** Woman hacked, man shot
* Rastaman, another in custody
Police Investigators and Crime Experts in Ho, the Volta regional capital, have for the past four weeks been scratching their heads and biting their nails in desperate moves to unravel the mysteries behind two separate gruesome murders that rocked the district recently.

Madam Ami, 42 years old trader, was allegedly hacked to death by an assailant and secretly buried, while the second case has it that Komla Hafu, 46, farmer, was shot at close range, after allegedly being mistaken for a monkey. In the chilling case of Ami, who a seller of fried fish, when she last left her Adaklu Kpatove home on Thursday July 17, with a head load of fish, little did any of the 1,250 residents of the town, including her only child, suspect that her decomposing body would be found in a secret grave ten days later.

She was reported to have assured her son, Master Michael Avor, a student of Adaklu Senior Secondary School, that she would meet him at school, after her daily sales, to pay his fees, but that was the last time he saw her.

After waiting in vain for five days the boy reported his mother’s disappearance to the chief of the town, Torgbi Kpatatsu II. It took a search and rescue party formed by the chief, led by Unit Committee Chairman, Rachael Avor, another five days to locate Ami’s secret grave.

It is believed that the woman was hacked with a sharp object, possibly a machete, and was buried at a spot between Kpatove and Waya. Mr. Victor Adade, a native, told The Chronicle that Ami was buried behind the private toilet of another resident, Lord Komla (also known as Anku), a Rastafarian.

Reports from the search team to the police said that some fish, the type Ami went to sell that fateful day, were found on Komla. The 39-year old farmer is helping the police in their investigations.

In the second story, which happened at Wayanu, some 20km.west of the first crime scene, Christian Yao Ahiadzi, 37, is also helping the police to unravel how he shot and killed Komla Hafu, his auntie’s husband, in the early hours of Saturday, August 9,2003.

In a statement to the police, Ahiadzi said he visited his father’s farm and saw a large monkey plucking corn from the farm. He got closer to about 20metres and was sure it was a monkey, but after shooting the game turned out to be Hafu’s lifeless body. The deceased was married to his aunt, Madam Margaret Gamey.

The chief of the village, Torgbi Ahiagbey Galankui, told the police that there was a communal labour that morning in which both victim and suspect fully participated. He said surprisingly, both of them left the scene before the exercise officially ended.

Telling his side of the story, Mr. Yao Gamey, the suspect’s father and brother-in-law to the deceased said he sent his son to the farm to fetch some cassava for the day’s meal, but was unaware that his son carried his hunting gun along until one Komla Yevugah broke the tragic news to him. The district police commander, Superintendent Nek Blewushie, who confirmed the two stories, said investigations were going on.

The district C.I.D.in-charge, Chief Inspector Wonder Kwaku Dogbevia, said in Adaklu’s case, efforts are being made to get a pathologist to exhume the body for autopsy.

On the shooting incident, he said the body has since been released to the family after a post mortem was conducted at the police hospital.

Meanwhile both Komla and Ahiadzi have been remanded in custody after appearing in court.