PHOTO: Father, Emmanuel Brown being sent to jail
By Never Garmah Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
TEMPLE OF JUSTICE, Monrovia- Local Youth groups continue to press for the speedy trial of a couple recently arrested and charged with manslaughter.
Police in Monrovia have charged and sent to court a man and fiancée who allegedly starved an 11-year-old boy to death in the ELWA Palm Bush Community.
Defendant Emmanuel Brown, 43, is biological father of Jerome Brown while Wannah Taplah 34 and pregnant, is step mother to the victim.
The man is charged with manslaughter. According to police charge sheet, defendant Brown was in violation of Chapter 14, section 14.2 of the revised penal law of the Republic of Liberia, while the woman is charged with criminal facilitation.
He was arrested, investigated and acquainted with his constitutional rights before being charged and remanded at the Monrovia Central Prison.
The police charge sheet revealed that on Monday 15th February 2021 at 0800hrs, the crime against person unit received information from zone 8 base in which community dwellers of Palm Bush community, ELWA Paynesville informed the police that one of their neighbors Emmanuel Brown had been keeping his biological son Jerome Brown indoor for months without food, water, medical treatment and free movement which caused him to deteriorate and later died on Sunday February 14, 2021 at 1600hrs while on their way to MSF h
Hospital in the Barnesville Junction community.
Police investigation shows that the deceased is first of three children between Brown and ex-wife Mama Cole who lives in Compound #4 Grand Bassa County.
Investigation further disclosed that victim Brown had been living with epilepsy since birth.
There had been previous efforts to seek cure for him through hospitals and traditional herbalists in Nimba, Grand Cape Mount, and Grand Bassa Counties, but to no avail.
Little Brown was brought to Monrovia in January 2020 to live with his father because according to the other, he (Brown) had failed to support them.
On February 14, 2021, about 1500hrs, some community embers alerted their Chairman of the Palm Bush Community Lawrence Morris who proceeded there and ordered that the child be brought out.
He was brought out naked and almost lifeless. Lawrence suggested that the child be taken to hospital.
As the father bathed him, plastics were said to be stuck in his mouth and throat.
The child was pronounced dead on arrival at the MSF Hospital. His corpse was deposited at the A.B. Roberts funeral home, where it was examined by Montserrado County Corronor Abraham B. Risk disclosed there was foul play.
He has since been buried.
Meanwhile, the defendant Emmanuel Brown was charged with manslaughter in violation of Chapter 14 subsection A section 14.2, while the step mother defendant Wannah Taplah was charged with criminal facilitation in violation of Chapter 10 section 10.2 of the revised penal l