|
|
IN THE MIND OF A KILLER
Gideon Sackitey, Accra
Ghana woke up on Wednesday morning to a horrendous story
that would for a long time disturb many a mind especially
the family of Yaw Awuakye Tunsuo, a palm wine tapper who
killed his father and brother in-law.
His claimed they had failed to persuade his wife, Madam
Leticia Fosuaa, from not making love to him since she was
not keen on having any more children. She already had five
children with Yaw, the oldest a 20 year old.
Yaw claimed he had been starved of love from his wife for
sometime. He thus went ahead and did the unimaginable: He
gunned down his father and brother-in-laws and later blowing
his head off in a most horrendous way.
Neighbours of the couple said the 46-year-old farmer and
palm wine tapper, Yaw had claimed before the action that his
father-in-law, 56-year-old Opanin Kofi Baah were not on his
side in the marriage.
Residents according to the Akyem Swedru District Police
Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Paul
Aduhene said they heard a gun shot last Monday at dawn. When
the neighbours arrived at the scene, they realised that Yaw
had blown off his head with a single-barrelled gun while
sitting in a sofa!
DSP Aduhene said the people rushed to the police station and
reported the matter, after which the police went there to
begin investigations.
He explained that earlier that day, unsuspecting neighbours
sent messengers to go and inform the deceased’s
father-in-law, Opanin Baah, and his brother-in-law, Samuel,
at Kyereso cottage, a distance of about 12 kilometres from
Achiase, where the three deceased persons had been tapping
palm wine to distil akpeteshie.
DSP Aduhene said when the messengers reached the cottage,
they discovered, to their disgust, maggot-infested and
bullet-riddled bodies of the two men lying at different
locations at the cottage.
DSP Aduhene said Awuakye’s wife, Madam Fosuaa, also known as
Adwoa Fosuaa, 41, collapsed during interrogation when she
learnt that her husband committed suicide. She was revived
later at the Achiase Health Centre where she was revived and
sent to the Oda Government Hospital and admitted for two
days.
He said Fosuaa learnt that her father and her younger
brother had also been murdered after she had been discharged
from the hospital.
Meanwhile, the police have retrieved the single-barrelled
gun which Awuakye used to kill himself and the two other
men.
DSP Aduhene said police investigations revealed that
although the couple had been married for the past 22 years,
for some time now Fosuaa had refused to put up with the
husband in his bedroom and was instead taking refuge in her
father’s house because she did not want to have any more
children. But Awuakye disagreed with that decision and bore
her a grudge thereafter.
He said Awuakye decided to murder the two men on Saturday
evening so that nobody would know that he had committed the
offence, since all the farmers in the area had returned home
by then and nobody went to farm in the area the following
day, which was a Sunday.
According to the District Commander, after murdering his
father-in-law and his brother-in-law, Awuakye approached his
wife to convince her to put up with him in his bedroom that
night, promising her a precious parcel, but the woman, did
not yield to his request.
Madam Fosuaa’s version of the incident in her father’s house
where the funeral of her father and her brother was being
performed, the woman, who had earlier given her statement to
the police, said the relation between her and her late
husband had been excellent but said she did not sleep with
him that night because it had rained and she had no umbrella
to enable her to go to her husband’s house.
Yaw no doubt has a serious problem. Drukeness, of course as
a palm wine tapper; bruised ego and self esteem.
I am sure that he never heard about family planning, nor did
his wife and they never worked at making the right choices.
Besides I am sure that he did not care a at all about human
right which calls that the wife has a part in the marriage.
Indeed as argued by some women advocates, “women have 50 %
ownership in any marriage” and therefore have rights just
like the men in deciding everything!
Alas, he has brought two innocent lives to an abrupt end, an
end in which he cannot be held accountable of course because
he killed himself in the process. But the truth is if no
early warning of any sort was seen by the family?
Can we blame his wife for not taking the best of decisions
like bringing the matter before the elders? Or better still
their church and hospital authorities who would have found
an amicable solution? Here we are, with Fosuaa left with
five children to fend for and she has no meaningful trade or
employment.
I am just wondering what at all could be going through or
was indeed in the mind of Yaw Awuakye Tunsuo? He was a
loving father, at least until his fifth child. What turned
him round so fast? Was he actually a killer? What made him
actually want to kill his father and brother in law? Was it
just an issue of punctured ego?
As for killing himself, your guess is as good as mine.
Gideon Sackitey, Accra, June 8, 2007, Ghanadot
|
