I killed 9 women -serial killer

THE suspected serial killer, Charles Quansah, who is standing trial before an Accra High Court for murder, has, in a caution statement, confessed to killing nine women in various parts of Accra and Kumasi between 1996 and last year. In his 20 -page statement, which was tendered in evidence by the prosecution yesterday, Quansah said he killed the women, particularly because they stole his money, and described women in general as cheats.

He also said that he will not confess to the rest of the murders he committed because Ghanaian women would “descend” on him, if he did. The statement was read to the open court by Inspector Hansen Gove of the Homicide Unit of the Police Headquarters in Accra. Quansah said he killed all his victims by strangling them.

He said some of his victims were found naked because after killing them, he took off their clothes in search of the money that they had stolen from him. Quansah said that prior to the serial killing, he served two prison terms for rape.

According to him, in the first case, he quarrelled with a lady in Accra who was rude to him, and the lady reported her to the police, after which he was charged with rape, tried and convicted for the offence. In the second instance, he said, he was jogging one early morning at Dansoman in Accra, and accidentally “ran into a woman”, who also reported him to the police.

Quansah revealed in his statement that sometime in late 1990s, a friend of his gave him a juju to boost his livelihood, but the juju turned against him because one of his girlfriends who was in her menstrual period, tampered with it.

Since then, he said, his physical appearance and behaviour changed for the worse.

He said he could not reverse the effect of the juju on him because the friend who gave it to him had died.

Quansah recalled an instance in which he killed a woman whose name he gave as Joyce at Adenta, and added that although the woman was not his girlfriend, he only admired her .

He said out of admiration for her, he gave her ¢50, 000 at one time, but later he realised that the woman had a boyfriend.

According to him, the woman and her boyfriend once made a derogatory remark about him, when he drove pass them after he flashed his lead lights on them, and for that matter he decided to collect his money from the woman.

Quansah said several attempts to retrieve the money failed and the woman often used abusive words on him, anytime he demanded the money from her. During one of such bitter exchanges, he said, he strangled her while no one was around.

In the case of Akua Serwaa, Quansah said that he killed her at a spot near the Kumasi Stadium, after a drinking spree with her, when she forcibly took money from his pocket and refused to give it back to him.

Inspector Gove, who was led in evidence by Mr Anthony Gyambiby, Principal State Attorney, said after the confessions, Quansah led a team of policemen to the spot in Kumasi where he killed Akua Serwaa.

In his charge statement, however, Quansah said the confessions he made were false, because he was angry with the Federal Bureau of Investigations officials from the United States of America, who interrogated him.

This, the prosecution described as an afterthought on the part of the accused. Counsel for the accused, Mr Joseph Amui objected to the tendered statement as unacceptable, saying his client denied the charge levelled against him and that he was interrogated with a lie-detector machine which did not reveal that he was lying.

The court, presided over by Mrs Agnes Dordzie, adjourned hearing to July 11, for Quansah to open his defence.

The presiding judge expressed misgivings about the persistent lateness by defence counsel and reminded him to be punctual on the next adjourned date.