Brutal Murder Rocks Kumasi

Four unidentified men, armed with axes and machetes, broke into the room of a 26-year-old goldsmith on Saturday night and brutally murdered him at South Suntreso, a suburb of Kumasi.

The assailants completely cut off Yaw Jordan's head with the axe and opened other cuts on his neck, hands, back and legs before fleeing in a saloon car they had parked in front of Jordan's residence.

When the Daily Graphic visited the murder scene yesterday morning, bloodstains were all over the room, with the footprints of the assailants dotted in the room.

“I could not withstand the gory sight and nearly collapsed when I saw Jordan lying in a pool of blood in his room,” one of the tenants told the Daily Graphic.

“From the look of things, I think it took just about a minute for the perpetrators to carry out the heinous crime,” the tenant said.

It is not known whether the attackers took anything from the room and the police say they are launching investigations into the matter to bring the perpetrators to book.

“I have just been briefed on the case and we are going to get to the bottom of the matter,” the Ashanti Regional Police Crime Officer, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACOP) Bright Oduro, said when contacted.

After helping to carry the body to the morgue, Jordan's father wept bitterly, unable to control his tears to be able to talk to this reporter.

Some close associates, however, said Jordan had recently had a fierce confrontation with some young men over a woman but they could not tell whether the murder was linked to that incident.

Jordan, who used to live at Ashanti New Town, moved to the rented premises at South Suntreso about two years ago.
According to co-tenants, characteristic of the man, he returned home from work about 10.30 p.m. last Saturday and immediately went into his room.

At that time, the whole vicinity was uncharacteristically very quiet and that might have aided the attackers to move into the house unnoticed.

Jordan lay on the floor in his room while watching television and he might have fallen asleep in the process, with the door to his room open. At the same time, the main gate to the building, which housed about 10 other tenants, was left opened.

The tenants stated that four men, suspected to have trailed Jordan, entered the house and walked straight to his room where they used the axe to open deep cuts on his head.

Even though some of the occupants of the house said they never heard the deceased shout, others indicated that they had heard some unusual noise from his room but feared to come out.

What they said heightened theirs fear of an unusual development in the house that night was the continuous barking of a dog in the house.

“I then heard one of the armed men say, 'Let's hurry up and leave here,'” a seemingly distraught resident told this reporter.

“They quickly moved out of the house and boarded the waiting car, which had the engine on, before speeding off,” he added.

According to the residents, when they entered Jordan's room, he was struggling to give up the ghost and finally gave in moments later before they could rush him to the hospital.

The body has been placed in the morgue at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital as investigations continue.

Story by Kwame Asare Boadu