Remains of murdered Takoradi kidnapped girls presented to court

The Sekondi High Court today, November 3, 2020, took delivery of the remains of the four Takoradi kidnapped girls.

The remains which have been in the custody of the police were sent to the court following a request by the seven-member jury sitting on the murder case against Sam Udoetuk Wills and John Orji.

The remains of the four girls were according to Citinewsroom.com accompanied by Police pathologist, Superintendent Dr Osei Owusu-Afriyie.

The four girls Ruth Abeka, Priscilla Blessing Bentum, Ruth-Love Quayson and Priscilla Mantebea Koranchie were pronounced dead after DNA tests conducted on some skeletal remains discovered in parts of Takoradi confirmed their identities.

Lawyers for the two suspects raised doubts about the credibility of the DNA tests but Dr Kofi Agyapong, lead medical doctor of the team that conducted the tests on Friday October 23, 2020, defended their conclusion.

He told the Sekondi High Court presided by Justice Richard Adjei Frimpong that the team used the Standard Tandem Repeat (STR) method to arrive at the conclusion.

“…we took DNA samples from four skulls from the Ghana Police Hospital Morgue. We then proceeded to take buccal swabs from the alleged parents and siblings of the four victims. After our analysis, we found out that for the Koranchie family Alexander Kofi Koranchie who is the alleged father of missing Priscilla Mantebea Koranchie shares common allele with Skull 4 at all loci tested. The probability of stated relationship which is the Combined Paternity Index (CPI) is 25767.9834. Paternity probability is 99.99 percent. And for the Abekah family, we found out that Cecilia Owusu who is the alleged mother of missing Ruth Abekah shares common allele with Skull 3 at all loci tested. The probability of stated relationship which is the Combined Maternity Index (CMI) is 202552413.7053 and probability of maternity is 99.99 per cent.

He continued: “For the Quayson family, we found out that Comfort Arhin who is the alleged mother of missing Ruthlove Quayson shares common allele with Skull 1 at all loci tested. That the probability of stated relationship which is the Combined Maternity Index (CMI) is 53160961.519 and the probability of maternity is 99.99 per cent. And for the Bentum family, we found out that Francis Bentum Ackon who is the father of missing Priscilla Blessing Bentum and Gladys Bentum mother of the missing Priscilla Blessing Bentum shares a common allele with Skull 2 at all loci tested. That the probability of the stated relationship which is the Combined Paternity Index (CPI) is 1293669.4766 and Combined Maternity (CMI) is 11703487616.3591. The probability of paternity and maternity is 99.99 percent.

He concluded: “Skull 1 cannot be excluded as the biological daughter of Madam Comfort Arhin. Skull 2 cannot be excluded as the biological daughter of Mr. Francis Bentum Ackon and Madam Gladys Bentum. Skull 3 cannot be excluded as the biological daughter of Madam Cecilia Owusu and Skull 4 cannot be excluded as the biological daughter of Mr. Alexander Kojo Koranchie.”