Murdered Swedru teenager laid to rest

The remains of the 19-year-old girl murdered at Gomoa Lome in the Gomoa Central District recently were laid to rest last Saturday at a sombre funeral ceremony at Agona Swedru in the Central Region.

Augustina Teye, aka Adjoa Kelempe, was last spotted by her friends on Thursday, August 27, 2020, but was found dead in a bush at Gomoa Lome on the morning of the following day.

No arrests have been made so far in connection with the teenager’s murder which threw the Swedru township into shock two weeks ago.

The orphaned Augustina Teye left behind a four-year-old daughter who is living with her grandparents at Agona Swedru.

Hundreds of mourners and sympathisers, mostly youth, thronged the family house at Desuenim to bid her farewell, with many of them — especially her peers — heard calling for justice and arrest of the perpetrator(s) of the act.

Girl, 19, murdered, body parts removed

Due respect

In due respect to the dead and the sensibilities of the family, mourners were strictly cautioned against taking pictures of the deceased as she laid in state, apparently because of the circumstances of her death.

One mourner remarked: “Indeed, this is an act of wickedness and lack of compassion on the part of the assailant(s) to gruesomely murder such a poor girl under the cover of darkness. The Police must up their game and apprehend the culprits as quickly as possible to face the law.”

The naked and lifeless body of the light-skinned teenager was found lying in a pool of blood with several machete wounds on the body on that fateful day.

Her feet, wrists, buttocks and private parts were removed, with blood oozing from her nose and mouth and the body left in a bush by the side of the road that links Gomoa Lome to Gomoa Sinbrofo and connects to the main Accra-Cape Coast highway.

School drop-out

Augustina Teye got pregnant and was forced to drop out of school while a pupil at the Anglican Basic School in Agona Swedru but was enrolled again by the Mothers Union of the St James Anglican Church upon delivering her baby.

She later dropped out again insisting she wanted to learn a trade, and with support from Give to Eat, a local non-governmental organisation based in Agona Nkum, was registered into a sewing firm, only to switch to hairdressing as her preferred trade.