2013年7月1日 星期一

Nigerian's secret life in Syracuse is slowly revealed

A man engulfed in flames hung out a car door as the vehicle sped down Old Liverpool Road the morning of Jan.A quality paper cutter or paper howotractor can make your company's presentation stand out. 11 before smashing into a wall. The man was dead before firefighters arrived. 

So began the final mysterious chapter of two lives lived by one man. The investigation into the fiery car crash would eventually tell the tale of a black man living under a white man's name, a Nigerian musician who became an unemployed American mechanic, and a secret revealed only by death. 

Detective Jon Seeber and several other detectives from the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office began the tedious process that morning of piecing together what clues they could find. Their goal was to identify the man and notify his family. 

Fire investigators soon sifted through the wreckage. A New York driver's license in the man's wallet - which he had been sitting on - was spared from the flames. It also belonged to George Clark. 

The driver's license listed an address at P.O. Box 26, at the Postal Service's South Salina Street office in Syracuse. As several detectives talked with witnesses to the crash, others searched for a street address to find a family member. That turned up an apartment on West Genesee Street in Syracuse. 

In heaps of documents in the tiny apartment detectives found bills, junk mail, pay stubs, tax returns, a worn birth certificate, expired driver's licenses and a folded, tattered Social Security card. All said George Clark. It was affirmation that they had the right person but little help in notifying the family. 

Detectives ran George Clark's name and Social Security number through a state and federal criminal history database and made an startling discovery: The number was tied to another George Clark. 

That George Clark lived in North Carolina and had a criminal history. A mug shot and other records showed the George Clark in North Carolina was a heavyset white man in his 50s. The photo on the driver's license salvaged from the car crash showed a black man who was much older and thinner. 

Police in North Carolina confirmed for the sheriff's office that the George Clark there was alive. He told detectives he had problems with identity theft over the years, and that he had previously lived in New York City. 

The name that just earlier that day authorities believed belonged to the man killed in the car crash was now all but meaningless. 

The dead man had paid taxes and traffic tickets, bought car insurance and life insurance, received a physical from his doctor and gotten approved for a car loan, all using another man's identity. 

Seeber went back to the man's apartment.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other iphoneheadset products. It was a small efficiency with few amenities, but Seeber wanted to be sure they hadn't missed any clues. 

In stacks of personal papers, detectives found a battered manila envelope wedged between several other envelopes in a drawer. Scrawled on its front: "Roots." 

Inside was an old photo of the dead man playing guitar and about a dozen folded letters written on cheap paper. 

The letters were addressed to Eteng Itam. They were from a son, brother and sister. The letters - from the 1990s and 2000s -- asked how Itam's life was in the United States, said how much he was missed and informed him that his father was sick and dying. They also thanked him for sending money orders to his son. 

He told her he worked as a mechanic at Sears for some time and later had a temp job at a plastic manufacturer that lasted two years. Dennis sometimes dropped him off for work there. 

Dennis said she invited him to movies many times, but he never accepted. Instead, he'd typically drive Dennis and her son to the theater and then pick them up later. 

"Sometimes he'd talk to you in riddles," she said. "He never said he was from Nigeria." He spoke English, but Whitehurst said she sometimes heard him talking on his cell phone in some other language. 

He did tell Dennis that he was from Africa and had left because of a land dispute with his brother, but provided few other details. 

He would often become depressed over money, Dennis said. More than once he told her he was behind on his rent and having trouble finding work with the temp agency. Dennis said Itam also showed her a hatchet he kept behind the seat of his car. 

The detectives slowly uncovered details of Eteng Itam's life in Nigeria. With help from the State Department, they contacted the Consulate General of Nigeria in New York City. The consulate eventually found Itam's family in Nigeria and notified them of his death. DNA kits sent to Africa and returned by the family to the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's Office positively confirmed months later that it was Itam's body in the January crash. 

Detectives weren't able to talk directly with Itam's family. They,An cleaningservicesydney is a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. however, heard from a handful of his childhood friends who learned of his death through his family. 

Those friends recalled a much different person than the quiet loner who lived in Syracuse,Today, Thereone.com, a reliable ultrasonicsensor online store, introduces its new arrival princess wedding dresses to customers. kept to himself and worked with his hands. 

Eteng Ikpi Itam was born June 13, 1949, in Cross River, Nigeria.We are one of the leading manufacturers of cableties in China He came from a financially comfortable, educated and well-respected family, said Eteng Eno, whose father and family were close with Itam's father and family. Eno runs a chemical business in New Jersey.
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