By Mamajah Jalloh
The Manager of Virtues Funeral Home, Kingtom, Princess Wilson, has last Friday, 18 October, 2024, testified in the murder trial of Abdul Kpaka who was alleged of killing his girlfriend Sia Fatu Kamara.
Princess told the presiding judge, Hon Alhaji Momoh Jah Stevens that some of her duties as manager includes to receive dead bodies, examine them to know if they have valuable items like watch, hearings among others, to preserve them and later took photos of them for future reference as she unwrap them inside the chapel before taking them to the preservation room.
Wilson confirmed that she recognized Kpaka in respect of the matter on the day he went to her funeral home and she recalled on August 13 2024 around 2:30pm when she received call for her to collect late Sia’s body.
She mentioned that after receiving the call, she called his driver, Prince and Ansumana for them to go and collect the body at Goderich, adding that around 4pm on the same day, Ansumana, family members of Sia and the accused arrived at the funeral home.
Upon their arrival at the funeral home, they took Sia’s body inside the chapel, she welcomed the family members and they told her to wait because they were not satisfied with the body and she went on to unwrap the body that was wrapped with white blanket to examine her, but she did not found anything on Sia’s body and she took a photos of her.
“When I uncovered Sia’s body in front of Kpaka, and Sia’s brothers, I found out that she was having scratch on her body, her upper lip was cut, her jaw was swelled, her right leg was having scratch, after which they started crying. I later saw Kpaka crying, going round the body and I asked him if Sia was her sister, but he said no, her girlfriend,” she explained.
She furthered that when she wanted to take the body inside the preservation room, one of Sia’s brothers, Sylvester asked her to wait as they wanted to have a meeting and after some time he asked her to go ahead with her work.
On the 15 August 2024, Sylvester called and her informed her that they would need Sia’s body for autopsy at the Connaught Hospital, adding that on the 16 August, Sylvester collected Sia’s body, and the body was taken to the hospital by her driver, Ansumana, but before leaving she handed over the body to Sylvester.
Wilson went on to say that after an hour they later returned with body to the funeral home, adding that she later took photos of Sia’s body with her office IPad which was produced and tendered in court.
But before the IPad was tendered in court, led defence lawyer Emmanuel Teddy Koroma objected to the tendering of the IPad on the grounds that the prosecution did not produce the photos to them when serving them the statement of the witness which he described as trial by harm bush.
In his response, State Prosecutor, Yusifu Isaac Sesay said they cannot give the IPad to the defence team and they reply on the judge’s previous rule, staying that the defence should not object to a document that was in position of the witness and they are following due process as the witness was the author of the IPad.
Judge Steven ruled that there is a ruling in that similar fashion and he overruled the objection of the defence counsel.
During cross-examination by led defence counsel Emmanuel Teddy Koroma, the witness confirmed that she is the manager of Virtues Funeral Home and she has been there for 3 years. She told the court that she did not have any professional experience to work as a manager at Virtues funeral home.
She noted that when Sia’s body was taken to her, no document from Emergency Hospital was shown to her by Sia’s family, adding that as part of her duties, she provide form to deceased family members to fill, but she did not made mentioned of it to the police and the court.
After the cross examination of the defence counsel, Hon Justice Steven adjourned the matter to Friday, October 25 2024, for further hearings.
