Samuel Udoetuk Wills, John Oji
The police are said to be looking at possibilities that the Nigerians arrested in connection with the kidnapping of the three Takoradi girls might be serial killers.
The reason is that the key suspect, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, who has given the security agencies a tough time in revealing the whereabouts of the girls – more than six months after his arrest – is said to have given a slight hint of what might have happened to the girls.
Blood Sacrifice
A thorough search on their social media accounts – particularly Facebook – suggested that the gang had been communicating in coded language which is pointing to rituals, including the use of blood for sacrifice.
Prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Department, who have put the two Nigerians on trial at the Sekondi High Court, indicated at the last trial that the Facebook chats of the two accused persons, from the mobile phone of Samuel Udoetuk Wills, also revealed discussions on drugs which could be administered to victims to throw them into stupor, apart from the issues of blood used for sacrifice.
Preliminary Findings
Based on the preliminary investigations, the prosecution was able to present to the court a provisional fact sheet which suggested that apart from kidnapping, the police were also looking at serial murderers.
Since the ‘breakthrough’, the police have been working around the clock to crack the case and it was one of such efforts last Friday that resulted in the exhumation of skeletons believed to be three from the septic tank behind the uncompleted house where the key suspect had been living at Kansaworodo in Takoradi.
New Discovery
On Tuesday, the police discovered more human remains in a well at Nkroful New Site, a suburb of Takoradi.
The remains were found in an uncompleted building near the location where Samuel Udoetuk Wills was re-arrested after his escape from police cells when he was first arrested for the kidnapping of the girls.
The fourth set of human parts found in the well adds to the complexity of the missing girls’ mystery and also gives the parents more leverage to question the integrity of the story so far.
They are in denial of the speculation that the first set of remains could be those of their daughters although forensic and DNA tests are yet to be carried out to establish the identities of the discovered human parts. Now that another set of parts have been found, raising the number beyond three, the story is getting murkier by the day.
Risky Job
The kidnappers appeared to have initially sent the police on a wild goose chase and some CID detectives have since been risking their lives outside Ghana including travelling to Nigeria and other dangerous places undercover, to get to the bottom of the case.
Fiancée Factor
Last week, when the case was called at the Sekondi High Court, the prosecution said Samuel Udoetuk Wills, in the wake of the kidnappings, was shuttling between Takoradi in the Western Region and Koforidua in the Eastern Region where his girlfriend lives.
The prosecution mentioned the name of the fiancée as Emily Alimo who lives at Atekyem, a surburb of Koforidua. He said the suspect spent at least three weeks with her before returning to Takoradi.
The prosecution also said that when Emily Alimo was contacted in August 2018, she initially denied knowing Udoetuk Wills until later in December 2018 when she admitted she knew the suspect and that he was her boyfriend.
According to the prosecution, it was the girlfriend who subsequently gave the particulars of the Facebook account of the suspect.
The two Nigerian suspects – Samuel Odoetuk Wills, 28, and John Oji, 29 – have pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy and kidnapping of each of the three victims and are on remand in prison custody pending trial on October 16, 2019.
Main Victims
The first victim, Priscilla Blessing Bentum, 21, a third year student of the University of Education, Winneba, was kidnapped on August 17, 2018 at Kansaworodo.
Second victim, Ruth Love Quayson, 18, had just completed Fijai Senior High School in Sekondi and was kidnapped on December 4, 2018 at Butumegyabu (BU) junction in Takoradi.
The third victim, Priscilla Mantebea Kuranchie, 15, a first-year student of Sekondi College, was kidnapped on December 21, 2018 at a spot near Nkroful junction.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi