General News of Friday, 7 September 2012

Source: Daily Guide

3 Serial Killers Nabbed

THREE PERSONS have been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for their alleged involvement in the killing of five women in and around Sogakope in the Volta Region.

The suspects, Samuel Tsatsu aka Adzaguda Razzick, 70, Jerry Kelvin, 37, and the third suspect, who is yet to be identified, were arrested in separate operation in the vicinity of Sogakope.

Items such as strips of red calico, six brassieres, seven ladies’ blouses, four dirty scarves, a number of strings of ladies’ waist beads, five pairs of female sandals, two knives, two non-functioning mobile phones and an amount of GH¢480 were retrieved from Adzaguda’s room and are being kept as exhibits at the CID Headquarters.

The Director-General CID, Prosper Agblor, told journalists in Accra, yesterday, that since the arrest of the suspected serial killers, the Sogakope area had seen no such murder incidents.

So far, two of the five women, identified as Baby Dugbenu, 30, and Diana Daakpene, 34, were both insane. The former hailed from Vume and the latter from Tefle.

Ages of two unidentified were believed as 28, 25 while the third person was decomposed beyond recognition.

The CID boss narrated that from September 2011 to June 23 this year, the victims were found dead lying in a supine position with marks of violence and their legs spread apart with their vaginas mutilated.

Investigations showed that the incident scenes were undisturbed indicating that the victims might have been killed at one location and dumped at another.

Pathologists at the Police and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospitals have confirmed that all the five victims had died under unnatural circumstances.

The CID boss recounted that on September 15, 2011, Baby Dugbenu, resident of Kpotame, near Vume, left home at about 6am dressed in a brown skirt and blue pullover and was last seen roaming about in the Sogakope, Tefle and Vume neighbourhood.

She was later found dead lying half naked with her hands and neck tied with a strip of red calico and tied to a plantain sucker.

The second incident was on November 10, 2011 when the decomposed body of another female was found in a bush between Kpotame and Vume off the Sogakope-Accra Highway. She also lay in a supine position with a goat’s skull placed between her thighs and a clay pot wrapped with a white calico by her.

This was followed by two incidents in May, 2012. The body of a-yet-to-be identified woman, 28, was found on May 16, at about 5am on Kamlonyikope, a Tefle suburb, with a stab below the navel and intestines gushing out while part of her vagina was cut off.

At about 4:30pm, Diana Daakpene from Sokpe near Sogakope was found lying dead by an anthill at Tefle.

She also had her neck tied with red calico and her genitals removed. Both breasts were cut off. A deep cut was also inflicted on her abdomen.

The last was on June 23, 2012 when the body of an unidentified woman believed to be 25 was found at one of the toilet cubicles of the Vume Roman Catholic (RC) Primary School.

A red band was tied around the neck with marks of violence on her face while blood oozed from her mouth.

Intelligence gathered by the police showed Adzaguda, on June 22, 2012, was seen in the company of the deceased at about 9:30pm in Tefle, a night before she was found dead.

He was therefore arrested on June 27, 2012.

The yet-to-be-identified suspect, who claimed to be deaf and dumb, was reported to have attacked one Ernestina Zaku, 42, who went to wash by a stream in Tefle in the company of two of her children at about 12noon on June 25, 2012.

The suspect reportedly emerged from the bush and when the victim asked him of his mission, he attacked and attempted to strangulate her.

She raised the alarm and was recued by two men.

The suspect has since his arrest refused to talk, indicating he was deaf and dumb but the police did not believe him.

The third suspect, Jerry Kelvin, was perambulating in the vicinity while the police was escorting the said deaf and dumb suspect to court.

When he was quizzed, he could not give any reason for his behaviour. He was therefore arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice.

All the three persons have since been arraigned in Accra.

The Magistrate, Ali Baba Abature, remanded them into prison custody and directed that Jerry and the dumb person be sent to the psychiatric hospital for observation.

The order, according to the CID boss, had since been carried out.