An unfortunate incident unfolded as an 18-year-old candidate for the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE), Regina Dagba, and her boyfriend, Daniel Etse Datsomor, a 20-year-old fetish priest, appeared before the district magistrate court at Kpetoe on Tuesday (June 21, 2023), facing charges of murder in connection with the death of an ‘okada’ rider.
Presiding over the case, Mr. Christian Hevi-Affuflu heard that Dagba, who resides in Tsotso near Kasoa in the Central Region, traveled to Akatsi where she enticed the rider to accompany her to her boyfriend’s place in Nyatsive, located in the Republic of Togo, where he was later killed.
Sergeant Ernest Nketia, the prosecutor, informed the court that Dagba made the cross-border trip on April 21, 2023. The victim was identified as Louis Agbogli, a 28-year-old individual.
According to the prosecutor, the rider’s father, Lumor Agbogli, reported his son missing to the police in Akatsi a week after his disappearance. The police conducted an investigation and discovered that the deceased had transported Dagba to her boyfriend’s location across the Ghana-Togo border a few days earlier.
Acting on this information, the authorities lured the young couple to Wute in Ghana and apprehended them. During the interrogation, Dagba, who was charged with aiding and abetting, claimed that she arrived at her boyfriend’s home late at night on the motorbike. However, she stated that she did not know whether the rider immediately returned to Akatsi or not.
Dagba further mentioned finding the motorbike’s keys in her boyfriend’s clothes while she was washing them, which left her perplexed.
Meanwhile, the prosecution revealed that Dagba’s boyfriend, accused of murder, failed to provide an explanation to the police regarding how the rider’s keys ended up in his possession.
Consequently, the police from Ghana and Togo launched a joint investigation into the case. When the fetish priest’s mother was interrogated, her statement differed from that of her son. Eventually, the fetish priest confessed to the murder, revealing that he committed the act in a dense forest located at a gravel pit between Kpetoe in Ghana and Nyatsive in Togo.
The collaborative efforts of the police from both countries led to the discovery of the victim’s body, along with his clothes, sandals, and other belongings at the crime scene. The motorbike was also found nearby, as disclosed in court.
The prosecution added that certain body parts of the deceased were missing, and the body had been taken to the morgue pending post-mortem and DNA examinations.
Dagba, visibly distraught, appeared in court wearing a pair of jeans and a blouse. She wept uncontrollably during the proceedings, while Datsomor kept his head bowed. At one point, the judge instructed him to raise his head and face the judge’s direction.
The prosecution declared that the case was still under investigation and requested the court to remand the accused individuals, whose pleas were not taken. Consequently, the accused were remanded in police custody until July 27.
