Missing girls' families in Takoradi request independent DNA testing

General News of Saturday, August 3, 2019

Source: Graphic.com.gh

2019-08-03

The families of the three missing Takoradi girls have called for an independent DNA test after the recovery of skeletons from a septic tank behind the home of the main suspect, Samuel Odeoutuk Willis.
The remains are those of the three girls who disappeared between August and December 2018.

Family spokesman Michael Hayford Acquah said the news had put the Sekondi-Takoradi municipality, especially Kansaworodo, in shock.

However, families have not yet taken this development into account and have been invited to the Accra Police Headquarters to meet the police hierarchy for information purposes.

"Until the forensic and DNA investigations establish that the body parts found are those of yours, all we know is that our loved ones are still alive."

Mr. Acquah said that if the police were convinced that what they had found was a good way to shed light on the mysteries surrounding missing girls, DNA and forensic investigations should be conducted in independent laboratories. and not those of the police.

A team of investigators from the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghanaian police found the human remains during the operation last night and found skeletons of three people from a septic tank in a house of Kansaworodo, a superb Takoradi, who is believed to be part of the missing girls.

Police sources close to the investigations told the Daily Graphic that, at the start, a special team of investigators, accompanied by the West Regional Police Commander and Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), M Vincent Redeemer Dedjoe, went to Kansaworodo, in the company of the man suspected of being involved in the abduction of girls in the western region, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, and sniffer dogs.

According to the source, the 28-year-old suspect drove the team to a rented apartment in a house in Kansaworodo. Once home, the sniffer dogs directed the investigators to a septic tank.

The behavior of the trained dogs convinced the investigators that there was a credible track to follow.

According to the source, the team opened the filled tank to the brim.

A sump dump was deployed to draw the waste and about halfway through, they found skulls floating in the tank and the other parts of the body were also recovered, placed in boxes and brought to Accra for a forensic examination.

The suspect was forced to monitor the exercise closely, but has always denied any involvement in the killing of girls, the source said.

The source added that the body parts would be sent to the forensic laboratory of the police in Accra for DNA tests to determine which parts of the body belonged where and if they were those of the missing girls.

Our sources stated that police investigators had quietly completed their work and had left the scene long before the news of the discovery circulated in the community.

Statement by the CID

The CID confirmed the operation in Kansaworodo in an unfinished building previously occupied by the convict Samuel Odeoutuk Willis.

The police, in a statement signed by the head of the CID Public Affairs Unit, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Juliana Obeng, said: "The human remains discovered will be sent to the police forensic laboratory of the police service. Ghana police for badysis and further investigation. "

abductions

Priscilla Blessing Bentum, 21, a third year student at the Winneba Education University, was abducted in Kansawurodo on August 17, 2018.

Another victim, 18-year-old Ruth Love Quayson, a high school graduate, was kidnapped at Butumegyabu junction on 4 December 2018, while Priscilla Mantebea Koranchie, 15, a student at Sekondi College (SEKCO), was was abducted near Nkroful Junction in Takoradi on December 21, 2018.

Context

Following a series of kidnappings involving teenage girls in the metropolis of Takoradi, Wills was arrested on December 22, 2018 in Kansawurodo, a suburb of Sekondi / Takoradi, for suspicion of belonging to a kidnapping syndicate.

He was charged with kidnapping and taken into custody by the Takoradi District Court on December 24, 2018 and reappeared in court on January 29 of this year for the start of his trial.

But on December 30, 2018, he escaped police cells through ventilation windows in the cell after using a hacksaw blade to cut the iron bars used to secure the windows.

Following Wills' escape, seven policemen from the Takoradi Metropolitan Police Command, under whose surveillance the alleged kidnapper escaped, were given a ten-day police usual ultimatum to re-arrest the suspect or subject of disciplinary measures.

On January 3, 2019, the police arrested him again in an unfinished building in Kansawurodo.