“Dad, please don’t kill her” – 14-year-old begs as father kills mother
A 14-year-old girl has been left in despair after she witnessed the death of her mother in their single room residence at Asuofua Asamang in the Ashanti Region.
Not even Comfort Kulani’s desperate cry and shout for help could stop her 48-year-old father Bashiru Naniyabi from killing her mother.
Bashiru is said to have shot and killed his wife in the presence of his children on Monday dawn after the woman threatened to divorce him.
“Dad please don’t kill her. I wanted to save her life but I could not. He would have killed me too if I wasn’t fast. Oh, my mother is gone,” the girl, now an orphan, said in tears.
She said her father had nothing good up his sleeves.
“I will run away anytime I see my father. I knew my father did not have any good intentions for us. It is my mother who has been taking care of us,” a distraught Comfort narrated the incident in an interview with Kumasi-based Luv FM, monitored by The Ghana Report.
The father reportedly consumed a poisonous substance minutes after committing the heinous crime in the presence of his children.
However, he was arrested on the same day, Monday, August 2.
While in custody, the poison started affecting his body and he was rushed to the Asuofua Government Hospital where he died hours later.
A brother of the wife, Daniel Larry, said customary marriage rites for the sister was yet to be performed, although the couple had four children together.
Larry said he advised the couple to settle their differences a day before his brother-in-law committed the crime.
The body of the woman has been deposited at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
Police in Asuofua have begun investigations into the incident that has left the entire town in shock.
The development adds to a string of spousal murders in recent times.
Spousal murders over the years
- Late Juliet Obu
On January 16, 2021, residents of Gblaka, near Doryumu in the Greater Accra Region, were thrown into a state of shock as the lifeless body of a 20-year-old woman was found.
The body, which was later identified as that of Miss Juliet Obu, a bar attendant, was lying in a pool of blood with several deep machete wounds on the neck and other parts.
Residents, who last saw the deceased, said she was in the company of a young man suspected to be her boyfriend some few minutes before she was found dead.
- Late Lillian Dedjoe
On March 10, 2021, a district court in Madina remanded into police custody Prince Charles Dedjoe, a businessman, suspected of killing his 43-year-old wife.
On Sunday, March 7, 2021, he was arrested for allegedly killing his wife in their residence at East Legon.
The accused person has been slapped with a murder charge.
The police report revealed that a day before the incident, the father of the deceased had complained that his daughter had been severely assaulted by her husband (accused person).
But Mr Dedjoe, a day after the father-in-law’s report, reported his side of the story to the police.
“At about 3:20 am on the said day, he rushed out from bed upon hearing his wife scream only to find her lying unconscious on their staircase.
“He, together with his two children, quickly rushed her to the hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival,” according to the husband’s statement to the police.
- Late Yesutor Elizabeth Akpalu
On March 11, 2021, a Level 300 student of the Evangelical Presbyterian University College died after she was allegedly assaulted by her boyfriend.
The boyfriend of the 31-year-old, Kumah Philip Ceasar, is the Deputy Director of Youth Employment Agency (YEA) at Akatsi North.
According to sources, he had been assaulting the deceased for some time now.
Yesutor Elizabeth Akpalu, who was rushed to the Ho Teaching Hospital by her friends on Sunday around 4 pm complained of severe chest pains.
According to her friend, the deceased exchanged messages with her about being physically assaulted by Mr Philip Ceasar.
She died in the early hours of Monday, March 8, Volta Region Police PRO, Prince Dogbatse said.
Although, women are mostly the victims in such situations. There have been instances where women are known as culprits.
Incidents where men are the victims
On August 14, 2015, a 40-year-old woman suspected of killing and secretly burying her Canadian boyfriend came to Ghana on a visit.
Although the body was not found, Natasha Bawah, a trader and hairdresser, was alleged to have taken the presumed dead Eddie Murphy Sulemana to the Upper East Region, where he was killed.
The suspect claimed Sulemana, a Muslim, died at the Tumu Government Hospital while receiving treatment for a fatal accident in the Upper East Region and was buried by the Muslim community.
However, checks by the police showed no record of Sulemana either at the hospital or from the Muslim community that supposedly buried him.
On September 16, 2016, a 23-year-old woman who allegedly stabbed her boyfriend to death in the heat of an argument was provisionally charged with murder before an Accra Magistrate court.
Veronica Akua Oparebea’s plea was not taken when she appeared before the court, presided over by Isaac Addo in 2016. She was remanded into police custody.
Presenting the facts of the case, Sergeant Eric Pobee said the complainant, Kasim Okai, is a driver residing at Achimota market, while Veronica is a trader and girlfriend of the deceased.
The accused and the deceased lived at Taifa June-July Railway area in a wooden kiosk together with the suspect’s two children.
A fight erupted between them, and Veronica reportedly entered the kiosk and picked a kitchen knife to break an iced block to massage her swollen eye.
But her husband pounced on her again. This time, she turned and stabbed him on the left thigh, he fell to the ground.
On November 11, 2016, a woman who allegedly stabbed her boyfriend, leading to his death, was charged before an Accra Circuit court.
Charlotte was charged with murder when she appeared before court. The facts of the case were that on October 19, 2016, a misunderstanding ensued between the couple, Charlotte and Johnson Deho.
After the fight, Deho decided to go to bed, but Charlotte, who was armed with a knife, stabbed him in the stomach when he entered the room.
She stabbed him again, in the back, when he attempted to run.
Love turns sour
Fast forward to May 6, 2020, police in the Ashanti Region arrested a 27-year-old woman and her boyfriend for conspiring to kill her husband.
The suspects, Mavis Brepor, alias Maadwoa, and Patrick Asare, alias Coach, 50, are said to have engaged the services of a contract killer to have her husband, David Gator, 52, killed.
Cases recorded in other countries
On November 21, 2018, a Moroccan woman was accused of killing her lover and serving up his remains to Pakistani workers in the United Arab Emirates, prosecutors say.
The woman killed her boyfriend three months ago, they say, but the crime was only recently discovered when a human tooth was found inside her blender.
She confessed to police, calling it a moment of “insanity”, state-owned newspaper The National reports.
The woman, who is in her 30s, will go on trial pending an investigation.
She had been in a relationship with the victim for seven years. According to The National, she killed him after he told her he was planning to marry someone else from Morocco.
While police did not reveal how he was killed, they said his girlfriend had served up his remains as part of a traditional rice and meat dish to some Pakistani nationals working nearby.
The discovery was only made when the victim’s brother went looking for him at their home in the city of Al Ain, which sits on the border with Oman. There, he found a human tooth inside a blender, the newspaper reports.
The man reported his brother missing to police, who carried out DNA tests on the tooth and confirmed it belonged to the victim.