A Beautiful Life Taken Too Soon: RIP, Princess Cooper!

Posted April 2, 2022
by Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
 
She could have been my daughter or any female member of my family.

In fact, my daughter Nanu is older than her by four years.

She was beautiful, resourceful, and ambitious.

But gone too soon, allegedly murdered by her Lebanese lover.

She’s Princess Cooper.

We mourn her death because she’s one of our own whose memories will continue to remain in our hearts and minds, and in the memories of her fellow citizens, relatives, and loved ones.

How can we not remember this young lady, this precious gem to her friends and family whose death shocked the nation, lifted our collective spirits, and anger us to question her death and seek justice?

The saddest part about Princess’ life and her story is that she was born in Liberia, lived in Liberia, and was gruesomely murdered in Liberia, a country that hailed killers and former rebels and warlords as ‘honorable’ in a government that cares very little about human beings and the lives they lived.

Had her death occurred in a law-abiding country where the rule of law matters and murders and murderers are thoroughly investigated by competent prosecutors, and competent investigators with the proper forensic tools, investigative methods, and professional guidance and judgment to say and do the right thing, perhaps and perhaps Liberians would have some confidence in their criminal justice system.

For now, the Liberian criminal justice system stinks, and like the stink City of Monrovia, they both need to be overhauled and revamped to be taken seriously.

In today’s Liberia, a feud between political parties and party bosses is pursued vigorously by the nation’s chief prosecutor, and the Ministry of Justice then murders. And also in Liberia, murderers and their co-conspirators can go free and run for office, start a business with stolen government funds and get to be influential kingmakers in politics.

In the wake of Princess Cooper’s murder, a Minister appears before a diaspora group, ULAA, in the United States, a group whose mission is vague and uncertain, and did not mention her name, her death, did not offer sympathy to the bereaved family and did not promise to find the killer or killers to administer justice but engages in making a crazy out of the world financial pledge to this group in the range of thousands of dollars to appear generous, but not with his own hard-earned money.

This is at a time when public schools in the country and in Monrovia are broken and in need of financial resources, teachers are not paid their meager monthly salaries on time, and the newly appointed Superintendent of MCSS, Isaac Saye-Lakpoh Zawolo embarked on a GoFundMe campaign to raise needed funds to ease the financial burden on his administration.

Also, at a time when Monrovia by definition remains a stinking city and the scent of raw garbage and raw sewer overwhelmed city residents daily.

In Liberia, unemployment is way too high, the health care system is a mess and in total disarray, roads and bridges are crumbling or crumbled before our naked eyes, and George Weah, as president and builder-in-chief and appointing authority (not based on the competitive recruitment-meritorious civil service system) appoints university and college presidents, and build parks, which is the duty of a Park and Recreation Director of a city or county, not President of a country.

However, this is the same Nat McGill, the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, who built an over-the-top mausoleum for his deceased mother in the face of crippling poverty, biting hunger, and unbearable deaths in the country, a result of all of the above.

Have you ever seen insensitivity? This is one at its zenith and the government of George Weah is known for insensitivity.

However, the list of unsolved murders in Liberia over the decades is a long one beginning with the 250,000 innocent victims who are seared into our painful memories of injustice, including Harry Greaves, the four auditors, the sons of former presidents, and a female immigration officer, and on we go.

As if Princess Cooper’s death is not abominable enough, the clumsy, heartless, and unprofessional remarks of “no foul play” by the police spokesman whose name I will not mention in this article to not dignify him, are as ignorant and stupid, to be a spokesman for any institution.

Without any findings from an independent autopsy on the body, this idiot based his conclusion on the lack of external bruises and marks on Princess’ body, which is a clear rush to unprofessional judgment.

Did he ever consider any internal elements such as organs, asphyxiation, last contact, last meals, last person to see her, cell phone records, and other factors to consider before making any statement?

So, as it has been with other unsolved murder cases in Liberia, Princess Cooper’s death will go unsolved without a single person ever going to prison which is beyond doubt an indication of the state of governance at its lowest in Liberia.

Liberians certainly are concerned and exhausted about their country’s direction and the way to go about constructing a society that they care deeply about but is politically polarized and hijacked by opportunistic enablers and sycophantic hustlers whose ideal definition of nation-building is unpatriotic self-centeredness as a way to survive.

Liberians are awaiting the independent autopsies of Princess Cooper and those other Liberians whose unsolved murders linger in our memories.

And as the famed physician and social worker Dame Cicely Saunders reminds us, “how people die remains in the memory of those who live on.”

We will never forget the memories of Princess Cooper and our other brothers and sisters whose lives were taken away violently.

We want justice!!

RIP, Princess Cooper.