Richard Appiah, the footballer and draughtsman who horrified Ghana in 2021 when he was found to have killed two children and stored their body parts in a refrigerator at his home in Abesim, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after a High Court in Accra found him guilty on both counts of murder.
Presiding judge Ruby Aryeetey handed down the sentence on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, following a unanimous guilty verdict by the seven-member jury empanelled for the trial, bringing to a close a case that had stretched across more than four years and drawn intense public scrutiny from the moment of Appiah’s arrest.
The victims, Louis Agyemang, 12, Appiah’s half-brother, and Stephen Sarpong, 15, a neighbour’s son, went missing in August 2021 before police, acting on a tip from community members in the Abuakwa South area near Sunyani in the Bono Region, searched Appiah’s home and made the grim discovery. The case triggered national outrage and prompted then-acting Inspector General of Police Dr George Akuffo Dampare to visit the community personally.
The trial, which formally began in 2022 after Appiah entered a not-guilty plea at the Accra High Court, was delayed at various stages, including a period in which the court ordered a psychiatric evaluation of the accused following what investigators described as unusual behaviour in custody. Appiah was eventually found mentally fit to stand trial.
The court said the life sentence reflects the gravity and brutality of the two murders.
Early reports at the time of Appiah’s arrest had described him as an architect, a claim the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) publicly disputed, clarifying that he held no registration with the professional body. He was formally identified throughout the trial as a draughtsman.
