A Kaneshie District Court has ordered the Ghana Police Service to take Richard Appiah, the 28-year-old man who killed two children and kept parts of the bodies in a refrigerator at Alaska, a suburb of Abesim near Sunyani in the Bono Region, to a psychiatric hospital for review.
The order follows the advice of the Attorney General after a thorough assessment of the duplicate docket of the case that was forwarded to his office.
Chief Inspector Lawrence Anane, the prosecutor, yesterday told the court that the Attorney General after assessing the docket has advised that the accused be charged with murder.
He added that the advice also included the indication that the accused should be taken to a psychiatric hospital for extensive review to determine his mental capacity to stand trial.
The prosecutor, therefore, prayed the court to make an order directed at the Ghana Police Service to send the accused to the hospital for the review. The request was granted by Her Worship Ama Adomako Kwakye. The case was adjourned to November 22, 2022.
Gruesome Murder
Richard Appiah, believed to be an architect or surveyor and a footballer, was a friend to the victims who have been identified as 15-year-old Stephen Boateng who was in JHS 2 and the suspect’s own 12-year-old step-brother, Louis Agyemang.
He is believed to have been cooking for the victims and showing them some affection, and through that supposed kindness, he was able to lure them and subsequently kill them in turns.
The Abesim ‘cannibal’ is said to be a man who hardly smiles, and per police records, four persons are said to have gone missing in the neighbourhood where he lives.
This led to a heightened suspicion that he could be behind the strange disappearances.
He is said to have initially denied knowledge of the whereabouts of Louis Agyemang.
It was a man who lives in the neighbourhood who insisted that the suspect knew the whereabouts of Louis because he had seen the suspect and the victim together on the day the victim went missing.
Discovered Intestines
The police discovered the intestines of the victims buried on a cocoa farm.
A police statement indicated that, “The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters team investigating the Abesim murder case has yesterday, Tuesday, August 24, 2021, discovered a place where suspect Richard Appiah buried the intestines of one of the murder victims.”
The statement, signed by ACP Kwesi Ofori, Acting Director-General, Public Affairs, explained further how the police also found a sharp cutlass used in the murder, as well as where the body parts were buried.
“The intestines were buried on a cocoa farm at Abesim, which the police have since exhumed for pathological analysis and forensic examination in Accra,” the statement pointed out.
The investigation team has also worked around a septic tank and other places of concern for further examinations, the statement said.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak