The suspect being escorted by security personnel
The 28-year-old man who brutally killed his wife at Degede, a suburb of Bibiani in the Bibiani Anhwiaso Bekwai District in the Western North Region, has been remanded into police custody by the Bibiani Magistrate Court.
Emmanuel Okyere Baffuor was hauled before the court presided over by His Worship, Peter Dapileh Banoe last Friday after he was arrested at Oforikrom in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region last Wednesday.
His plea was not taken and was remanded after the prosecutor, Chief Inspector Benjamin Owusu Agyemang, had requested the court to remand the suspect to allow for further police investigations into the case.
He will reappear before the court on August 27, 2021.
Hundreds of residents in the Bibiani Anhwiaso Bekwai Municipality trooped to the court premises to catch a glimpse of the man who is suspected to be a serial killer.
Okyere Baffuor allegedly stabbed his wife, Jessica Afi Johnes, 24, to death on August 5, 2021 after the wife decided to divorce him.
After committing the alleged crime, the suspect fled but was arrested by the police last Wednesday at Oforikrom following a collaboration between Bibiani police and their counterparts from the Manhyia Divisional Command.
Okyere Baffuor was also on the radar of the police for the disappearance of a nursing student called Eva Boahemaa in November 2016, at Offinso in the Ashanti Region.
Suicide Attempt
The Bibiani Anhwiaso Bekwai Divisional Crime Officer, Supt. Seth Sewornu confirmed that the suspect attempted to commit suicide by trying to drink a poisonous substance but the police pounced on him to avert any trouble.
A picture of Okyere Baffuor in handcuffs emerged showing him holding a bottle with a green lid, which the police said contained a poisonous substance he had tried to drink to end his life in an apparent attempt to escape justice for the gruesome murder.
Serial Killer
The police in 2016 declared Okyere Baffuor wanted following the disappearance of a nursing trainee.
Telltale evidence suggested that the suspect allegedly ‘vanished’ with a nursing student whose name was given as Eva Boahemaa, somewhere in November 2016, and the lady has never been seen since then.
Eva, who was a student of St. Patrick Nursing and Midwifery Training College at Offinso in the Ashanti Region, was said to be the girlfriend of Okyere Baffuor at the time she got missing.
Social media posts of friends of Eva, who is feared dead, appear to have exposed the activities of Okyere Baffuor, now arrested.
Eva’s Disappearance
When the student disappeared, there was a Police Missing Persons’ Report issued from the Offinso Divisional CID in 2016, confirming the case.
The police report said Eva was a native of Bekwai in the Ashanti Region and was 23 years of age, and her height was given as 5.5 feet.
The report also said she is dark in complexion with medium eyes, small ears and stoutly built.
It said Eva had two tribal marks on the left cheek and the dress in which she was last seen was a pink blouse over white skirt.
The police gave her occupation as a student.
According to the police report, Eva could speak Twi and English, and the date, time and place where she was last seen was November 4, 2016 at 15:30 hours at St. Patrick’s Midwifery Campus, Offinso.
The police said the circumstances under which Eva went missing was that she left the school for Ashanti-Bekwai on vacation and has since not been seen, and gave the suspect’s name as Okyere Baffuor.
It later turned out that Okyere Baffuor was once based in Italy and was believed to be the suitor of Eva.
Wife’s Murder
Following the gruesome murder, police preliminary investigations revealed that the victim had decided to divorce the suspect over myriad of issues.
Supt. Seth Serwonu told journalists that the husband begged the wife to stay explaining that he had turned a new leaf, but the lady insisted that she was walking out of the marriage.
The woman subsequently packed her belongings and left the husband’s house to live with her parents.
On Thursday, August 5, 2021, at about 12 noon, the suspect went to the wife’s parents’ house at a time the parents were not around and purportedly attacked the wife with a knife in her room.
The man allegedly stabbed the wife five times, killing her on the spot, and covered the body with clothes in the room and absconded.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi