Chilling account of how Kofi Kyinto was killed by his 28-year-old uncle in the mid-1980s

In the mid-1980s, the country woke up to the chilling details of how a nine-year-old boy, Kofi Kyinto, was brutally murdered by his 28-year-old uncle.

For many Ghanaians, the image of his uncle, Benjamin Affi, a farmer from Sefwi Bekwai, holding the severed head of his nephew, remained the most iconic mental picture they had of the incident.

Accounts of the event said that Kofi Kyinto was lured by his uncle and killed.

Even more devastating was the fact that Benjamin Affi witnessed the beheading of Kofi, his nephew.

The contracted killers, who were later apprehended and also executed, said that they were instructed by one Nana Akwasi Agyei of Akaasu to kill Kofi Kyinto.

The 1980s also recorded other major ritual killings in the same community, or its outskirts.

Some of them are:

January 1981: the body of 15-year-old Kingsley Ackaah, alias Kwame Kaya, and native of Baakrom near Sefwi Bekwai, was found without his head.

November 1981: the body of nine-year-old Kwasi Gyimah was found at the outskirts of Sefwi Bekwai without his head.

November 1984: Kwaku Nkrumah, a 65-year-old palm wine tapper of Sefwi Bekwai was found dead in the bush without his head.

May 1986: 13-year-old Akwasi Ampomaning, a schoolboy from Sukusuku near Sefwi Bekwai, was found dead with his arms missing.