-in Gruesome Palm Tree Killing
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A 40-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2023 murder of Isaac Kpakgpor, whom he lured to a palm wine tree in Butaw, Sinoe County. The sentence was handed down by Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Wesseh Alphonsus Wesseh.
The case drew a large public resentment, during the period leading up to the 2023 Presidential and Legislative Elections in Sinoe; when the first trial was vacated in June 2024, after the defense counsel filed a motion for the disbarment of the trial jury for an alleged jury tempering, for the recusal of the trial judge for making prejudicial and inflammatory statements during the trial. The judge then declared a mistrial and disbanded the jury before recusing himself from the trial.
The trial of the case returned on June 16, 2026, when the defendant pleaded not guilty which cumulated into a full-blown trial when the trial jurors of the court, returned a unanimous guilty verdict on March 18, 2026, against Defendant Dassay, after more than a month of trial. During the trial, the prosecution produced a total of 11 witnesses; while the defendant and his wife testified for the defense. The court’s judgment came a day after the court heard and denied the Defense Counsel’s Motion for New Trial, filed to set the jurors’ unanimous guilty verdict aside.
According to the indictment formed and brought against Defendant Dassay, during the morning hours of June 17, 2023, in Butaw, Sinoe County, the defendant took the deceased on his motor bike to deceased’s palm wine and was seen by eye witnesses, as the last person that was seen with the victim taking him on his bike to the palm wine station before he went missing for days and his lifeless body was found tied up in a piassava tree with his testicles, eyes tongue were extracted while his head and anus was burst opened.
During the trial State’s witnesses testified seen the deceased, the defendant, and the defendant 13 years old son, on a bike going down the swamp at the end of GVL’s airfield where palm wine trees are located. The defendant denied killing the victim and testified that when they got to the palm wine tree, the deceased climbed up the tree and took in a few cups of wine, and was acting funny in the tree when he returned to town. However, when the search for the missing was ongoing, he did not tell anyone, he took him to the palm wine tree drunk.
He first denied ever having seen the missing man; but later admitted taking him to a junction when the deceased continued his journey to his palm wine tree. Also during the trial, State’s witnesses testified that during the afternoon hours of June 17, 2023, the defendant’s son, Amara, then age 13, went to a nearby football filed where he told three of friends of the same age, that his uncle, the deceased was drunk in a palm wine tree drunk, and when they went there, they saw the deceased tied up in a palm tree with his neck resting on a bucket and Amara then prevented his friends from reporting seen the deceased tied up in the palm wine tree, as if they did, it would not be bad for them.
However, one of his friends that he took the scene informed his mother as to what happened at the palm wine before the community and police were alerted. During his ruling, Judge Wesseh said that “When from the logical deduction from the facts placed on the record leads conclusively to the logical deduction that the crime was committed by the accused, it is sufficient”. See 1944, LRSC, 8LLR406, 412(1944)”, Woods vs Republic 1LLr445, 452(1905)
Judge Wesseh also stated in his ruling that the defendant owed the victim a fiduciary duty, having noticed that he was drunk, in the palm wine, to ensure that he came down safely.
The court also reasons that the defendant’s act was a dereliction of his duty of care to the deceased, his family, and the community, when he returned to town and failed to inform the townspeople while the search for the missing man was ongoing. The court then said that “It is worthy to note that these ambivalent patterns of the defendant’s conduct clearly depict the doctrine of last seen; which applies in criminal litigation, particularly in a homicide case, where the last person seen with a deceased individual is presumed responsible for their death, if it occurred sooner after”.
The court then cited a Supreme Court of Liberia, in which the court held that” evidence in a criminal case against an accused must be conclusive; and if it be circumstantial, it should be so connected as to positively connect one element within another form a chain of evidence sufficient to lead the mind irresistible to the conclusion that the accused is the guilty party”. Williams v, RL, Supreme Court of Liberia opinion, March Term A.D 2014.
Judge Wesseh imposed his sentence after the court conducted a pre-sentence investigation. Section 50.5. Section 501.3 of the new penal code of Liberia imposes life imprisonment or death on a person found guilty of the crime of murder. The defense lawyer led by Atty. Franklin Myer has accepted the Court’s final ruling and announced an appeal before the full bench of the Supreme Court; the Acting County Attorney for Sinoe County, Cllr. Mmonbeydo N. Joah praised the court for delivering justice for the family and community of the deceased
