General News of Monday, 26 October 2020

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Takoradi Girls: Pathologist to present skeletal remains of missing girls in court

A photo of the dead Takoradi girls A photo of the dead Takoradi girls

A Sekondi High Court sitting on the missing Takoradi girls’ case has requested for the skeletal remains presented by the head of the Pathology Department of the Police Hospital in Accra, Superintendent Dr. Osei Owusu Afriyie.

According to the seven-member jury hearing the case, the bones must be brought to court in the next hearing.

Following the request, the court presided over by Justice Richard Adjei-Frimpong ordered the pathologist to ensure that the skeletal remains are brought to court on the next adjourned date, Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

This was after Superintendent Dr. Osei Owusu Afriyie testified in court on Friday as the 19th witness in the case.

On August 3, 2019, Superintendent Dr. Osei Owusu Afriyie told the court that he had in possession five boxes containing suspected human remains retrieved from the crime scene in Takoradi.

He also retrieved another set of human remains the following week where he tabled all for examination.

"I proceeded to sort them out by removing them from the boxes and placing them on a table...Having separated the ‘biological’ from the ‘non-biological’, the first focus was to deal with the biological, using basic anthropology techniques, including visual per matching which means using the eyes to determine by size and shape combination, particular skeletons were separated,” he said as quoted in the Daily Guide report.

After a thorough investigation conducted by the forensic team including an independent candidate, it came out that the skeletal remains were all female.

According to the Daily Guide report, the team were able to determine the age of the female bones.