Weaver to hang for murdering woman, 80

A 36-year-old weaver, Eklu Havor, who clubbed an 80-year-old woman to death, chopped off her head and removed her vagina for rituals has been sentenced to death by a High Court in Ho in the Volta Region.

Havor murdered the woman on her farm at Agu Village, near Dededo in the Volta Region, because he thought that would make him rich. The court, presided over by Justice Yaw Owoahene-Acheampong last week Thursday (May 18), sentenced him to death by hanging for murder.

A seven-member jury pronounced him guilty after retiring for 10 minutes with a unanimous verdict. “May God have mercy on you while you wait for the President of the Republic to sign the death warrant,” the presiding judge told the condemned murderer who seemed bewildered throughout the court proceedings.

Senior State Attorney, Andrews Dodzi Adugu, told the court that the homicide took place in the early hours of November 28, 2017. According to the prosecution, Havor was walking to his farm when he saw the old woman, Martha Adobea, working on her maize farm nearby.

He said Havor picked a club, sneaked up on her from behind and hit her on the neck. She fell unconscious immediately and died, the court was told.

Decapitation

The prosecution said Havor then pulled the dead body into the bush and cut off her head with a machete, removed her vagina, and then washed them in a nearby stagnant water before putting them into a fertiliser sack.

Havor buried the body on the farm before walking through the bush with the human parts to the shrine belonging to the second accused person in the case, Emmanuel Opoku, at Soyakordzi, also near Dedodo, at about 8.30 p.m. that day.

Havor was unable to add GH¢50,000 which the fetish priest allegedly demanded for the rituals. The prosecution said at that juncture, the fetish priest asked Havor to wait at the shrine while he (fetish priest) went to the bush for some herbs for the rituals.

But the second accused went to the police at the nearby Kporvi Barrier and informed them that someone had turned up at his shrine with human parts, offering to sell them to him.

Arrests

The police rushed to the shrine and met Havor there with the sack containing the human parts and arrested him. During interrogation, Havor was said to have told the police that he acted on the advice of Opoku who asked him to bring the head and vagina of an old woman to the shrine for the rituals.

Subsequently, Opoku was also arrested. The human parts were retrieved from the first accused and sent to the mortuary for preservation. Later, Havor led the police to the farm where he buried the murdered victim, and the corpse was exhumed.

An autopsy report on the body mentioned exsanguination (an act draining a person of blood), decapitation and homicide as the causes of death. The jury, however, did not reach a unanimous verdict on Opoku who was charged with abetment of murder.

One of the seven jurors dissented from the other six who held that he was guilty. Subsequently, he was granted bail, awaiting the prosecution’s decision to retry him.