Barely three months after the alleged brutal murder of Kow Tawiah, a 33-year-old native farmer of Ajumako Mando in the Central Region, residents in the town and its surrounding villages are still living in a state of fear.

This is because all the suspects who allegedly partook in the butchering of Tawiah have been released. Not only that but even the body of Tawiah has not been retrieved up to today.

There are also looming fears among the family members of Tawiah that if care is not taken the case may die unresolved.

In a reminder to a petition dated April 14, 2003 to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Nana Owusu Nsiah, the Kona Royal Family, of which the late Tawiah was a member, called on the IGP to investigate the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of their relative.

In the letter, which was dated May 14, this year the family told the IGP that the immediate release of the suspects proved their contention that there are lots of clandestine manipulations and connivance from certain quarters.

All the suspects in the murder, they said, were taken to court and released without the slightest knowledge of any member of their family, adding that "immediately after the release of the culprits, the one who shot the gun and bolted away without any arrest being effected whatsoever is now moving about freely in the town."

The family, who are of the strongest conviction that their relative was murdered, said his body could never be retrieved anywhere on this earth except the culprits are made to confess the truth.

When Chronicle contacted the police headquarters in Accra yesterday, it was confirmed that indeed they had received the petition and the reminder letter and the IGP is working on it.

It would be recalled that Tawiah was said to have been butchered on February 24, this year, while on his way to his palm plantation around Tweikukrom and Atta-Kura, near Mando, by a gang who supposedly buried his body in the forest.

The shocking scenario of the case is that almost three months now since the suspects, who were then in the custody of the police and admitted inflicting cutlass wounds on him, but did not kill him, the corpse of Tawiah has not been retrieved.

Not even a two-week search expedition embarked upon by the chief of Mando and the Asafo groups, with an initial support from the police has succeeded in recovering Tawiah's body, though the suspects have been tried and set free.