A man has been arrested by the police in Cross River State for shooting his elder brother to death with a gun and hacking off his head and private parts.
The man whose name was given as Ekapong at the weekend in Epiebi ward, Ekori in Yakkur Local Government Area shot his elder brother, Ofrekpe on the farm following a dispute over palm fruits.
“He went to the farm and met our father packing palm fruits which he cut from our family palm trees into a bag and shot him dead,” Alice, daughter of the slain man told newsmen.
She said the father and her uncle have been quarrelling over who should harvest palm fruits on their late father’s plantation. He has been warning my father to stay away from the palm trees or he will deal with him but my father did not take him seriously since the palm trees belong to the family.”
She narrated that it was one hunter who heard the gunshot and thought that one of his colleagues had killed an animal and rushed over to share in the game but saw something else that raised alarm.
”Normally, when a gunshot hits its target, the sound is different from the one which missed its target so the hunter was attracted by the sound of the gun which he was sure got its target but when he got there it was a different scenario,” She stated.
She said when the hunter saw her uncle covered in blood he was excited and rushed to open the bag which was beside him only to see a human head and private parts.
“The hunter looked in the nearby bush and saw our father’s body and raised the alarm over what he saw and the man tried to shoot him too but the expended cartridge was still inside the gun so it could not shoot.”
She said other people in surrounding farms and bushes rushed to the scene of the hunter’s shout that was how the man was apprehended.
“We are calling on the police to release him and let him come home,” she concluded.
Irene Ugbo, the Cross River Police Command spokesman said the man is in police custody “and an investigation is going on to find out what happened.”
