A thirty-five-year-old woman has been arrested by the police at Ejura in the Ashanti Region for allegedly killing her two children, aged one month and two years, at Yeboah-Akosua, a farming community in the Ejura-Sekyedumasi municipality.
It is, however, unclear what led the mother of three, Adwoa Juliana, to kill her own children.
According to the police, the bodies of the children were found at separate locations within the community when they followed up after the children’s father had lodged a complaint.
Bodies found
The body of the one-month-old baby was found in the suspect’s room, while that of the two-year-old was found partially buried at a secluded area some four miles away from their home.
Juliana and her husband, Polika Danyaga, have been married for the past 10 years and have three children. The couple are both tenant farmers in the Ejura-Sekyedumasi municipality and their eldest child, about six years old, lives with his grandmother in the north.
Confirming the incident to the Daily Graphic, the Ejura-Sekyedumasi District Police Crime Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr Kyei Sarpong, said the bodies of the deceased had since been deposited at the morgue of the St Theresa’s Catholic Hospital in Nkoranza for autopsy and preservation.
He said the incident occurred about 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 when Danyaga went to the Sekyedumase Police Station and reported that his wife had murdered their one-month-old child and that he also entertained the fear that the other one who was nowhere to be found had also been murdered by the woman.
Body discovered
Based on the information, the police accompanied Danyaga to the house, where they found the body of the one-month-old boy in a T-shirt, but there were no visible marks of assault on the body.
The police interrogated the woman and she later led them to a place near Frantei, about four miles from their cottage, where they discovered that the two-year-old boy had also been murdered and partially buried, with part of the body showing.
Also found at the scene were GH¢200 and gh¢50 notes that had been torn into pieces where the body had been buried, together with a small bag containing the boy’s personal effects such as a T-shirt, pants and other things.
Mr Sarpong indicated that although the police could not conclude on the mental state of the suspect, her posturing in the course of interrogations gave police reason to suspect she might be mentally unstable.
Resident
According to one Benjamin Awuni Malboma, a resident of the community and close friend of the family, Juliana left home on Sunday evening, with the excuse of visiting her brother in a nearby a town.
However, he said, on Monday when she did not return, the husband tried to call almost all her relatives to find out whether they knew her whereabouts but none of them had seen her.
He said calls placed to her phone went unanswered and fearing that something might have happened to her, the husband informed the leaders of the community about her disappearance, along with their two kids.
According to Mr Malboma, around 7 p.m. the following day, after the husband had returned home from Ejura where he had gone to sell his produce, he heard some noise from his neighbour, with Juliana carrying the lifeless body of their last born.
He explained that Juliana had gone to the neighbour’s house to inform him that Danyaga had killed all his children and even tried to kill her, but she had managed to escape with the child.
He said she had tried to leave the lifeless body of the child in the neighbour’s house and abscond, but she was apprehended and sent to the husband’s house.
Arrest
Mr Malboma said the leaders of the community were informed about what had happened and a report was made to the police for Juliana’s arrest.
After her arrest, he said, all attempts to get her to tell them about the whereabouts of the elder child proved futile.
Consequently, he said, a search party, made up of some local people and the police, went into the bush to look for the child and found him half-buried in a hole near their home.
