Families of the four murdered Takoradi girls are demanding, from the state, copies of the DNA reports to study and assure them that indeed the skeletal remains the police discovered belong to them.

At a press conference at the behest of the Concerned Mothers Movement and with tacit support from the families of the murdered girls, Chairperson of the Movement Josephine Amu insisted that it should not be hard for the state to provide copies of the DNA results “if there is nothing to hide”.

The families also want the state to support them in giving a befitting burial to the girls, if it believes the DNA test conducted actually showed that the bones discovered are those of the girls.

“We believe the families have not received enough support in terms of helping them fight the trauma they are going through. We believe that by now the state should have provided them with some professional counselors to move them from their denial state into acceptance state,”
she said.

Josephine Amu asked whether it will be possible to do something to support the families financially or some form of compensation for their loss is extended to them.

“Some of the parents have become hypertensive because of the trauma they had gone through. Is it possible for the state to provide some medical services for them?” she demanded.

Father of Priscilla Bentum Francis Bentum insisted that the girls are alive as stated by former CID director, COP Tiwaa Addo Danquah, and “will continue to demand the children from her”.

“It cannot be the case that the director of CID for Ghana can say something which is not true. It cannot be the case that the director of CID of Ghana will speak without cross-checking her facts. No, it cannot happen. So, I will continue to demand the children from her.”

He, however, said: “I am willing to accept that the children are dead if the two Nigerians are killed in my presence. They should not be blindfolded. I want to see that”.

The two suspects – Samuel Udoetuk Wills and John Orji – were on Friday, March 5 sentenced to death by High Court judge Justice Adjei Frimpong.

Reacting to a question that the police has stated that they [family] can get a copy of the DNA report only through a court order, grandfather of Ruth Abekah Emmanuel Cobbinah averred that the police will be acting in bad faith if it still insists on a court order.

“When the police came to pick evidence in our house was it by a court order. When we had to be travelling back and forth to Accra for identification of the bones, when we had to go to the police station for DNA samples to be taken was it by a court? So why will the police want to act this way? We cooperated with them so it is their term to reciprocate.”

He stressed: “We will still insist that there is something wrong with the bones. How can you show us bones that are 60 years old? The pathologist, we asked him when were the kids killed, he said he does not know, what instrument was used to kill the children he said he does not know. That, you show us skeletons and the panties are new. That the thread in the beads is new. Bones that are six months old. You cannot treat us like we are kids.”