A 30-year-old mother of four who butchered her 2-year-old son in the presence of three other children will undergo psychiatric examination.

The request for this examination was granted police prosecutors by the Kodie Magistrate Court in the Ashanti Region.

Police said Hannah Akua Afriyie, a petty trader, inflicted machete wounds on the head and lower abdomen of her son, Maxwell Appiah-Buga at Agyarko Buoho without any provocation.

The incident occurred at the time the father of the deceased, the last son of the couple had left the house.

The boy was pronounced dead on arrival at the Old Tafo Government Hospital on Sunday.

Acting Kodie District Police Commander, DSP Jeremiah Alale told JoyNews the incident, which occurred at about 4:00pm left the three children traumatized.

“Actually they are traumatized.  When we visited the scene, at that point they were afraid of their mother, their own mother. It was a sad moment; they will not get closer to her. Somebody is taking care of them,” he said.

According to DSP Alale,  the woman acted strangely for some time until she became of herself after her arrest.

“They [police] arrested the woman after examining the body and placed it in a morgue over there for autopsy.  They brought the woman but upon interrogation,  we realized that she was not normal. We visited the scene, that is their house in Buoho-Sasa area there.  When we got there, she became of herself. That young woman has four children including the one she killed. She started lamenting: 'Police have arrested me so who will take care of my children?' She became aware of herself.”

Not convinced of the woman’s conduct, police prosecutors on Monday requested further psychiatric examination and care for the suspect.

"Monday, we put her before the Kodie Magistrate Court for murder but seeing the way she was behaving, we applied for an order from the magistrate for her to be examined or accessed to give us a report for us to know what to do next.”