Sunday night- March 30, 2025 was marred by violence in Christian Community in Tappita City, Lower Nimba County, when 17-yrs-old Prince Moses, a ninth grade student of Tappeh Memorial High, was attacked and killed.
Alleged perpetrators of the violent act which resulted to the death of Prince are said to be two sons of a lady identified as Albertha Paye. Madam Paye sells food in the premises of the Tappeh Quarter in the city.
What prompted the violence
According to eyewitness accounts, Madam Paye is said to be the attribute to the violence that erupted Sunday night when she reportedly walked to the Christian Community to confront her brother’s ( Pastor Darius Paye) wife. The confrontation was said to be in revenge to the recent death of Pastor Paye’s daughter (stepchild of his wife, name withheld) in Monrovia, who has been buried.
Madam Paye reportedly blamed her brother’s wife for the death of the daughter in questions on grounds that she (brother’s wife) and the deceased could not get along in the home, a situation that led the girl’s migration to Monrovia to live.
Eyewitness accounts also indicated that Madam Paye planned to physically vent anger at her brother’s wife, after the burial, which she reportedly did Sunday night by clashing with the woman in question in the Christian Community.
Later, the confrontation degenerated into outright violence when Madam Paye reportedly recruited her two sons to intensify her onslaught. Hell then broke lose when the sons- Pa and his brother (name withheld), went on attack spree to identify the person whom their mother claimed insulted her during her confrontation with her brother’s wife.
Mistaken identities
“ Pa and his brother came and knocked me with stake on my head and I ran away. They went to my brother, and at that time I was to our house….,” 15yrs-old Luke Gonshan, the deceased brother, told In Profile Daily at the Voice of Tappita late Monday morning.
In a dispirited mood, Luke narrated that his brother pleaded with the perpetrators that they should leave him because he did not know anything about the reported insult rained on their mother, but the attack on him continued until he was allegedly hit with a piece of spear at the back of his neck.
“Even while Prince dropped unconscious, the two boys continued to beat on him, but later they ran away when they noticed that something had happened to him,” another eyewitness narrated.
There was more outburst of anger this time from the victim’s relatives and sympathizers over night when they rushed to Madam Paye’s residence in Tappeh Quarter on the road leading to Kwendin. They set the house at blaze but residents knowing that the blaze would destroy other houses in the area intervened to quench the fire. The angry group then resorted to breaking down the back portion of the house.
Tension was high as the angry crowd roamed the crime scene and other parts of the city in pursuit of the perpetrators who fled the crime scene.
Monday morning also became tense. The house of Sam Blah, the man believed to be the father of one of the two boys, was also set at blaze but residents reportedly used the fire extinguisher in the building to put out the emerging fire.
Later, the area of attraction was at the police depot opposite the Civil Compound in the city. It became a scene of vengeance as angry crowd trooped in to enter and search if the perpetrators were being protected there.
Police personnel backed by Immigration personnel could not allow that pressure to overcome them. Already, suspects of a looting and arson attack at Moses Saye and Barkpeyee Villages along the Tappita Zekepa Highway were still being held in withholding cells. As the tension mounted they were quickly relocated to the Joint Security Check-Point on the Tappita –Saclepea Highway.
These were suspects arrested and brought to Tappita when a minor accidentally gunned down anther minor in Moses’ Village on Monday, March 24, 2025.
Meanwhile, local authorities in Tappita have called for calm as investigations are ongoing to establish the root causes of both the violent incidents in Tappita as well as Moses Saye and Barkpeyee Villages.
Statutory Superintendent Lounbay Barlea and City Mayor Karlewo Dahn cautioned parents to advise their children to desist from violent acts, which they said undermine peace and security. They observed that young people nowadays take law into their own hands whenever their rights are trampled upon.
Both authorities assured that they along with state security are doing everything possible to bring these reported violent acts under control, emphasizing that justice will be served.