Families of T’di girls fail to secure bones

The families of the three kidnapped Takoradi ladies declared dead by the police were yesterday given a first-time opportunity to see the skeletal remains of their ‘loved ones’, but they insisted that the bones were too old to be those of their missing relatives.

The families of the kidnapped ladies were at the Police Headquarters in Accra to demand the skeletal remains of Ruth Abakah, Priscilla Bentum and Ruth Love Quayson to enable them to undertake independent DNA tests to ascertain the police position that the bones were, indeed, those of the girls.

They failed to secure the skeletons, but after a closed-door meeting with the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr James Oppong Boanuh, and his team, the delegation was led to the Police Hospital morgue where the remains were kept to enable them to have a close view of them.
When they emerged from the mortuary, the delegation said the skeletons could never be those of their relatives.

Broken bones

The Spokesperson for the families, Mr Michael Grant Hayford, told the Daily Graphic that what they saw at the mortuary were broken bones which were clearly very old and, therefore, could not be those of the girls.

The teeth, he said, were big and old which, he believed, were different from those of the kidnapped girls.

“What we saw today has strengthened our position that our relatives are not dead,” Mr Hayford said.

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He, therefore, wanted the police to continue with investigations into the case.

He said the IGP made it clear to them that once the case was not closed, the police would not release the skeletons to them.

Furthermore, he said, the police chief said the best the police could do to the families was for them to bring experts to take samples of the remains for their independent test.

Mr Hayford said they rejected the police position because that was not on their cards.

Background

Following the retrieval of human parts from septic tanks at Kansaworodo in Sekondi-Takoradi, the families initially refused DNA test offers from the police to ascertain the identity of the skeletons.

However, they later gave in, and the tests were conducted.

At a news conference to announce the outcome of the DNA tests, the IGP said the tests had confirmed that the skeletons retrieved from the backyard of the prime suspect in the kidnapping cases were those of the missing ladies.

But the three families said they could not trust the outcome of the DNA tests, as announced by the Police Administration, and, therefore, demanded the reopening of investigations into the case,

However, the family of the fourth victim, Priscilla Koranchie, accepted the outcome of the police DNA examination and said it would wait for further details.