Richard Appiah
Richard Appiah, the 31-year-old draughtsman who killed two boys and kept their body parts in a refrigerator at Alaska, a suburb of Abesim near Sunyani in the Bono Region, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after a seven-member jury found him guilty of two counts of murder.
It has been almost five years since his arrest for the heinous crime which shook the town of Abesim, after the lifeless body of 15-year-old Stephen Sarpong was discovered in the convict’s room in August 2021.
That discovery led to a more disturbing revelation when the dismembered body of the convict’s own 12-year-old step-brother, Louis Agyemang, was discovered in a double-decker refrigerator in the room.
Autopsy results indicate that Richard Appiah had strangled both victims. He then dismembered Agyemang, kept his body in a refrigerator while burying his intestine on a cocoa farm.
The convict, who was wearing a bright red tunic (Jallabiya), looked unperturbed throughout the proceedings and when he was escorted out of the courtroom by officials of the National Intelligence Bureau.
He was hauled before a High Court in Accra in 2024 after the then Kaneshie District Court had committed him to stand trial for the murder of the two youngsters who lost their lives in horrific manner.
Richard Appiah had admitted the killing of the young boys, who he used to cook for and was said to be friendly with.
On the day he killed Stephen Sarpong, court documents indicate that he had bought the victim pizza, which he ate in the killer’s room before he was strangled.
Despite his admission and his father corroborating the fact that he killed the victims, the defence sought to push the insanity narrative, claiming he was not mentally stable when he killed the boys.
They claim among other things that in the days that preceded the killing of the boys, the convict was behaving “abnormally” and the father had taken him to a hospital to seek medical help.
He allegedly left the hospital without a diagnosis and also refused to take a medication that was given to him by a doctor.
Richard Appiah also claimed that he was hearing voices in his head which told him to either kill the boys or he himself would die.
His lawyer, Faustinus Yirilabuo, contended that the convict was insane and did not know the magnitude of what he did because he was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of committing the offence.
He, therefore, encouraged the jury to find him guilty but insane, a verdict that would have resulted in a lesser punishment for the convict.
“We implore you to unanimously return a verdict of guilty but insane. At the time the accused killed the teenagers, he did not understand the nature and natural consequences of the act. We are not dealing with anger or ill motive. The accused said in his evidence that he had no reason to kill the teenagers, especially one who is his direct step brother,” Mr. Yirilabuo urged the jury.
However, the prosecution, led by Nana Ama Adinkrah, a Senior State Attorney, dismissed the insanity angle being played by the defence, arguing that the convict knew exactly what he was doing, especially when he took steps to cover his tracks after the heinous crime.
According to her, when an accused comes up with the defence of lunacy, he ought to show he did not know the act he was committing and that he did not know that the act was wrong.
In this case however, she said the actions of the convict after the killing of the two boys showed that he had planned to kill the boys.
She argued that someone who was mentally unwell will not take steps to cover his tracks after the commission of the crime. This, she said, pointed to fact that the convict knew that what he had done was wrong.
A seven-member jury, after less than 20 minutes of deliberation, returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on two counts of murder.
Justice Ruby Aryeetey, the presiding judge, subsequently convicted Richard Appiah and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the convict have indicated their intention to file an appeal against the decision of the court, as early as today.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak