By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
Monrovia- The family of a young Liberian woman, Princess Cooper has boycotted an autopsy on her remains, following her mysterious death in Monrovia’s Paynesville suburb recently.
The remains of Miss Princess Cooper were discovered with blood oozing from her mouth and nose lying behind the Fawaz building materials store at the ELWA junction on March 24,2022.
As the Liberian government Pathologist conducted the autopsy on her body on Thursday, March 31,2022, Princess Cooper’s family demanding a comprehensive forensic criminal investigation starting from the crime scene, but the procedure was concluded at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center morgue on Thursday.
Late Princes Cooper (photo courtesy-FPA
The death of Princess Cooper has been widely reported and has been one of the major subjects of live local radio phone-in talk shows in Monrovia in recent days. This has prompted the Liberia government to conduct a post-mortem on the remains of Ms. Cooper and Melvin Tokpa who was also discovered dead in his house in the Jallah Town community in Monrovia.
Last week, Police Spokesman Moses Carter told Reporters that initial Coroner examination of her body said there was no foul play.
During a housekeeping, Dr. Benedict Kollee told the media and others attending the autopsies that by law no one is allowed to attend the autopsy but because of transparency, they always invite the media, right activists and Civil Society organizations among others.
Prior to the autopsy, one of Princess Cooper’s relatives who is doctor Abel N. Momo said they have issues with the Pathologists, which Justice Ministry needed to have settled and said it wasn’t settled therefore, boycotted the autopsy.
One of the issues raised was that the two Pathologists are not qualified and they are not licensed therefore, their family members until the issue is solved, they can’t be part of the autopsy.
Dr. Momo was in consultation with Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe, who is their family’s lawyer, to seek advice apparently, they might have been advised by their lawyer Cllr. Gongloe not to attend the autopsy until their concerns are addressed.
Another recent case of mysterious death involves a Liberian man, Melvin Tokpa, whose autopsy was conducted on Thursday at the JFK Hospital, but this time with hs family in attendance.
The autopsy started at 10am and ended at 4pm GMT.
Prior, to the autopsy, CT scan was done on the two bodies.
The autopsies were witness by the media, Women in Peacebuilding Network (WINET), Independent human rights commission, representatives from the Ministry of Justice including the Coroner of Montserrado County.
The two Liberian Pathologists who performed the procedures were Dr. Benedict Kollee and Dr. Zoebon B. Kpadeh.