Murder conviction in 2009 Md. slayings

One of the men charged in the brutal 2009 slayings of a Ghanaian immigrant and his pregnant girlfriend in a well-to-do Prince George’s County gated community was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder, prosecutors said.

Delford M. Barnes, 51, of Springdale, had been accused in the slayings of Seth Aidoo, 40, and Eunice Bah, 36, who were found dead in January 2009 in their home in the community of Oak Creek, near Upper Marlboro, prosecutors said.

Baah had been shot in the head and Aidoo had been stabbed and cut several times — apparently by Barnes and an accomplice, 53-year-old Samuel Culley Jr., police said.

Barnes was the boyfriend of Seth Aidoo’s estranged wife, Sheila Aidoo, and Culley was her brother, prosecutors and police sources said. Seth Aidoo had a $600,000 life insurance policy that listed Sheila as the beneficiary, and finances were believed to be a part of the motive, said Prince George’s State’s Attorney Glenn F. Ivey.

Ivey said DNA evidence, as well as a variety of circumstantial evidence, helped link the two to the slayings. He said he will ask for life without parole when Barnes is sentenced in December.

“The detectives really did great work in pulling these pices together,” he said.

Culley had already pleaded guilty to murder, a spokesman for Ivey said. He said prosecutors haven’t reached “any final conclusions” on Sheila Aidoo’s role.

This post has been updated.

-- Matt Zapotosky