They told us food is a curse – Boy found with decomposing bodies of his parents speaks

The youngest of two boys found with the decomposing bodies of their parents in their home at Maakro has spoken.

According to the youngest of the two boys who were found unconscious by the police, they were starved for religious reasons.

“We were not eating because our parents said food was a curse. That’s because they were worried over something. Now we know it. If you want to put the curse out of the food, you have to first pray and then eat. Our parents were not eating too,” the boy who is on admission at the Abuakwa Polyclinic with his brother told a Citinewsroom.com reporter.

According to the boy, who is said to be oblivious of the current situation of his parents, they had run out of food for a while but were locked inside their house by their late parents.

“We run out of food for many days, and we became weak. The police came to our house and took us to the hospital. They took my mum and dad to the other hospital and brought me and my brother here”.

The eldest of the boys who is traumatized from the incident is yet to speak since their rescue.

Police at Maakro in the Ashanti Region on July 27, 2022, found Samuel Jackson and his wife Ernestina Jackson dead while their two sons were seen unconscious when they broke into their apartment.

According to the medical superintendent at the Abuakwa Polyclinic, Dr. Mensah Manye, the police found packs of ice around the body of Ernestina, ostensibly to preserve the body.

Speaking about the state of the children when they were brought to the hospital, Dr Mensah said “The police brought the two children here, who were both unconscious. The police narrated to me that the two children were being locked in their room with their parents for some months now. The two children were lying down helpless, unconscious, so they rushed them to the hospital. When they came, the assessment shows they were severely dehydrated. They had grown very lean. It was only their bony prominence that was showing. That shows the extent of weight loss they’ve gone through. They could not talk or walk. They couldn’t do anything. They lost a lot of fluid. We (my team and I) worked to resuscitate them”.

He noted from observations that the woman had died about a month ago while the husband may have died about two weeks.

“Apparently, the mother died and also the father died. From the police’s observation when they broke into the room, they saw that the mother was decomposing. The husband also died on a water closet in the washroom. It appears the woman died about a month ago, while the man died about two or three weeks ago”.

Dr Mensah added that the boys are currently being taken through physiotherapy and psychotherapy to ensure they gain full fitness.

Meanwhile, some family members of the couple who had relocated into the country from Canada say there were unaware of the presence of the couple and their children in the country.

“The two kids on admission at the Abuakwa Polyclinic are our grandchildren. Their mother was my niece. She had her traditional wedding with her husband at Bohyen. The family members of the man are in Tema. That was where they did the white wedding. They then travelled to the Netherlands after the marriage, so we lost contact at a point. They used to come to Ghana once in a while. Had it not been for this incident, we wouldn’t have known that they were in Ghana. We came here after we heard the news on the radio,” Agyei Manu, a relative of Ernestina Jackson stated in an interview with Citi News.

A landlady of the couple who described the family as lovely, on her part, has expressed shock about the incident.

“They are not the only family living in our house. After renting out the room to them, they have not at any point shown that they are violent. Their co-tenants can even attest to the fact that they are very lovely. They, however, hardly socialize with people within this area. They decide to greet people as and when they deem fit. I’m really living in fear. I’m shocked because I knew them,” she said.