It is a mysterious chapter of two lives lived by one man. The car crash investigation eventually told the tale of a black man, a Nigerian musician whose secret was only revealed only by death.
Detectives from the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office who began the tedious process to identify the man and notify his family, found a New York driver’s license in the man’s wallet – which he had been sitting on, 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.
Bank records showed he had less than $1,000 in his account. His records listed no family members or contacts. Authorities turned to database searches to find a relative but found his social security 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.
But in stacks of personal papers, detectives found a battered manila envelope wedged between several other envelopes in a drawer. Scrawled on its front were the words, “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. Finally, George Clark was really Eteng Ikpi Itam, a 63-year-old Nigerian.
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, 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, kept to himself and worked with his hands.
Eteng Ikpi Itam was born June 13, 1949, in Cross River, Nigeria. 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.
Itam’s father was a prominent government official, his sister a college professor and one brother a chief justice, Eno said.
Growing up, the information continued, Itam was an intelligent and polite young man, the friends said. In his younger years in Nigeria, Eno considered Itam something of a role model. He graduated from high school with honors. He was tall, handsome and well-dressed, Eno said, and he never wanted for a date.
He attended college and studied veterinary medicine, Eno said. His real passion, however, was music. He taught himself to play guitar and performed for school groups and church and holiday events.
Eno said he believes Itam studied veterinary medicine to satisfy his father, though he longed to be a musician.
“His father didn’t want him to do music,” said Sylvester Ikpi, a childhood friend who now lives in Maryland.
Itam came from a large family, Eno said, and his father had many children, several marriages and several divorces. Itam was the only child his father had with his mother.
“I suspect that he didn’t see himself fitting in with a large family,” Eno said.
At some point, Itam went in a different direction. Eno remembers overhearing his father and Itam’s father discuss his son’s lifestyle change. Itam, quit his job and moved. He began playing music professionally and toured with several groups, including one that eventually went to play in the United States in the 1970s.
When the band returned home, Itam stayed behind in New York City.
Ikpi came to the United States in 1977 and received letters from Itam’s family asking him to look him up. They hadn’t heard from him.
Ikpi and others were never able to find Itam, but he apparently sent a letter to family in Nigeria with his P.O. box as a return address. That is how he received the letters that led detectives to his real identity. When he rented the box in 1996 Itam listed the names George Clark and Eteng Itam. In 2009 he removed his real name.
According to Itam’s death certificate, he obtained a visa for four years but that expired. Detectives said birthday cards found in his apartment indicated he may have stayed in a homeless shelter in New York City. A check with the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement turned up Itam’s date of birth, but his alien number has been reassigned and his file long since destroyed.
Little is known of Itam’s time in New York City during the 1970s. An old, undated ID card found in his Syracuse apartment shows that he worked for East Side/West Side Messenger Service. He was using the name George Clark by then.
Detectives believe Itam stole the identity of George Clark Jr. while in New York City, but that they found no evidence that Itam committed any other crimes. The real George Clark was born in Brooklyn, but it’s not apparent if the two men ever knew each other or met.
A phone message left for George Clark in North Carolina was returned by his mother, Joyce Clark, who said her son was out of town and unavailable to answer questions.
Asked about her son’s identity being stolen, Joyce Clark said the identity theft “ruined his life,” but that he has since gotten a fresh start.
She said she and her son never had anything to do with Eteng Itam.
“We never seen him before in our lives,” she said. That happened years ago. We don’t know a damn thing about him and I’m glad he’s dead.” Even after the mystery was solved, questions lingered about Itam’s final resting place. According to Itam’s death certificate, GEICO refused to pay on his life insurance because of the identity theft. His family in Nigeria couldn’t afford to have his remains shipped home.
The Onondaga County Department of Social Services paid most of the $3,450 cost of the Itam’s burial in Loomis Hill Cemetery. Just a few people attended the March 22 service and burial: A few friends, several officials from the Nigerian consulate in New York City, a minister, the funeral director and Itam’s landlord.
In the end, the man who lived quietly for decades as George Clark was buried in Syracuse under a modest grave marker that simply reads Eteng Ikpi Itam. Family sources in Calabar, CRS,have since confirmed this mysterious story to www.calitown.com.
