The Kaneshie District Court has ordered a psychiatric evaluation of Richard Appiah, the key suspect alleged to have murdered three children at Abesim in the Bono Region.
This was based on the advice of the Attorney General.
When the case was called on Wednesday (November 2, 2022), the prosecutor Chief Inspector Lawrence Kofi Anane informed the court that the Attorney General recommended a psychiatric evaluation for the accused.
The state prosecutor added that the accused is to be charged with murder based on the advice of the Attorney General.
Appiah has thus been committed to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital for examination.
The case has been adjourned to November 22, 2022.
Why is Appiah in court?
Police arrested Richard Appiah for the murder of three persons, including two teenagers, and preserving their chopped body parts in a refrigerator.
According to the police, 56-year-old Thomas Adjei reported that his 12-year-old son Louis Agyemang Junior had gone missing on Friday.
The boy had gone to play football and did not return home as of 10 pm. However, a friend of the boy told Mr. Adjei that he had seen Louis exit the park together with Richard during the football match.
Mr. Adjei organized some neighbors and went to Alaska near Abesim in Sunyani together with the police to question Richard, who is also the stepbrother of Louis.
The team insisted on searching the house and found one of the doors locked.
However, the suspect explained that the keys to the room had gone missing.
After forcefully breaking the lock, the body of Louis Agyemang Junior was found in cold blood lying prostrate on the floor with the head severed. The group also found a sack containing human body parts.
A fridge in the house was discovered containing three human heads, including that of Louis.
One of the deceased was identified as Stephen, 15, but the identity of the third is yet to be established. Many more body parts were found tucked in the fridge like meat at a slaughterhouse.
The three human heads and the body of Louis Agyemang Junior were deposited at the Best Care Mortuary at Mantukwa in the Sunyani West Municipality.
The development has prompted the Inspector General of Police to direct the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the police headquarters in Accra to provide technical support to the Bono Regional CID to investigate the matter.
Police uncover buried intestines
Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service found human intestines allegedly buried by the suspect, Richard Appiah.
The entrails, supposedly of one of the deceased, were found on a cocoa farm and have since been exhumed for analysis and forensic examination in Accra.
A statement issued on Wednesday, August 25, said two cutlasses with bloodstains used by the suspect to commit the crime were also retrieved from the scene.
Second suspect freed
On September 2, 2021, police released the second suspect arrested in the Abesim murder case.
The identity of the suspect was not made public.
However, he was arrested after Richard Appiah, a 28-year-old architect, was nabbed on August 20, 2021, for the alleged murder of three children at Abesim in the Bono Region.
The second suspect is reported to have been freed after investigations established that he was not linked to the case.