Girl, 18, Found Dead in Gardnersville

Gbolu Beatrice Beyan

Residents in the vicinity of the Industrial Park in Gardnersville, on early Monday morning, awoke to a shocking discovery of the lifeless body of an 18-year-old girl who had gone missing for hours.

The remains of Fatu Blasuah were found lying in a pool of blood in an old zinc shack where it is believed, she was murdered. The deceased, eyewitnesses said, lived in the Chicken Soup Factory Gulf area — a community not too far from where she was discovered dead.

The blood of the deceased was discovered spilled around the immediate areas where was lying — a sign that she might have fought with her killer(s) prior to death.  The zinc structure, according to residents, serves as a food center, known locally as a “cold bowl shop”, and is abandoned at night.

Residents from far and near trooped to the area in their numbers to witness for themselves the gruesome manner in which the deceased lost her life. “Oh! This is where they killed this girl,” a grieving elderly woman was heard saying. She later became speechless and could say nothing else. The identity of the deceased was later revealed by relatives who arrived on the scene after they were called. 

They said they had been in search of Fatu since Sunday evening and were worried about the unthinkable, which unfortunately eventually befell them. Family sources said the deceased had gone to her fiancé’s residence prior to her death. A man who identified himself as a relative, but did not disclose his name, said “she was carrying her boyfriend’s phone at his home in the shoe factory community after which she didn’t return home.”

This, he said, prompted members of the family to launch a search for her.

“We went looking for her everywhere we thought she could be, but did not see her. We made numerous calls to her number, but there was no response,” he said,

The relatives resorted to going home, hoping she would return in the morning. Their hope was dashed when they received news of a dead body being found in a zinc round kitchen in the LPRC fence in the industrial park area in Gardnersville. A man, who also identified himself as the “Spiritual Father” of the deceased, quoted the boyfriend as saying that “Fatu indeed went to his house but he sent her home on a motorbike because she was not feeling well.”

The boyfriend is currently in the custody of the Liberia National Police, sources say. Members of the community are in shock about the sudden unfortunate death of Miss Blasuah and are calling on the government to launch a full investigation into the matter and bring the perpetrator to justice.

The onlookers, many of whom were young people, mostly women, sighed in grief as attendants from a local funeral home took the remains of the deceased away.