ACCRA, GHANA (ANS) -- The search for Sidney "Sid" Thomas Barnes, a London-born missionary to West Africa, has come to a sad end, as the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service announced at a press conference on Wednesday, October 13, 2010, that Barnes had been murdered by an associate.

Sid Barnes with a Ghanaian flag

Once his friends back in the United States lost contact with Sid Barnes, a huge manhunt began in Ghana which was spearheaded by the INTERPOL unit.

The search moved to Koforidua, where Barnes was based, and Kofi Seidu was interrogated several times and on each occasion, he denied ever seeing the Rev. Barnes when he arrived at Accra Airport.

But still the police kept the pressure on him and finally, on October 4, 2010, he finally gave in and admitted killing Sid Barnes.

Prosper Kwame Agblor, Acting Director-General of the Ghana Police CID, alleged to journalists at a media briefing at the CID Headquarters in Accra that Seidu had murdered Barnes in cold blood at Adawso, not too far from Koforidua in the Eastern Region of Ghana, where Rev. Barnes had lived and carried out his missions work until he went on leave to the US on December 27, 2009, and was expected back in the country on Thursday, March 18, 2010.

According to the CID boss, the killer, after committing the heinous crime, transported missionary Barnes lifeless body, which was wrapped in plastic and buried it in a well at the deceased person's own pineapple and pawpaw farm at a town called Akwamu-Amanfo.

He said that instead of driving Barnes to Koforidua from the airport, the accused murdered him and buried his body on the farm.

After he confessed to committing the crime, Seidu led a team of police investigators and pathologists from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, a leading national hospital in Ghana, to the scene on Monday October 11, 2010, where the corpse was exhumed from the well.

"The body is now lying at the Korle-Bu Teaching hospital morgue awaiting autopsy," DCOP Agblor said.

What caused police to be suspicious of the alleged murdered, was that he attempted to sell missionary Barnes's laptop computer to a friend (name withheld for security reasons), who later found out that it belonged to the late Rev. Barnes. He further asked the friend to change a $100 bill into Ghanaian currency, but the friend declined.

Seidu, and one Pastor Padmore Goodwill, who was recruited as a resident Pastor of the Manna House Mission, a local branch of the Calvary Chapel Mission USA, reported the sudden disappearance of Rev. Barnes to the International Police (INTERPOL) unit of the CID in June this year.

The police boss noted that on the arrival date, Pastor Goodwill informed Seidu to pick the late Rev. Barnes from the Kotoka International Airport and transport him to Koforidua, in his (Rev. Barnes') Land Rover vehicle, with registration number WR 418 P.

After alledgely killing Sid Barnes, Seidu later sold the vehicle to someone in Sefwi Wiawso, a town in Ghana, and frantic efforts had since been made to identify the buyer. Seidu, according to the police, then went back to tell Pastor Goodwill that Rev. Barnes did not arrive in Ghana as scheduled.

Meanwhile intelligence gathered by the CID in the US revealed that Rev. Barnes was given a ride to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) by his friend, Chuck Burney, on March 15, 2010.

 Barnes then flew to London on a British Airways plane, using E-ticket number 1257465295192.

Reports further indicated that Barnes arrived in London and checked in at a hotel at Heathrow Airport. He left London for Ghana two days after, using the same airline and E-ticket

Background checks on Seidu showed that he dropped out of school at Primary '6', and even though he is not married, he has fathered has two children, both girls, aged seven and four years respectively. He has been a driver for the past 16 years, and in 1997 he met Pastor Johnson and the late Rev. Barnes in Koforidua.

In the later part of the year, DCOP noted, a misunderstanding ensured between both men and therefore they parted company.

The late Rev. Barnes, according to the police, rented a new place to continue with the church activities, and through that, Pastor Goodwill was also recruited as a Resident Pastor of the church. They also entered into a partnership later on, and set up the Prestige Secretarial and Computer School in the Eastern Regional capital, and a pineapple and pawpaw farm at Nsawam.

The arrest of Seidu was made possible following a hint giving to the police by an informant who read a story in the Ghanaian Times, a national newspaper, about the disappearance of Rev. Barnes.

This reporter, a correspondent with the ASSIST News Service, carried an early on investigation at the Kotoka International AirPort and I confirmed the arrival of the Sid. Barnes on Thursday, March 18th, 2010, onboard the British Airways flight from London. My story followed one written by ASSIST News founder, Dan Wooding, who was friend of Sid Barnes, and this story was republished the in some local Christian newspapers in Ghana.

Barnes initially moved to Ghana in 1998 where he started the Crossroads Christian Mission Inc., in Koforidua, which is about an hour by road from Accra, and is the capital of the Eastern Region of Ghana, with a population of 87,315 (2000 census).

Soon he was busy ministering as a "pastor to pastors" and also as a Bible teacher. He also was involved in a secretarial school in the city.

He began working as a missionary in various West African nations since 1989. He started Crossroads Christian Mission in 2002, and it was in 2004 when it was finally registered and incorporated. The areas of his ministry, he said, were church planting, and evangelism in rural areas and, as he explained, "These are where the centers of occult rule, in the tribal and traditional areas and they reach into the cities with their influence."

In his Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa missionary profile, Barnes said, "Another way of church planting is through Christian schools with the church attached. We have a Christian vocational school and are hoping to shortly build our first permanent church with a pre-school on a plot we have. We then want to purchase land close by to later build a primary and JSS (now SHS) schools in a complex."