Spiritualist: I Suspect My Landlord Killed Businesswoman�

The spiritualist who is alleged to have murdered a 30-year-old businesswoman at Okoase, near Koforidua, has provided a statement to the police, alleging that the lady might have been killed by his landlord. Joseph Tetteh told the police that during the deceased�s previous visits to his shrine, she had often complained to him about the land�s harassment and proposals to marry her. According to the spiritualist, he, on that fateful day, had appointment with the deceased at his shrine at Domeabra Junction but was at Okorase when he received a call from the deceased about 9:30 am, that she was being harassed by his landlord, upon which he heard an unusual noise. He said when he entered the house, he saw Rita alive but lying in pool of blood at the shrine and he quickly held her hand and asked her to tell him what had happened. �With her mouth open, she attempted to speak but she could not,� Tetteh was said to have told the police. He said in his confused state, he rushed out to drink heavily and went back to the house to sleep until about 12am when he woke up and found the body of Rita still lying in the pool of blood. He then wrapped the body in his bedspread and made an attempt to dump it close to the house of her fianc�, near Mile 50 in Koforidua addind, �I did this because Rita was good to me. Prior to her death, Rita�s boyfriend had picked her up early Saturday morning in his car and taken her to Srodai, a Koforidua suburb, where she was said to have told the boyfriend that was she was going to see somebody at the Koforidua central Market. The police said Tetteh claimed that he had an appointment with the deceased because she had offered to come to his shrine at Domeabra Junction to thank him with an amount of GH�250 and to seek further assistance to enable her to win the heart of her boyfriend, one Samuel Kwesi Afranie, a carpenter, who, she said, suspected her of cheating on him. He claimed that the GH�250 was GH�50 more than the GH200 he had demanded for assisting her spiritually to expand her business. According to the police source, the fetish priest said during interrogation that Rita, also known as Afia Atta in and around around Effiduase, a Koforidua suburb, had been a regular customer who often visited his shrine to seek spiritual assistance.