The Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr George Akuffo Dampare on Sunday morning stormed Abesim, in the Bono Region, following the arrest of a 28-year-old man alleged to have murdered three boys.
The police arrested Richard Appiah, an architect who is believed to have murdered about three children and kept some meat suspected to be human in a fridge.
Appiah’s victims includes his own stepbrother, with the others being a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old. The bodies were found in Appiah’s rented two bedroom house at Alaska near Abesim on Friday, August 20, 2021.
Another suspect, whose identity has been withheld by the police, was later arrested to assist with investigations.
The Acting IGP, Dr Dampare, on Sunday morning visited the families of the victims following the traumatic discovery, and also paid a courtesy call on the Abesimhene and Dormaa Kyidomhene, Barima Nana Kumi Akyeaw.
Ahead of the visit, Dr Dampare dispatched a team of investigators from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Homicide Unit in Accra to take over the case.
A forensic pathologist team has also been assigned to move the remains of the victims which were found in the house of Appiah to the Police Hospital morgue for analysis to support the ongoing investigation of the case.
During interaction with the families, Dr Dampare announced that he had further directed professional clinical psychologists and counselors from the Counseling Department of the Ghana Police Service to offer free counselling services to the traumatised families, community members and police investigators who visited the crime scene and found the remains of the victims.
Abesim murder cases
A number of murder cases have been recorded in Abesim.
On 23rd February, 1988, Nana Twene, Kontihene of Abesim and his wife, Susana Ameyaa, together with four others at Abesim kidnapped and murdered a 38-year old housewife, Madam Lamley Sampah. During a trial by a tribunal sitting in Sunyani in the then Brong-Ahafo Region, it was revealed, among others, that the Kontihene wanted the blood and some body parts of the victim for rituals to enable him secure power so no one could challenge him when he spoke.
On January 5, 2014, the Sunyani Police launched investigation into the mysterious deaths of a 43-year-old woman, Abenaa Pomaa, and her 10-year-old daughter, class four pupil, Blessing Oppong, at Ohene-Djan, a suburb of Abesim in the Sunyani Municipality.
The police found the bodies of the two in a pool of blood in their room in a nearly decomposed state with their throats slashed.
Source: graphic.com.gh