Heroin riddle of bride in hotel bath tragedy
Family claims Scot ‘killed’ in Africa had never taken drugs
A SCOTTISH woman allegedly murdered by her pastor husband in Ghana was found with lethal levels of heroin in her system.
Hotel staff found the body of pregnant Charmain Speirs face down in a bath where it is believed she had been lying for four days.
Her husband Eric Isaiah Adusah, a self-proclaimed prophet and evangelical preacher, had checked out of the hotel alone after telling staff not to disturb his wife.
And although the courts in Ghana have heard that she died of a heroin overdose, her family in Scotland have denied that she ever used any form of illegal drugs.
Adusah has been charged with murder but his lawyer has launched an extraordinary defence case – arguing that not only was 41-year- old Ms Speirs a habitual heroin user, but that her entire family were also addicted to the drug.
Last night, Ms Speirs’s family reacted with fury at the pastor’s claims. Her brother Paul told The Scottish Mail on Sunday that she had never touched drugs and it was ‘an outright and outrageous lie’ to say that his family were addicts.
He also revealed that the family had been surprised at Charmain’s whirlwind marriage to Adusah – and had never trusted him.
Adusah, 28, was based in Britain but is originally from Ghana. He appeared in the Accra magistrates court last week.
He is accused of causing his wife’s death between March 18 and 20 at the upmarket MacDic Royal Plaza Hotel in Kofor- idua, where the couple are understood to have checked in for five days on March 16. Local news reports said an autopsy at the KorleBu Teaching Hospital had showed Ms Speirs died of an ‘opiate heroin overdose’. Defence lawyer Adomako Acheampong told the court: ‘My lord can take judicial notice of the fact that heroin is a very addictive drug and it’s very selfinflicted.’
He had claimed that Ms Speirs and her family – including her parents living in Arbroath, Angus, where she grew up – are addicted to opiates. The full autopsy has not yet been made available to the court, so it is unclear if the drug had been injected, smoked or taken in pill form.
Yesterday Mr Speirs, 30, said his sister, the mother of an eight-yearold son, would not have taken the drug of her own accord: ‘She liked a glass of wine with her dinner – but drugs? No. My sister was always against drugs. And my parents can’t stand the things.’
Self-employed gardener Mr Speirs admitted that he had fought heroin addiction, but his sister ensured he sought help at a Christian-run rehabilitation centre near Glasgow. Now free from drug use for ten years, Mr Speirs is angered by Adusah’s claims and feels partly responsible, because of his past.
He said the help he received from his sister, who had always urged him to stay away from the ‘bad eggs’, was typical of her giving nature. He added: ‘She would help anybody if she thought she could. She was a bubbly character who always had a smile on her face. It was very rare that you would see my sister cry, she was always the strong one.’
But family and friends noticed changes in Ms Speirs in recent months following the start of her ‘whirlwind romance’ with Adusah. He was head of the Global Light Revival Ministries church in Tottenham, North London, and had been a preacher in Britain since 2010.
The couple married last September in Swansea, where she had studied photojournalism and worked as a radiography assistant for the Welsh NHS. He wore the kilt while she wore a lace gown.
Mr Speirs joined his parents Peter, 63, a self-employed plumber, and cleaner Linda, 61, on the trip south for the wedding, when they met Adusah for the first time.
He said: ‘We hardly know anything about this Eric, but I don’t like the guy. I thought there was something dodgy from day one. But there was no telling my sister – if she had something in her mind, she always did it regardless.
‘She wasn’t herself. In the photos she’s smiling but that’s not my sister’s smile, it’s a fake smile. She had definitely changed.’
Now the family are desperately seeking answers as they try to piece together fragments of information.
A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday: ‘We are providing consular assistance to the family.’
‘An outright and outrageous lie’ ‘My sister was always
against drugs’