Gboyo fear ignites mob violent

An angry mob within the township of Johnsonville, Montserrado County set ablaze a vehicle carrying Sinoe County Rep. Jeremiah McCauly’s son and his girl friend, after residents heard a cry of a female in the vehicle suspecting that she was being kidnap for ritualistic purposes.

Ritualistic killings have increased here in recent time with many murdered victims including children being discovered with missing body parts. These types of killings usually get on the rise here ahead of general and presidential elections.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a nationwide address, last week warned to bring pepertrators to justice. Melvin P. McCauly and his girlfirned Alvineta Lartey, had apparently had a quarrel in the vehicle which may have been parked in the dark, but her loud cry prompted residents to raise ritualistic suspicion.

It all started over the weekend after an unidentified motorcyclist raised alarm that a gboyo person (a ritualistic killer) was carrying “the people’s daughter”. The unidentified motorcylist immediately ran for re-enforcement upon hearing Alvineta crying in the car which her boyfriend Melvin was driving.

Melvin and Alvineta said they had to run for their dear lives because the crowd could not be convinced that the crying in the car was due to misunderstanding which allegedly had nothing to do with the ritualistic suspicion they raised.

“My girlfriend … was in the vehicle [and] I tried convincing them that this is my girlfriend; but they could not listen. But all [that] they needed was to burnt the car, that’s what they did,” he explained.

He told the police that he had stopped the car on the Johnsonville highway to talk to Alvineta to stop crying when they were spotted by the motorcyclist. Melvin said when he and his girlfriend got back into the car, she was still crying as they drove away. It was at this time, he said, the motorcyclist who was coming from the Dry Rice Market, a local market, direction heard Alvineta still crying in the vehicle and immediately began alarming that a ritualistic killer was carrying somebody in the car.

“At that time, we were still inside the car. When he saw the girl sharing tears he yield: Gboyo! Gboyo! He’s carrying the people’s daughter ooh. So I just felt he [was] joking,” Melvin narrated.

He claimed that the motorcyclist went towards Dry Rice Market area and returned with a large group that immediately began stoning the car from the back and damaged the windshield.

Given the prevailing situation, he said they drove quickly at the police station on grounds that they could not stand the crowd, and yet the car was set ablaze after the crowd looted it.

Giving her version of the event, Alvineta explained that they had misunderstanding over a text message Melvin saw in her phone, and it was from the quarrel that she was crying.

She said a motorcyclist saw her crying in the car and started shouting “hide man ooh, hide man ooh,” which is another way of alarming that a ritualistic killer or “Gboyo” person was carrying somebody.

She claimed to have stood afar and witnessed the angry crowd looting things from the car before setting it ablaze. Police Spokesman Sam Collins says six suspects have already been arrested in connection to the incident.

By Winston W. Parley-Edited by Othello B. Garblah