Frank Akpan, the father of the alleged murderer of a University of Uyo graduate and job seeker, Ms Iniubong Umoren, told his son to stop contemplating dying, but think of escaping shortly after police launched a manhunt for the younger Akpan.
Akpan further said his son and suspect Uduak is schizophrenic ( has a split mind) and is an outpatient of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital.
The father was responding to cross examination in the on-going trial of the Akpans, including the father, the son, and the daughter who shielded the first suspect.
He was giving evidence before the Uyo High Court preided over by Justice Bassey Nkanang on Wednesday.
The father also said he was neither aware of late Umoren’s murder nor that her body was exhumed in his compound in Uruan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
Uduak equally denied ever knowing the late victim, contrary to his confession last year immediately after the crime.
The father said on the day the said incident occurred, he was in the house of his secondary school classmate at Uko Eshiet Street, Uyo.
He went home at about 7pm, and his son told him there was an undisclosed medical emergency for which he advised him to hold on till the next morning. And the son later planned to travel to Calabar the day after.
It was at the moment the police came knocking, and he conducted the round the compound before they arrested and detained him at the police Anti-Kidnapping Unit, Uyo, where he was detained, until his son was arrested and himself freed from Police custody.
Concerning the text message he allegedly sent to his daughter’s phone stating “He was using a flying boat, he should not be talking about dying, but escaping” the accused person admitted that he sent the text but that he was not referring it to his son’s escape.
Justice Nkanang has adjourned the case to the 10th and 11th of May, 2022, for the continuation of defence by the third accused person—Frank’s daughter.