Izu Madubueze: Exclusive document from Florida Police provides in-depth details on fake death claims
On Sunday, July 16, 2023, the Nigerian social media space was awash with reports claiming Izuchukwu Madubueze faked his own death and has been living his life since July 2020 when he was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds.
The allegations of fake death came on the day Madubueze took his life three years ago, following false rape accusations against him. His friends and other Twitter users said he was wrongly accused in June 2020 by a lady with the Twitter handle @nanichianese (also based in the United States) who claimed she was compiling “a compounded list of abusers to avoid for safety purpose,” and had included Madubueze’s name.
After a vigorous search for confirmation of report about his death from official sources, Neusroom reported three years ago that Madubueze died in Florida from gunshot wounds.
On July 20, 2020, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) in Florida, United States, confirmed to Neusroom in an email that the Nigerian fashion designer shot himself on July 16, 2020, at his residence in Florida.
“Izuchukwu Madubueze was the victim of what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 16, 2020,” Deputy Travis Sibley, a spokesperson of the PCSO, at the time, wrote in an email sent to a Neusroom correspondent.
Madubueze shot himself after posting what appears to be a suicide note on his Twitter page. “Oh and if you’re reading this, I’m dead lol,” he tweeted at 1am (WAT) on Friday July 17, 2020.
Before committing suicide, he had shared a personal note apologising to his accusers: “I just opened up about my personal survival story this morning so to be accused of harassment right after is coming as a shock to me. First I would like to apologize to anyone who feels I have harassed them in the past…”
Madubueze had insisted that he was “still pretty clueless as to who this is, so if you feel comfortable enough please feel free to reach out to me so I can understand wherever I went wrong and make amends and do better overall.”
Until his death, Madubueze, 23, an alumnus of Kings College in Lagos and the University of South Florida where he studied Criminology, was Creative Director and Founder of Uhuru Designz, a fashion design company he founded in 2016 in Tampa, Florida.
A funeral programme was held for him in Lagos by his family in 2020.
However, in a rare twist of events, on the day of his third-year remembrance, some Twitter users decided to drive what many have described as a dangerous conspiracy theory to convince the public that Madubueze is not dead and may have faked his own death.
In several tweets examined by Neusroom, some social media users – Romeo Oriogun (with the handle @sonofolokun_), a Nigerian Poet based in the U.S and another two others with the handle @irikefe_ogagam and @uncleCCA who championed the narrative on Twitter, claimed Madubueze was not dead and was living in Clearwater, Florida. They claimed his Social Security Number (SSN) was still active and also made a reference to a LinkedIn profile with details that match Madubueze’s but with a different name – Andrew Canon.
They claimed the deceased owned and managed the LinkedIn account and activities on the LinkedIn profile show that it is still active. Neusroom reviewed the LinkedIn profile which had no profile picture, but we found that the profile details also match the deceased’s LinkedIn profile seen in 2020.
Andrew Canon also claimed to have attended Kings’ College in Lagos and studied Criminology at the University of South Florida. The work experiences are also the same with Madubueze’s. It, however, remains unclear if Madubueze’s LinkedIn account was hacked after his death and the name changed by the ‘new user’.
We sent an email to the Florida Police on Sunday, July 16, 2023, to establish the truth about the controversies surrounding Madubueze’s death. We also made public records request on the case in accordance with Florida Public Records Law, Chapter 119. After days of waiting, a spokesperson of the PCSO confirmed to Neusroom in an email on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, that Madubueze died in July 2020.
“I can confirm the information previously provided to you by Deputy Sibley that Izuchukwu Madubueze was the victim of a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 16, 2020,” says Corporal Dave Brenn of the Public Information Office of Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO).
A few hours after Dave’s email, Neusroom received an exclusive document from the PCSO detailing the incident of July 16, 2020, and how Madubueze was found dead in his room by the Police who responded to an emergency call at the deceased’s residence located at 13643 Heron Circle in Clearwater, Florida.
According to the 44-page document which contains statement from his wife, reports of the Police, detectives, forensic experts and the medical examiners, Madubueze called 911 at 6:07 am on July 16, 2020, and “told the 911 operator that he was going to shoot himself.”
He shot himself before the arrival of Police at 6:18 am and left a suicide note addressed to one Janica, who the Police document said was his wife.
Janica, who is also an alumnus of the University of South Florida, told the Police she had been with Madubueze since 2017 and they got married in 2018.
Sergeant Richard Heaton, who was the first responder at the residence, wrote in his report:
“As we entered the house, there was a small hallway on the right and two doors. The door at the end of this small hallway entered into a bathroom and the door on the right was locked. Deputy Evarts challenged the door and the occupant 3 times, and then Sgt Hartigan kicked the door and it was opened. Once the door was open, we observed a male sitting in a leather like rolling chair with his head slumped over. I made entry into the room and observed a black handgun on the floor under the right leg and a spent shell casing about 6 feet in front of the victim. The victim had what appeared to be a gunshot to the head and possible blood was located on the desk and floor. I checked for a pulse in the neck and the wrist and determined the male was deceased. The time of deceased was at 0656 hours.”
Some takeaways from the suicide note and Police report:
- He had been battling with depression and when he eventually started healing, he was hit with the Twitter rape accusation which broke him beyond repair.
- The accuser’s refusal to address the issue with him also contributed to his decision to end it all.
- He shot himself with a Canik 9mm TP9 Elite SC semi-auto pistol (S/N 20CB04788).
Madubueze’s case was closed on December 8, 2020, as non-criminal following the medical examiner report which listed the cause of death as Gunshot Wound of Head and the manner of death as Suicide.
Some of those who accused Madubueze of faking his own death have now deleted their tweets, while @UncleCCA, who sent a direct message to a Neusroom correspondent on Twitter on Sunday over the story, has also deactivated his Twitter account.
Although death fraud is common in some parts of the world especially in the Philippines, where it is a big industry, Police documents from the Florida Police have established that is not the case with Madubueze.
The allegations against Madubueze could have gained more credence if the incident happened in the Philippines, the country that has been described as the global leader for fake deaths.
According to the Telegraph UK, a fake death certificate from the Philippines generally costs around £100 to £350.
Elizabeth Greenwood, an American journalist who faked her own death as a tourist in the Philippines in 2013, told the Telegraph that “financial motives are the big one (motive),” behind the faking of death in the country. “Usually due to someone coming into money or due to them losing it all. Some people have faked deaths to evade prison sentences. Romance, surprisingly, also plays a part. Some men in cases I’ve seen faked their death because they had second families.”
