A 24-year-old married woman, who tricked a vulnerable woman and stole her baby has been sentenced to five years imprisonment by the Asamankese Circuit Court in the Eastern Region.
Nancy Yeboah pretended to be pregnant and ended up presenting a three-day-old stolen baby as her newborn.
The convict who hails from Boadua in the Demkyembour District was sentenced after pleading guilty before the court presided by His Honour Ababakari Abass Adams.
The convict who is married but had no child, and was staying in Accra with her husband, wept uncontrollably when the judgment was pronounced.
She was escorted by the Police into a waiting van to serve her jail term.
The prosecution told the court that about three months ago Nancy as part of her plan to steal the baby of a then-pregnant woman, also dressed as a pregnant woman and visited her mother-in-law at Boadua, claiming she was seven (7) months pregnant and had come to prepare for her delivery.
She even claimed that she was going to deliver at home because it was a taboo in her family to deliver in the hospital.
Nancy later told neighbors that her delivery date might coincide with that of the victim who was then heavily pregnant.
The Prosecution said Nancy subsequently used an unknown mobile phone number to call the victim under the disguised that she was a philanthropist willing to assist her to take care of her baby when she delivers.
On April 27, 2021, at about 5:00 pm, the victim alleged to be mentally unstable, delivered a bouncing baby boy at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Akwatia and was discharged the next day.
Three days later on April 29, 2021, Nancy called the victim on phone and promised to visit her and present some gifts.
Nancy, wearing a hat and nose mask to conceal her identity, visited the vulnerable nursing mother a few minutes to midnight and pretended to be the philanthropist who had been calling the nursing mother on phone.
Nancy then presented some items as gift in a polythene bag to the nursing mother and asked that she gave her a place to sleep since it was late in the night which the nursing mother obliged.
The nursing mother decided to inform her Auntie about the arrival of the so-called philanthropist but she told her to wait till the next morning because she said it was late.
The prosecutor said that she then deceived the nursing mother to go into her car which she claimed was parked at a church which is quite a distant from the house, to pick other items she bought for her and the baby.
The prosecution said there was no car and it was part of the trick to steal the baby from the victim because the nursing mother went out to the supposed car and by the time she returned Nancy had taken the three-day old baby away.
According to the prosecution, Nancy disguised herself as if she had delivered a baby boy and even gave what she had designed as a placenta to one Anthony Akakpo to bury for her when she brought the baby.
The victim’s husband reported the matter to the police to commence an investigation.
When the police contacted Nancy, she swore heaven and earth that she also delivered a baby that night but the police threatened to send her to the hospital for medical examination.
Out of fear, the convict began to confess and that led to the exhumation of the supposed placenta.
The police found that it was beef soaked in red color to look like a placenta.
FROM Daniel Bampoe, Asamankese