Wife Plotted Sacrifice, Court Told

MONROVIA, Liberia —  The wife of Liberia’s former defense minister persuaded a police inspector to help her make a human sacrifice to further her husband’s career, a court-martial heard.

Inspector Joe Lesolee told the court Friday that he killed Patrolman J. Melvin Pyne on orders of former Defense Minister Gray D. Allison and with help from his wife, Watta Allison.

Maj. Gen. Allison, stripped of his office in June, is charged with killing Pyne, whose body was found March 31 with his heart ripped out on a railway track near Monrovia.

Lesolee said Watta Allison proposed they make a sacrifice. When he suggested a sheep, she replied: “A sheep? Lesolee, my man, I thought you were a man. What we want with sheep?”

She said they needed human blood. Lesolee said he and Watta Allison recruited officer Pyne and got him drunk. Lesolee then hit him with an iron bar. A nurse slit Pyne’s throat and drained the blood into a bucket, Lesolee said.