Suspect kept my father’s photos ‘like a trophy’ after dismemberment —Daughter

*Says suspect planned father’s  death for years 

A  family in Calabar, Cross River State has been thrown into mourning after 74-year-old Okon Ansa was found dismembered in Ukim Ita, Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State, with his daughter saying the suspected killer kept her father’s photos “like a trophy.”

The man’s daughter, Basseyanwan, told Vanguard the last time she heard her father’s voice was when he called her “Mma Teacher,” his favourite name.

According to her, “He had complained of waist pain and had run out of medication. I arranged food and medicine before leaving on a trip and did not see him alive again.”

On returning to the community, she said: “Seeing my father’s lifeless body dismembered into pieces made me faint several times, I was not myself.”

Police discovered the elderly man’s head buried in a shallow grave and his body in another, both concealed beneath plantain and pineapple suckers in a neighbour’s compound. 

Recall the suspect was later arrested as confirmed to Vanguard by Police spokesperson,  Sunday Eitokpah,  and investigation continues to ascertain how many persons he had killed.

Vanguard gathered that the head, already decomposing and covered in ants, was later reunited with the body at the mortuary.

The police recovered photographs of the victim and Basseyanwan’s wedding portraits, and the cap her father wore at her marriage ceremony from the suspect’s house. 

“He kept my father’s pictures like a trophy. This was planned for years,” she said.

The prime suspect, identified as 30 -year-old Akaninyene Eshiet of Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, is accused of killing at two persons and reportedly confessed to 30 murders, police said. 

His girlfriend, Uduak Essien, has been arrested. A brother of the suspect, who fled the scene with a firearm, remains at large, heightening fear in the community.