The third accused, who had taken a prominent part in concealing the murder, and who was proved to be leading member of the Human Leopard Society, was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. ----- Footnote 12: I.e. a thatched roof on wooden posts with thick mud walls about two feet high. Footnote 13: At the request of the Colonial Office the names of the accused persons in all the cases have been withheld. CHAPTER IV THE IMPERRI CASE The second case dealt with was the one known as the Imperri case. Fifty-four persons were charged with the murder of a boy aged about twenty years. They were also charged with being accessories after the fact to murder and further with being members of an unlawful society: to wit, the Human Leopard Society. The murder took place on 13th July, 1912. The Crown Prosecutor, for want of evidence to corroborate the story told by accomplices who had turned King’s evidence, only proceeded against fifteen of these persons on the capital charge. The case was commenced on the 13th January and the verdict was given on the 3rd March. Fifty-nine witnesses gave evidence, and the notes of evidence taken reached nearly a thousand foolscap pages. The facts as alleged by the witnesses for the Crown were as follows: Very early on the morning of Sunday the 8th July, 1912, the leaders of the Human Leopard Society met at some place near the town of Victoria, the chief commercial town in the Imperri Chiefdom, and decided to hold a general meeting of the Society that same evening in the Imperri Poro bush. The Santiggies (messengers) of the Society were despatched to warn members to attend, and about sixty of them met that same evening. They began to arrive at the rendezvous, which was a clearing in the centre of the Poro bush, soon after dark. There was only one path leading into this clearing, which was surrounded with dense bush, and on this path were stationed certain executive members of the Society, who passed the members along after they were satisfied as to their membership. They proved this chiefly by the peculiar handshake of the Society. No lights were allowed at this meeting. Towards midnight the President of the Society, who owed his position to his being the most important man in the Chiefdom, arrived with his staff, and after the names and rank of the persons present were called, he proceeded to address the meeting. He announced that the object of calling members together was to discuss and consider the question of providing food, or in other words “blood” and fat, for their medicine. That it was some time since the parent Borfima was fed, and that it was necessary that their own Borfimas should also be blooded and anointed.