Liberia: Man, 23, Sentenced to 60 Years for Killing 2-Year-old Girl

The Second Judicial Circuit court in Grand Bassa County has sentenced defendant Bill Friday Zian to sixty years imprisonment for stabbing 2-year-old Hannah Pewee to death.  

Defendant, 23-year-old Friday Zian, was indicted on August 23, 2021, by the Grand Jury of Rivercess County during the August 2021 Term of Court for the commission of the crime of murder in violation of section 14.1 of the Penal Code. 

According to the eight 8-Count Indictment, on August 10, 2021, at about the hour of 7 pm in the area known as ITI, Rivercess County, Republic of Liberia, Defendant, Bill Friday Zian stab little Hannah Pewee (two years old) multiple times with a silver common flat kitchen knife that led to her death. 

The Court document is quoted as saying the criminal act committed by the defendant occurred when the father of the deceased, Yarkpahzuah Pewee, who is a Pastor, returned from evening Church Services and met defendant Zian at his residence where he (Pastor Pewee) offered food and L$500 to the defendant as a good gesture, but the defendant refused both offers.

After the refusal of the offers, the Pastor returned to his bedroom; it was there, and then the defendant, Bill Friday Zian raised the kitchen knife against one Benjamin Gbar who promptly shouted at Pastor Pewee not to venture outdoors because the defendant had raised a knife to kill.

The document also claimed that the defendant took the pastor's daughter little Hannah Pewee and ran with her in the bush where he stabbed the deceased multiple times on the head and other parts of her body with the knife, thereby resulting in her untimely death.  

However, defendant Bill Friday Zian was sentenced on April 4, 2022, up to April 4, 2082, by the Assigned Circuit Judge Presiding of the Second Judicial Circuit Court, His Honor Zuballah A. Kizeku.