internet.

Read what happens even outside our country…

An article from Mailonline of 4 June,2012 reads:, 

Mark Zukerberg  28, CEO Facebook

“A crime linked to Facebook  is reported to police every  40 minutes.

Last year, officers logged 12,300 alleged offences involving the vastly popular social networking site.

Facebook was referenced in investigations of murder, rape, child sex offences, assault, kidnap, death threats, witness intimidation and fraud. The vast majority of cases involved alleged harassment or intimidation by cyber-bullies, according to figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request.

Around half of police forces in England and Wales supplied details for when Facebook was recorded in crime reports. Teenager Ashleigh Hall was murdered by serial rapist Peter Chapman after he groomed her on Facebook.

Chapman, 35, posed as a handsome teenager called Peter Cartwright to lure 17-year-old trainee nurse Ashleigh into his trap in September 2009.

He sent her a series of text messages and arranged to meet some weeks later, claiming to be ‘Peter’s dad’ to explain why he looked nothing like his photo.

Chapman drove Ashleigh to a secluded area called Thorpe Larches, near Sedgefield in County Durham.

Once there, he forced her to perform a sex act before binding and gagging her with duct tape, wrapping so much around her head that she suffocated to death.

Ashleigh Hall,the 17-year old nurse trainee victim.

He then dumped her body in a ditch and drove off.

In March 2010, Chapman was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in jail for Ashleigh’s kidnap, rape and murder.

In Greater Manchester, parents called police after a paedophile induced their  13-year-old son to send indecent pictures of himself.

In Staffordshire, a school bus driver used Facebook to attempt to groom a 14-year-old boy.

And, in another case, a jilted boyfriend posted a naked picture of his former girlfriend, who was 17, on the site.

Jean Taylor, of Families Fighting for Justice, a campaign group which calls for tougher sentences for murder, said: ‘Facebook has an awful lot to answer for.

‘People say it’s a social networking site but it causes more harm than good. It’s far too easy for paedophiles to put a photograph of themselves up on the site and meet young people. Facebook should be closed down.’

A senior detective said: ‘What people need to remember is that crime is just a reflection of the society that we live in.

‘Just like a knife or a car, there is nothing intrinsically dangerous or criminal about Facebook, but  just like both of those things it needs to be treated with respect because of the dangers that can be associated with its use.

‘However, it has to be accepted that Facebook has made the commissioning of some crimes, such as sexual grooming, much easier than they were in the past, and we need to be aware of that.’ Earlier this year, the Daily Mail revealed hundreds of criminals have been using the site to taunt their victims from behind bars.

Prison authorities found 350 inmates posting on Facebook in the past two years, using banned mobile phones smuggled into jails. Some continued to run their criminal empires from behind bars using the site.

A Facebook spokesman said it worked with police to bring serious offenders on the site to justice.

‘Just like mobile phones and TVs, Facebook is part of our everyday lives,’ he added.

‘Facebook’s community standards, supported by reporting tools on almost every page of the site, mean such conduct is swiftly dealt with.

‘Facebook users act as the world’s largest neighbourhood watch and are very active in keeping the site safe.

'When matters of serious criminality are found on Facebook then we work with law enforcement to bring those responsible to justice.’

Facebook launched on the New York stock market last month, making many of its staff instant millionaires.

But the value of the shares has plummeted since then, falling almost 30 per cent in just over a fortnight.

Peter Chapman 37, Killed Ashleigh Hall

As a result, founder Mark Zuckerberg has seen £3.2billion wiped off his personal fortune, taking it to a still extremely healthy £9.4billion.’’


The social media and all that is done there is the same as what is done in the real world. Just as there are evil people in the real world, so you also have evil people hiding behind their computer screens and planning how to kill, cheat and destroy.

The percentage of people who use facebook for evil are not more than those who use it for good-and not only facebook but countless others social media and web 2.0 sites.

 Genuine businesses go on the social media each moment; sweet relationships are built daily; wonderful, life-saving information and ideas are shared each moment and many lives are made better because of the social media.
Some folks have even met their partners there!

Ask google,yahoo,ebay,amazon,Clickbank,microsoft etc and they will tell you.

LESSONS FROM THIS...

 We should also know that, social media crimes will never stop as long as the internet exists, just as cyber crime will never stop.Cynthia should not be blamed.Anybody could have been a victim,just as many people have been scammed,raped,even killed by some people they trusted.

The rule here is carefulness in your choice of friends and in your interactions. Just as you take your time to sift your friends in real life, apply same strategy to making friends online. And report any suspicious person to your friends and parents.Do not plan to meet a stranger in a lonely place. Limit the amount of information you give out to strangers.

And if you must meet the person, why not do it in company or even in a public place? You can schedule to meet in church or mosque or some other place that you will be secure. If you are a parent, check who your kids' online friends are just as you would do the people they go with in the real world.

Facebook is not evil; rather some users are pure devils. Watch them!

May God grant her family the grace to bear this irreparable loss.May Cynthia’s soul rest in peace.AMEN.