Judge Frees Four Indicted In Witchcraft Killing After Finding No Evidence Against Them; Two Get 30 Years

Published: September 9, 2026

HARPER, Maryland County — Four men indicted for the mob killing of Josephine Sieh walked out of the 4th Judicial Circuit Court on Monday after the judge found that nothing in the police charge sheet, the witness statements or the statements of their co-defendants mentioned them at all, and that the county attorney had put their names in the indictment on an assumption.

By Henry N. Kolenky

Judge George S. Wiles Jr. dismissed the charges against Christopher Newton, Hne Dieh, Morris Monday and Amos Bono in the same judgment that sentenced Dougbe Newton and Friday Newton to 30 years each, five of them at hard labor, for the murder.

Defense counsel had asked for the dismissal, arguing that the four were never investigated and never gave statements to police. Asked by the court why the four were named, the county attorney said he had assumed they were the people who ordered the others to carry out the killing. Wiles reviewed the record, found no mention of any of them and struck the charges.

The judge also found that a seventh defendant, Victor Brown, is 13 years old, not 17 as police records showed, and cannot be tried as an adult. The defense produced Brown’s birth records and testimony from his aunt, Nnede Newton, in a bill of information and resistance. Wiles said that even if Brown is a year or two older, he remains a minor, and cited the Judiciary Law giving juvenile courts original jurisdiction over juvenile matters.

Josephine Sieh, of Gbaken Town, was accused of witchcraft on the night of Aug. 8, 2025, then tied and beaten, according to the indictment. Her body was later found in the bush with bruises across it. Nine people were indicted on Jan. 12 on charges of murder, criminal conspiracy and criminal facilitation.

Five defendants remained after the dismissal. All pleaded not guilty at arraignment, and the next day counsel told the court they wanted to change their pleas. Questioned individually by the judge, Dougbe Newton, Friday Newton and Brown said they were guilty, while Augustine Karyee and David Y. Sieh maintained their not-guilty pleas. Because murder is a capital offense, the court said the law required it to treat all of them as having pleaded not guilty and to make the prosecution prove its case.

Prosecutors called four witnesses: Jimmy T. Kaydor, deputy chief investigator of the Liberia National Police in Maryland County; Barney D. Neufville, a registered nurse and surveillance focal person at Pleebo Health Center; Robertson Tye, head of the coroner’s jury; and Melvin D. Taylor, a nephew of the dead woman who said he witnessed the killing. The court admitted oral and documentary evidence after it was marked and testified to.