Hockessin doctor remembered as her killer is sentenced

Dr. Caroline Ekong was full of life in the months before her murder. She was newly married and ready to work less and spend more time with family and on nonprofit work, her daughter said.

Ekong had no idea what her former psychiatric patient, Christopher Frick, was planning. He bought a hunting knife, practiced picking locks and fixated on revenge for being placed by her in Rockford Center, a psychiatric facility in Stanton, years earlier.

The mentally ill man knew the lunar phases of the moon and under the cover of darkness on Oct. 14, 2015, went to Ekong's home on Withers Way in the Sanford Ridge neighborhood. He entered the back door, took off his shoes and went to her bedroom.

He used pepper spray and then brutally stabbed the 55-year-old mother, leaving bloody footprints and stained walls and floors.

"Caroline Ekong, who was in her life a hero, fought the bravest fight," State Prosecutor Kathleen Jennings said.

On Friday, Judge Ferris W. Wharton in Superior Court in Wilmington sentenced Frick, 22, to life in prison plus 25 years. Frick pleaded guilty but mentally ill to first-degree murder and a weapons charge in September.

In a flat tone that his attorney attributed to his Asperger syndrome, Frick apologized, saying he wishes he could take it back.

"I wish everyone affected the best," he said while standing before Wharton.

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Much of Friday's hearing focused on Ekong's legacy. Her family and friends packed the small courtroom.

Ekong was born in England, but lived much of her life in Nigeria. Her parents invested in her medical training so that she and her children could have a good life.

"Christopher Frick deprived her of that opportunity and flushed those resources through a toilet assembly comprised of wickedness, violence and hate," her husband, John Etim, said in a statement read by Jennings after he became too emotional to read on.

Ekong and Etim married in September 2014. Although it was the second marriage for both, they saw it as their first opportunity at the joy of true and durable love, Etim said. Their plans were shattered by Frick.

Ekong's death also changed the course of her children and stepchildren's lives.

Her daughter, Koko Ekong, 24, described her sleepless nights and anxiety after finding her mother dead in their foyer. Despite this, she and her 20-year-old brother, Kaeini, are succeeding in their work and studies to make their mother proud.

"My mother was a woman of integrity," she said. "She was a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a Godmother, a stepmother, a colleague and a great medical practitioner. Most importantly to me and my brother, she was and is our mother."

Koko told Wharton her mother loved Christmas time – the decorating of the tree, the wrapping of gifts and the pictures of her children and dogs next to the tree.

Now, Koko instead has images in her mind of the cuts on her mother's fingers the funeral home tried to hide with flowers.

"If small paper cuts can leave an unbearably intense sharp pain, then imagine how an illegal hunting knife would feel," she said. "Not just one cut, but several cuts. Several stabs."

"Every time I think about this, my stomach drops, and I want to throw up," she added. "I want to help her, but I can't. I want to make her feel better, but I can't."

The judge could sentence Frick to nothing less than the mandatory sentence of life in prison, but heard anyway from Frick's attorney, Kathryn van Amerongen, and his mother, Cynthia Frick.

The two said Frick, a former University of Delaware student, was diagnosed as a child with Asperger's syndrome and had for years been hearing voices in his head. Reports from doctors submitted to the court indicate Frick suffers from a range of illnesses, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The murder was triggered by an involuntary commitment to Rockford. After the six day stay, he refused treatment, even for basic medical and dental check-ups, van Amerongen said.

Etim said the irony is that Ekong was just trying to use her professional skills to save Frick's own life.

After Frick killed Ekong in 2015, he went to his parents' home in Autumnwood where he told his mother what he had done and then called 911.

He has been in custody since then, spending most of his time in the Delaware Psychiatric Center.

Van Amerongen said as his mental health has improved at DPC, he has begun to grasp the nature of what he had done and is regretful. He is trying to correct his path through religion and by tutoring prisoners in math.

"Chris is a good person, but very mentally ill," his mother, Cynthia Frick said. "We know Christopher is very sorry."

Etim said Frick knew right from wrong, though, and should not hide behind his mental health.

Wharton said he hoped Frick listened to all that was said Friday and will not deviate from the corrected path he is setting for himself.

"If you ever expect forgiveness in this world or the next, you won't deviate," he said.

Contact Jessica Masulli Reyes at 302-324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @jessicamasulli.