62-year-old fetish priest arrested for murdering friend over cocoa farm

A 62-year-old Farmer, Emmanuel Tetteh who doubles as a fetish priest at Assin Akwetey No2 in the Assin South District of the Central Region has been remanded for 3 weeks into police custody by the Assin Fosu District Court for allegedly killing his friend, Emmanuel Kofi Koranteng in a cocoa farm over fight on Cocoa farm.

The court presided over by His Worship Abdul Majid Iliasu adjourned the case to December 19, 2022, following a prayer by the Prosecutor, Chief Inspector Gilbert Ayongo.

Presenting the fact before the court, the prosecution said that both the accused and the deceased were close friends and share farm boundaries but their friendship turned sour when the Accused person accused the deceased to have stolen his gun.

The deceased on 31st January 2022, informed some people in the area that he was traveling to his hometown, Larteh in the Eastern Region, a call made to the town by the town folks after a week revealed that the deceased has not been to the town.

This raised suspicion among the people of Akwetey No2 so on 7th February 2022, Assemblymember for the area and some members of the community organized a search party for the deceased in the village where they discovered the deceased door was tightly locked, they forcibly opened the door and found the luggage the deceased was traveling with.

The search team proceeded to the deceased farm and found the decomposed body of the deceased, shirts, and Wellington boots, with the skull dislocated and lying a few meters away from their boundaries.

They highly suspected the accused who miraculously vanished from the village when the deceased went missing.

The prosecution said the police obtained an order from the court and declare the accused wanted after an official complaint about the case has been made to the police.

The Accused was published in the media for apprehension and on 18th November 2022,he was arrested at Twifo Hemang upon a tip-off and was brought to Assin Fosu to Assin in the investigation.

Meanwhile, forensic analysis conducted on the skeletal remains disclosed the deceased was shot in the abdomen, 4 pellets were subsequently found and same was kept for evidential purposes.

BACKGROUND

On 10th February 2022, Kasapa News Yaw Boagyan reported that a decomposed body of a farmer who went missing has been discovered in bizarre circumstances in a cocoa farm at Assin Akwetey-no. 2 in the Assin South District of the Central.

An eyewitness who doubles as Assemblymember of the area, Mr. Tetteh Robert in an interview said he owed the deceased some amount of money but had not had a glimpse of him for weeks so he decided to go search for him in his village only to discover his mortal remains with the skull dislocated and lying few meters away from the boundaries of the suspects and the deceased farm boundaries.

Though the cause of the death was not known immediately, they suspect one Emmanuel Tetteh who 3 days before the demise of the deceased had a misunderstanding with the deceased over a piece of land and a missing gun which resulted in a scuffle.

The suspect and his family including school children have left the village leaving his undried cocoa beans behind.