Police in Akwa Ibom arrest suspected killer of hospital pathologist

I was angry and I picked an iron rod I saw outside and waited for her to come out. When she came out and on sighting me with the iron, she ran back into her house. I used the iron to hit her on the head and she died

The Akwa Ibom Police Command has arrested one Henry Silas, aged 28, for allegedly killing Dr. Ivy Umanah of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH).

Parading the suspect at the Police Headquarters in Ikot Akpan Abia, the state Police Commissioner, Mr. Mutala Mani, said the suspect was apprehended in Abia State by a team of detectives from the state command, where he ran to after committing the crime.

It would be recalled that the murder of the university lecturer in April this year drew a lot of condemnations across the state. Many people suspected she was killed by cult members in the university.

What led to this line of thinking then was because on the day she met her death, April 20, 2016, she was to conduct examination for her students at about 9a.m. but she was nowhere to be found. A search party by her colleagues later found her dead in her house at Shelter Afrique Housing Estate.

The suspect, it was gathered, was initially arrested by Umanah’s colleagues at her gate, when they went to check on her. He was taken to Shelter Afrique Police Station but was released because he was recognised as one of the persons who had been working in the deceased’s new apartment as a tiler.

The suspect, Mr. Henry Silas, from Ikot Akpanawa, in Ika local council of the state, acknowledged committing the crime, saying it was done out of provocation.

According to him, the deceased was his client. He tiled her house and also did the POP, adding that it was when he went to collect his
balance of N100,000 that the deceased refused to pay him, saying the work was not up to her standard.

“The doctor was my client, I tiled her house and she paid me, but owed me N100,000 for the POP. On April 20,2016, I went to her house at about 7.00a.m. to collect the money. On getting there, she started complaining about the work I did, saying it was not up to standard and threatened not to pay me the money.

“While I was trying to explain to her how I got the materials to do the job and that the owner of the materials was disturbing me, she slapped me and pushed me out of her sitting room.

“I was angry and I picked an iron rod I saw outside and waited for her to come out. When she came out and on sighting me with the iron, she ran back into her house. I pursued her, in the process, the deceased fell down on her chair and I used the iron to hit her on the head and she died. I beg that I should be forgiven because it was the devil that pushed me into it.”