Five suspects, including the husband of a woman whose dead body was found in an abandoned vehicle at Kaupena checkpoint at the Southern and Western Highlands border are in Mt Hagen Police cell now.
According to a member of the Police Highway Patrol 17 at Kaupena checkpoint Nick Noah, the incident happened at around midnight,Monday, where the main suspect, and his accomplices transported the corpse of his wife, from Southern Highlands to Western Highlands in an identified vehicle, perhaps to stage a cover-up.
However, they behaved suspiciously at the checkpoint when seeing police and civilian guards still around, as the place was not deserted as expected, and attempted to turn around quickly, when police gave chase, overtook and blocked the road
The suspects then left the parked vehicle and fled on foot into the dark, however the medical doctor husband was caught a while later while the other four were arrested with the assistance of the public this morning, following social media reports of an unidentified woman’s body being taken off an abandoned vehicle at Kaupena and transported to Mt Hagen Police celll.
The deceased has been identified as Imelda Tupi Epawe of mixed parentage Erave and Mendi married to the suspect Simon Temo, who serves at Mendi Hospital.
The maternal relatives of Imelda Tupi Epawe, the Southern Highlands woman whose dead body was mysteriously transported by her killers and intercepted by the police on Monday night, have expressed shock and anger in the way her body was treated, even after death.
George Kema from Erave in Southern Highlands Province expressed anger on Tuesday morning when he discovered that the dead body, though brought to Mt Hagen General Hospital in the night, was left outside the morgue car park on trolley till day break.
Kema says, what pained him more was that he couldn’t recognize the deceased as her face was obviously bruised and swollen.
He called on the Police not to release the main suspect who is the husband of the deceased and four of his accomplices who are now in Mt Hagen Police cell.
Meanwhile, post mortem is being done on the body to ascertain the nature of the death.