I didn’t kill her, I’m so sorry

No one in my family knows this. This event happened 4 years ago, the police have closed the case. This piece can not be used as a confession from me at the law court; I will deny ever writing this should the police reopen the case and decide to pursue prosecution against me. The only living witness to this event unfortunately died yesterday, in a motor accident in Nigeria according to his family. I hope we meet again soon my friend, thank you for all you’ve done for me.

For security reasons, I’ll keep his identity hidden as well as the girl involved. He was the only witness to this case, now he’s dead. I will now tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I hope this truth will give the family some peace of mind knowing how she passed on, please know that I’m awfully sorry, I didn’t intend for all this to happen, I’m really sorry, may you find it in your heart to forgive me. Like the saying goes, ‘Dead men tell no tales’, so the police can not use this against me since it contains no solid evidence according to a lawyer friend of mine. The only witness to this event is dead!

We had just finished writing our last paper, that was when I got the call, it was my girl, she was also done with her paper, she was on her way to my school, she was a boarder in her school. Her mother told her to stay away from me because I was a distraction to her education. Her mother really didn’t like me. She complained that all her daughter did was talk to me on phone and text me all the time. But truth is, she didn’t stay away from me, she kept on texting me and we talked on phone even when she was at school.

Time was around 4:30pm when she arrived in my school, from the look on her face she was really exhausted! Just then her mother called her in my presence, she answered the call, and just eavesdropping, I could make out the conversation. Her mother was asking her, where she was and the time she’ll be coming home. My girl lied and told her mother she was still in school and she’ll be coming home the next day. I was surprised, so after the call I asked her why she told her she’ll be coming home the next day. I asked her if she had other agenda that evening or probably had other plans I didn’t know about?

She said, “Haven’t you missed me?”, and I answered, “I miss you ruff…but…”, she continued, “don’t you wanna spend some time with me?”, and I said, “I do but… it’ll soon get dark, and we both have to go home before it’s too late”, but she was like, “I have some money on me, let’s spend the night at a guest house around here then we’ll leave the next morning”. I didn’t really like the idea but I’ve missed her so much and spending the night with her would be fun. After searching for about thirty minutes we found a regular guest house, we paid, and the manager showed us our room. It was a normal regular single room with a bed and a ceiling fan; it had a bathroom somewhere in the corner, an old TV and two wide windows on the sides of the wall.

The evening started great, we went out to eat kenkey and came back to watch TV. We watched a couple of movies, but it got boring eventually, so we decided to talk a while. We talked about so many things about school, our memories and plans for the future; she even told me about her house mistress, her friends and other people she’ll really miss back in school. The night got darker, the room got cold and she wrapped her arms around me. We kissed, cuddled and made out a couple of times before we both went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up around 7am, but my girl was still sleeping. I didn’t wake her up, she was sleeping still and peacefully. She’s really beautiful when she’s sleeping. I went out to buy toothpaste and brush. I came back inside, my girl was still asleep, I ignored her and went to the bathroom to take a bath, she was still sleeping. So I decided to go and buy her “koko” (porridge) with bread and surprise her with breakfast in bed. I thought it was a romantic thing to do. I went to the koko seller, there was a queue so I had to wait for my turn. After 10 minutes of queuing, I bought koko with milk, bread and “koose” (spicy bean cakes). On my way back I bought some biscuits just in case she didn’t like the bread or koose.

I got to the room, my girl was still sleeping, I imagined she was really tired, so I sneaked up to the bed and served the food, I arranged it next to her so it’ll be the first thing she saw when she woke up. Then I whispered her name in her ears with a soothing melodious voice but she didn’t respond, I knew she was feeling lazy to wake up or probably didn’t want to mind me. So I whispered her name one more time.  She didn’t respond. Then I tapped her shoulders gently. She didn’t wake up. I shook her shoulder from left to right multiple times, but she didn’t wake up.

I began to sweat. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I held her by the waist and rolled her over to the other side of the bed, but she was lying there lifelessly. My heart began to pound. I took her hand, held her by the wrist to check her pulse, but I felt nothing. I began to feel like I was in an oven. I placed my ear to her chest to check for any heart beat, but all was silent. I began to shake like a leaf in a storm, I didn’t want my fear of thinking she was dead, to be true. So I rolled her to the bed, closer to me, laid her on her back and began the CPR procedure. I placed my hand on her chest and kept applying pressure by pushing her chest up and down for several minutes but I still got no heart beat.

It wasn’t working so I tried the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I blew as much air as I could into her lungs, trying to get her to breathe, but all was in vain. I knew my life had ended! I had no idea how to explain this to her mother, do I tell her she came to visit me at school, spent the night together, and the next morning she was dead?  Even though she warned her several times to stay away from me? How would I even explain it to the police? I’ll be under investigation for months to come; it’ll be on the news and newspapers. How would I explain this to my parents when they see me on TV in handcuffs or in the newspapers labelled as a criminal or a murder suspect? I knew my life was toast! I could see my life end right before my very eyes. I began to weep.

I tried CPR and mouth-to-mouth again but she still wouldn’t wake up, no heart beat no pulse. I didn’t know if I should inform the guest house manager or call the police or just run away. My options were limited; I didn’t want anything that involved the police. So informing the guest house manager and letting the police know about it wasn’t a good idea. I couldn’t run away cause I’d have to sneak out, and I couldn’t take my bag with me, and if I leave it behind, the police will manage and trace it back to me and also the manager and other staff had seen my face. Fortunately for me there were no CCTV cameras at the house. After weeping some more, I knew what to do. I went to the bathroom and removed the rope that held the shower curtain together, came back to the room, tied a loop with the rope and tied one end to the ceiling fan. Killing myself was the only option. I’d rather kill myself than to shame myself and family.

No one would believe me if I told the truth, I didn’t touch, hit, punch, suffocate, strangle or do anything to cause her death. I didn’t poison, drug or give her anything dangerous or illegal to consume, point is, I didn’t do anything to cause her death, I didn’t kill her, I’m so sorry, I’m innocent, but since I was the only one with her in the room, I knew no one would believe, I’ll automatically become the prime suspect, and I wasn’t ready for any police trouble. I locked the door before going to bed, so it wasn’t possible that someone broke in and killed her or did anything bad to her. I sat there thinking about my life, I said a short prayer to God in my head to forgive me for what I’m about to do. I was hungry, and if I was going to die I didn’t want to die with an empty stomach, so I ate the koko I bought. From where I sat I raised my head to look at the rope hanging from the ceiling fan.

Then I got up, just when I was about to hang myself, I remembered a friend I knew could help me, I could only trust him because I was the only one who knew his secret, he was the one who gave the home-made abortion pills and tablets to the little teenager who died from trying to abort the baby at Teshie, barely 5 years ago, it was all over the news, the girl was 17 years old then.  Since she died at home everyone including the police thought the girl took those pills and tablet by herself trying to abort the baby. No human except me, knew that my friend was the one who gave the pills and tablets to her. I knew one day this information will prove useful to get what I want, and today was the day, I had to play my only wild and trump card.

I called my friend on phone that I had won 6,000 Ghana cedis from supabet at Dansoman so he should come help me celebrate, I also told him to bring me some new clothes. And as a true friend who loved money like the Nigerian he was, he came, but he didn’t know I was lying. My friend came over and saw the lifeless body, I tried explaining to him what happened but he insisted I call the police, but I rejected that suggestion. I told him if he didn’t help me out I’ll also expose his dirty little secret. Out of fear he decided to help me.

He thought for a while and came up with a brilliant plan. He said to me, “lets make it look like a suicide”, “how?”, I asked. He said, “let’s hang her in the suicide rope you made for yourself”. It was the perfect idea, all we had to do was to stage the whole thing and make it look like it was deliberate. We hanged her head in the loop and we let her body hang from the rope, we heard a sudden loud SNAP!! From her neck bone, her neck had broken into two, hanging from the rope.

I wore the new clothes my friend brought me from the house. I packed my stuff and sneaked out of the guest house without anyone seeing us except God, I hope he forgives us.

Two days later it was on the news that, a young girl had committed suicide at a guest house in Dansoman, Accra. The police were doing their investigation, the guest house was closed, since it had become a crime scene. The girl in the news was my girl, apparently the police believed the suicide scene, I’m sure they thought that was all to it. I wasn’t the one who killed her, just imagine your girlfriend or boyfriend came to your house and died, and you didn’t kill her, how would you explain this to the police? What will you tell their parents? What will you do? Would you run away like I did? You’d be a prime suspect, you’d be taken into custody by the police. I did what I had to do, but I didn’t kill her I swear to God. I didn’t do anything, it was my friend’s idea to hang her dead body, and it’s not my fault.

My conscience is now clear; I just felt I needed to get this off my chest. This event had bottled up inside me for so long. This is not a confession; I’ll deny ever writing this. I know my family and friends would be disappointed in me but I just had to do what I had to do. I hope my family and my girl’s family forgive me for hiding the truth for many years, I didn’t kill her, I’m so sorry! As much as I’m sorry for what i did, I will not go to jail based on this, my lawyer friend assured me. The police cannot use this against me since i can deny it. My condolence to the family of my girlfriend, especially the mother, I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me, I hope you’re satisfied with the truth, I’m really sorry it took so long. I pray my family and friends also forgive me.

A week later, on our way home from a friend’s place going home, we didn’t talk; we were both tired and had a lot on our minds. When we were almost home, I told my friend to wait for me, I wanted to urinate. I stood behind a wall to urinate, just then I thought I saw a picture of my girlfriend on the wall, she had a sad face with blood coming out from her eyes, nose and ears, it was so scary I stopped urinating and started shouting “I didn’t kill you, I didn’t kill you, I didn’t kill you” I was shouting very loud! Just then my brother poured water on me and shouted “Kwasia! Get up its morning already, go and get ready for school! Kwasia! Don’t you know you’re making noise?”, and I woke up! It was all a dream! A silly nightmare.