Case-status note: “Solved / adjudicated” reflects the DNA identifications and the 2021 conspiracy and murder convictions. It does not erase the families' early disputes with the identification process, establish responsibility beyond the two convicted defendants, or prove that their individual death sentences were later converted after Ghana's 2023 legal reform.
Four disappearances in one coastal city
The case concerns four separate disappearances that Ghana Police later treated as connected. Ruth Abakah, also rendered Abaka or Abekah in published records, disappeared on July 29, 2018. Priscilla Blessing Bentum disappeared in August; the police transcript reproduced by MyJoyOnline gives August 15, while other established reports give August 17. Ruth Love Quayson disappeared on December 4, and Priscilla Koranchie—whose middle names are variously reported as Mantebea or Mantseabea—on December 21.
The variation in spelling and one date is not evidence of different people or events. It reflects inconsistencies in contemporary public records. This page uses the names in the Ghana Police announcement and preserves the date disagreement rather than choosing a false precision.
All four were young. Reporting placed them in and around Takoradi and the neighboring Sekondi area in Ghana's Western Region. Their disappearances generated sustained public pressure because relatives said they received ransom demands and because official assurances that the girls might still be alive continued while the investigation remained unresolved.
The investigation and an escape from custody
Police traced communications connected to a ransom demand and arrested Samuel Udoetuk Wills on December 22, 2018. On December 30 he escaped from police custody by cutting through cell bars, according to the police chronology. He was recaptured on January 4, 2019 and separately received an 18-month sentence for the escape.
The escape deepened public distrust and raised questions about custody safeguards. Investigators continued to search for other people alleged to have participated. John Orji was later arrested in Togo and returned to Ghana; by June 2019 he had been remanded in the Takoradi case.
Arrest and accusation were not treated as conviction. Wills and Orji remained defendants until a jury evaluated the prosecution's case in 2021. Reports of possible additional accomplices likewise do not establish that another named person committed a crime.
Recovery of human remains
On August 2, 2019, investigators recovered human remains from a cesspit at a property associated in reporting with Wills. Additional remains were recovered on August 6 from a well at another location in Nkroful. Police submitted the material for forensic comparison with DNA reference samples from relatives of the missing girls.
On September 16, 2019, the Acting Inspector-General of Police, James Oppong-Boanuh, announced that DNA tests had established that the remains were those of the four missing girls. The announcement changed the public case from a search for missing persons to a murder investigation.
Some relatives initially disputed the result and sought independent testing. That response forms part of the record and should not be erased. Graphic Online later reported that police would grant the families' request for access to material for an independent assessment.
What the forensic evidence established
At trial, a forensic scientist testified about short tandem repeat, or STR, testing used to compare the recovered remains with family reference samples. MyJoyOnline reported that the analyst described relationship probabilities of 99.99 percent for the relevant comparisons and concluded that the remains matched the four families.
DNA evidence established identity; it did not by itself identify who caused the deaths. The prosecution therefore combined the forensic findings with evidence concerning the disappearances, communications, locations and conduct attributed to the defendants. Keeping those evidentiary functions separate avoids overstating what any single test proved.
The remains were eventually released to the families and the four were buried in Takoradi in January 2020. This archive does not reproduce images of the remains or speculative accounts of the victims' final hours.
The Sekondi High Court trial
Wills and Orji were tried before the High Court in Sekondi. Court reporting described eight counts: four counts of conspiracy to commit murder and four counts of murder. Both defendants denied the charges.
The prosecution presented witnesses and forensic evidence. The defendants were entitled to the presumption of innocence throughout the proceedings. A seven-member jury returned guilty verdicts on March 5, 2021. Justice Richard Agyei Frimpong then imposed death sentences, the mandatory punishment reported for murder under the law then applied.
The convictions constitute the adjudicated core of this case. They do not justify extending guilt to anyone who was questioned, mentioned during the investigation or described only as a possible accomplice.
Death sentences and Ghana's 2023 reform
In July 2023, Ghana's Parliament voted to remove the death penalty from ordinary criminal statutes and replace it with life imprisonment. Amnesty International welcomed the change but stressed that the legislation was not retroactive for people already under sentence of death and called for their sentences to be commuted.
That legal distinction matters here. The reviewed sources establish that Wills and Orji were sentenced to death in 2021. They also establish the later nationwide reform. They do not establish that a court or executive authority individually resentenced these two defendants. This page therefore does not state that their sentences were automatically converted.
No execution was reported. Ghana had not carried out an execution for decades when the reform passed. The accurate current formulation is that the convictions stand in the reviewed public record, while the post-reform status of each sentence was not reliably located.
What remains unresolved?
The judicial verdict resolved criminal responsibility for the two defendants tried. Broader questions remain. Public reporting did not establish whether every person who may have helped plan, conceal or facilitate the crimes was identified. The early custody escape and the length of time before the remains were found also remained central to public criticism of the investigation.
The families' early challenge to the DNA announcement is part of the procedural history. Later forensic testimony supported the identifications, but respectful reporting should acknowledge why relatives asked for an independent examination rather than portraying their caution as irrational.
Finally, a conviction is not permission to turn the four victims into a collective label without names. Ruth Abakah, Priscilla Blessing Bentum, Ruth Love Quayson and Priscilla Koranchie are identified individually wherever the source record permits.
Established facts, verdicts and bounded claims
- Established: four girls disappeared in the Sekondi-Takoradi area between July and December 2018.
- Established through forensic reporting: DNA testing connected the recovered remains to the four families; a forensic scientist explained the matches at trial.
- Adjudicated: a jury convicted Samuel Udoetuk Wills and John Orji of conspiracy and murder on March 5, 2021.
- Sentence imposed: the High Court sentenced both men to death under the law then applied.
- Later legal change: Ghana abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 2023, but the reviewed record does not prove an individualized resentencing for either defendant.
- Not established: responsibility of any additional alleged accomplice or a complete answer to every operational failure in the investigation.
Source and status methodology
The victims' names, disappearance chronology, recovery dates and official DNA announcement were checked against the full Ghana Police transcript reproduced by MyJoyOnline and Graphic Online's contemporaneous reporting. The forensic method was checked against the trial testimony reported by MyJoyOnline.
The March 2021 verdict and sentence were cross-checked through Citi Newsroom and TheCable. The death-penalty reform and its non-retroactive limit were checked against Amnesty International's July 2023 analysis. Where local reports differ on spelling or the August disappearance date, both forms are recorded instead of silently harmonized.
No source is used to convert an allegation into a conviction or to infer a later resentencing. The source record was reviewed through September 11, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Who were the four Takoradi girls?
They were Ruth Abakah, Priscilla Blessing Bentum, Ruth Love Quayson and Priscilla Koranchie, four young women and girls who disappeared in Ghana's Sekondi-Takoradi area in 2018.
When did the four disappear?
Police records and reporting place the disappearances between July and December 2018. Published sources differ by two days on Priscilla Blessing Bentum's August disappearance, so this file preserves that discrepancy.
How were the remains identified?
Police announced in September 2019 that DNA testing connected human remains recovered from two locations to the four missing girls. A forensic scientist later testified about STR testing and reported very high relationship probabilities.
Who was convicted?
A Sekondi High Court jury convicted Samuel Udoetuk Wills and John Orji in March 2021 on conspiracy and murder counts, and the judge imposed death sentences.
Were the death sentences carried out?
No execution was reported in the reviewed sources. Ghana removed the death penalty from ordinary criminal law in 2023, but the reform was not automatically retroactive; this archive found no reliable individualized resentencing record for the two men.
Why is the case marked adjudicated?
The disappearances, DNA identification and 2021 convictions are judicially documented. The label does not claim that every investigative question or the defendants' later sentence status is fully resolved.