Missing Takoradi girls: Police arrest third suspect

A third suspect has been arrested in Nigeria in connection with the three missing Takoradi girls case.

The suspect, Chika John Nnodim, was arrested on Monday, August 5, 2019.

Chika was arrested in a joint operation carried out by the Ghana Police Service and their Nigerian counterparts.

The police has since begun the necessary processes to extradite Chika to Ghana to assist in investigations.

The arrest of Chika brings to three, the number of persons arrested in connection with the three missing girls.

The first suspect, Samuel Udeotuk Wills, 28, was arrested by the police earlier this year, but escaped from police custody after being remanded in court for the offence of kidnapping.

He was later rearrested and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for escaping from lawful custody.

The second suspect, John Oji, was also arrested by the police in neighbouring Togo.

Oji, has since been remanded into police custody whilst investigations continue.

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Refocus

According to a police source, the arrest of Chika led the Ghana police to re-orient the whole investigations scenario and look for the possibility that the girls might have been killed for ritual purposes.

The source said following the arrest of Chika, the Nigerian police saw a WhatsApp chat between him and Samuel Willis in which he (Willis) told Chika that he now kills for money and asked Chika whether he could do same and he agreed.

At that stage, it said, the police changed the whole orientation of the investigations and started looking for clues that the girls might have been murdered for ritual purposes and while planning on the next move, one of the investigators remembered that he had handled a similar abduction case involving another Nigerian suspect eight years ago where the victim’s remains were discovered in a manhole.

With that at the back of their mind, the team of forensic and crime scene investigators decided to start the whole investigations by looking for clues that might lead them to the whereabouts of the missing girls whether dead or alive.

A thorough search of the room of Willis revealed a scarf, blood-stained panties, ropes and other exhibits all pointing to the fact that some females may have been killed in the room.

The source said following the discovery of the three skulls and the skeletons in the cesspit, the police decided to probe further, since four girls went missing and a search on Tuesday on the premises of a house where the same suspect lived discovered the fourth skeleton.

A fourth set of skeletons was found in the uncompleted building from where the prime suspect was rearrested after his escape from lawful custody on December 30, 2018.