Palm wine tapper in police grips over alleged defilement and murder of teenager

A 61-year-old palm wine tapper has been arrested in connection with the murder of a thirteen-year-old girl at Juaso near Konongo in the Ashanti Region.

Bermaah Deborah was found dead on a cocoa farm near her father’s cottage upon a search.

Police say they followed up to the crime scene after they got a call from the father of the deceased on Tuesday concerning the murder.

It is believed the teenager was defiled before she was killed, according to the Police.

“When we saw the lifeless body of the girl, her pant had been torn, her jeans trousers had been taken off,” the Asante Akyem South District Police Commander, DSP Anyani Andrews said in an interview with Power News’ Ashanti Regional correspondent, Jonathan Ofori.

He said the palm wine tapper who is in their custody was picked up because the crime scene is within his operational area at an area called Yaw Kwei.

“It is only that man (the palm wine tapper) and the deceased father who has something doing at the area so we became suspicious that it was the palm wine tapper that might have killed the girl so we picked him to assist us in investigations,” said DSP Anyani.

Meanwhile, residents of the area are outraged following the series of rape cases in the region.

Jonathan reports that police at Kona in the Ashanti Region are also investigating the death of a fourteen-year-old girl who is believed to have been defiled and killed on Sunday.

Rukaya Ali, a resident of Oyera, went missing after she was sent to a corn mill at Tano Odumasi.