Murder In Liberia: Court Verdict And Other Actions In The Death Of Charloe Musu

By Dagbayonoh Kiah Nyanfore

This is a continuation of the updates on the Charloe Musu murder case.  In June 2023, this writer reported the arrest of Cllr. Gloria Scott and three co-defendants for the killing.  The co-defendants and Charloe lived with Scott in her Brewerville home in Virginia, Montserrado County, Liberia.  This report discusses the verdict.

On December 21, 2023, the jurors in the Charloe Musu murder case found former Liberian Chief Justice Gloria Musu Scott and three co-defenders guilty of murdering Charloe.  On Tuesday, January 9, 2024, Criminal Court C sentenced the Defendants to life in prison.  The Defense lawyers intend to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Charloe Musu, a 23 year-old college student pictured above, was murdered on February 22, 2023 in the house of Cllr. Gloria Musu Scott, who is her traditional African mother.  She had lived with the counselor since childhood.  According to an autopsy, Charloe was stabbed multiple times.  The mother reported to the police that an intruder killed the victim.  Scott also reported using pepper spray on the intruder before he escaped.  Besides being an ex-Supreme Court Chief Justice, Madam Scott is a renounced lawyer, a former senator, justice minister, and Liberian National Elections Commission Chair.

On June 21, 2023, the Liberian National Police (LNP), through the Justice Ministry, arrested Mrs. Scott, Gertrude Newton, Alice Johnson, and Rebecca Youdeh Wisers “for murder, criminal conspiracy, and false reports to law enforcement officials regarding Charloe Musu.  On June 22, LNP detailed the arrest, indicating that there was no intruder into the house by their investigations.  That the Defendants killed the deceased, conspired, and reported to LNP that an intruder murdered the victim.” As the above photo shows, the counselor and her family lived in a high fence compound, which professional security men guarded.  Also, dogs were protecting the yard.  Hence, it would be difficult for an intruder to enter and, after being pepper sprayed, escape from the place.

The arrest received political reactions.  Liberian former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf viewed the arrest “as a sad day and said the Liberia’s Justice System has reverted to the bad ways of the past.” Counselor Teowon Gongolon, a 2023 presidential candidate, called the LNP’s action “unfair and unfortunate”.  Cllr. Jerome Verdier, former chairman of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, alleged that “Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee of having masterminded the murder carried out by Varlee Telleh,” an employee of the city.

Further investigation cleared Koijee and Telleh.  However, other Liberians happily expressed that the government finally took action on the case.

The politicization of the case continued during the four-month trial.  Immediately after the November 2023 presidential election, Patrick Honnah, Punch Radio CEO, proclaimed that Cllr. Scott would be free now that Ambassador Joseph Boakai has won the election.  She was once a Unity Party partisan and later a legal advisor for the Liberty Party.  The two political institutions were of the opposition in the election.  Seemingly, the opposition viewed the case politically; they believed that the ruling CDC government was prosecuting Scott unjustly.

Before the arrest, a group of Liberian females dressed in black demonstrated at the ground of the Capitol Building, supporting Cllr. Scott.  Meanwhile, Front Page Africa, a newspaper, had reported that there was friction between the LNP and the justice ministry regarding the murder.  Accordingly, LNP “want[ed] to charge Cllr. Scott with the crime of murder, but Justice Minister Frank Musa Dean reportedly opposed that decision and called [ed] for a lesser charge of manslaughter or negligent homicide.” But some Liberians peacefully protested before the ministry and called on the minister not to halt justice.

Also, know that a few months before the killing, Madam Scott reported to the police two rubbery attempts at her compound.  According to her, the police did nothing.  It was alleged that immediately after the stabbing, she drove to the home of Minister Dean and informed the minister. Dean advised her to change her phone number.  Scott did not, and neither did anyone else, take Charloe to the hospital until the following day, about 7 hours after.  Some analysts viewed that Charloe’s life would have been saved had someone taken her quickly to the hospital.

The Defendants hired a team of over 30 lawyers considered “some of the best legal minds in Liberia.” It included retired associate Supreme Court judges and Cllr. Augustine Fayiah, the group lead lawyer.  The persecution team included Cllr. Lafayette B. Gould, an experienced lawyer. 

The Defense argued that the persecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Defendants committed the crime.  The State maintained that there was no intruder into the house and that a security guard came to the house upon hearing “a crying sound coming from inside the house” and found the deceased’s body in co-defendant Scott’s private bathroom with bloodstains.  Her living quarter is separated from the general quarter with a secured bar.  Moreover, the victim’s face is said to have “a foreign substance believed to be a pepper spray,” which collaborates with Scott’s earlier statement that she discharged pepper spray.”

The court granted the Defense request to bring its own pathologist to conduct a second autopsy.  The Defense employed Dr. Mathias Okoye, a Nigerian-born pathologist who practices in the US.  Accordingly, his finding alleges that a DNA sample from Charloe’s fingernails showed that a male intruder committed the murder, contrary to the first autopsy performed by a team of Liberian pathologists headed by Dr. Benedict Kolee, chief pathologist at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Liberia.  The Kolee group’s examination claims that a female did the killing.  On the witness stand, both pathologists debunked each other.  The State produced 20 witnesses while the Defense had 11, including Cllr. Scott.

On December 21, 2023, the jurors visited the crime scene.  They saw the bloodstains in the bathroom, the fortification of the house, and other conditions.  Apparently, the Defendants vacated the premises intact after the incident.  A few days after, the Persecution and the Defense rested their case.  There were 12 jurors, and 11 found the Defendants guilty.  1 disagreed.  After the verdict, some jurors expressed that besides the evidence presented, the visit to the house helped convince them.  

While some Liberians applauded the verdict, others did not, blaming the ruling on corruption and poverty.  Africa Report indicates.  “The justice system is seriously challenged, and all this is due to poverty.  People with no means of income are randomly selected to serve as jurors and promised a huge amount of money to influence their judgment.  It’s a challenge to the rule of law, says Frances Johnson-Allison, one of Musu-Scott’s lawyers, who also served as chief justice of Liberia’s Supreme Court from 1996-1997.”

Cllr. Gould viewed the case differently, saying that the State won by overwhelming evidence.  According to the same Africa Report, he stated that  as a drafter “of the indictment, my opinion was that people committed a crime and I was under obligation to present a piece of evidence to a panel of jurors to decide whether my case was right, so the jurors did exactly what the law required.”

Specific facts are cleared in this case.  Besides Scott, the Defendants are ordinary Liberians.  The jurors are from Montserrado County, which Joseph Boakai, an opposition, won twice in the October and November presidential elections.  Yet, neither the verdict was close or divided.  It was overwhelmingly majority, thus removing the resembling of politics from the process.

As pointed out earlier, the defense lawyers said they would appeal to the Supreme Court. The court will open in March this year.

A new trial will likely be held if the Supreme Court rules for the Defense.  Other than that, the Defendants will serve the sentence unless the president grants them clemency.  Had the jurors ruled for the Defense, the case would have ended entirely, and the Defendants would have been free because, by law, the State cannot appeal to the Supreme Court.

While some observers think the high court could overturn the verdict considering Scott’s past political positions or the president could grant clemency, others said such a move would discredit the high court and affect and weaken the presidency.  Though the Constitution gives the president the power to free a convict, critics say criminals would willfully commit crimes and look to the president for clemency.  This could encourage impunity, increase crimes, and create insecurity in the county.

However, the Maryland County ritualistic murder case of 1977 could be an example of a strong presidency for justice.  Indeed, in that matter, the State arrested Maryland Superintendent James Anderson, County Representative Allen Yancy, and others for allegedly killing Moses Tweh, a Kru fisherman and famous local singer from Grandcess.  The State claimed that the accused murdered Tweh for ritualistic sacrifice for political advancement.  Anderson was said to have wanted to become an ambassador and Yancy to be a senator.  Anderson was the son of Nathaniel Anderson, chairman of the ruling True Whig Party, and Yancy was the son of former Vice President Allen Yancy, Sr., and cousin of William Tubman, Liberian’s past president.  They were all Marylanders and powerful.  Moreover, President Tubman selected sitting president William Tolbert as vice president in 1951.  Tolbert loyally served under Tubman for over twenty years and became president upon Tubman’s death in 1971.

The lower court found the defendants guilty, but the Supreme Court ruled for a new trial.  However, the lower court ruled the Defendants guilty in the second trial.  Chairman Anderson untiringly appealed to President Tolbert for clemency.  The president refused and later spoke that he would not be influenced by sentiment in carrying out his “duty in the fear of God in keeping with the oath of office of the president.”

The guilty individuals were hung as sentenced.  The president’s stance, despite other shortcomings, enhanced his legacy as a strong leader who stood for justice.  The commoners in Maryland County and Grand Kru County cheered and rejoiced in the streets for the decision.

Another murder case should be an example.  On November 30, 2007, Angel Togba, a 13-year-old virgin girl, was reportedly found hanging in the bathroom of her guardian, Mr. Han Williams, a former Deputy Managing Director of the Liberia National Port Authority.  The State alleged that Mr. Williams’ wife, Madea Williams, murdered Angel after she found her husband having sex with the victim.  The Prosecution maintained that “out of anger, Madea strangled the girl to death.” The Prosecution argued that the Defendants then covered up the killing by hanging the victim to indicate that she killed herself.  The Defendants pleaded not guilty.  However, an autopsy, which a Ghanaian pathologist conducted, showed Angel was sexually abused before her death by strangulation.  The lower court ruled the Defendants guilty of murder.  But on August 15, 2014, following a lengthy legal battle, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and freed the Defendants.  The decision met public outcry.