Alleged killer: Alex Akpan [photo], has been charged with murder in the death of fellow college student Irene Yemitan. 

A Texas man is behind bars after he allegedly killed a woman and hid her body in a recycling bin, only for it to be discovered by his own mother.
Alex Akpan, 24, has been charged with murder in the death of 23-year-old Irene Yemitan.
Yemitan’s body was found on September 5 when Akpan’s mother went into her son’s bedroom at the home they both share and saw a green recycling bin.
She found it strange the bin was in her son’s room instead of the backyard. When she lifted the lid, she discovered a human foot.

Yemitan, an aspiring beauty stylist and student at Houston Community College, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities said there were no obvious signs of trauma on Yemitan’s body, but noted her eyes seemed to signify that she had been strangled.
The county medical examiner has since determined that strangulation was the cause of death.
Akpan was initially charged with tampering with evidence of a human corpse. He was arrested again on Wednesday and charged with murder.
A witness told police that Yemitan had only met Akpan a few days before her death.
The witness and Yemitan had been at West Oaks Mall when they befriended Akpan, a fellow Houston Community College student, who was studying computer science.

Yemitan and Akpan began exchanging phone calls and text messages and she had gone over to his house with the witness on several occasions.
The witness said she had been at the suspect’s house with Yemitan the day before her body was discovered, according to the Houston Chronicle.
She told police that Akpan became upset that day because Yemitan parked her car on the street, scaring them as he threw a chair and screamed and cursed at them.
Yemitan had posted a video on her YouTube page just a day before her body was discovered that was titled ‘LIFE UPDATE?’
In the video she revealed to friends and family that she had been busy with school.
‘Where have I been? What have I been doing? Hold up, I have some explaining to do,’ she told her viewers.
‘I’ve been at school, that’s what I’ve been doing. School, living my best life,’ she happily told the camera.

Akpan’s mother found it strange the bin was in her son’s room instead of the backyard. When she lifted the lid, she discovered a human foot. Pictured is Akpan and his mother’s house.
After police arrived at the scene of Akpan’s house, his mother called him and he said he was on his way home and knew what had happened, prosecutors said.
But once he arrived Akpan refused to give a statement to investigators and requested a lawyer, according to KTRK.
He was initially charged with tampering with evidence of a human corpse and was released from custody after posting $10,000 bond. He was arrested again on Wednesday.

Akpan appeared in court on Thursday wearing a black T-shirt with the words #Lightthefuture written on the front.
On the back were the words ‘Psalm 82.3’, a Bible verse that reads: ‘Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed’.
Akpan is currently being held on $250,000 bond at Harris County Jail.
Prosecutors had requested he be held on $500,000 bond, claiming he was a flight risk and that authorities had learned his family planned to send him to Nigeria.
The prosecutor also claimed Akpan was an ‘extreme danger to the community’, revealing that he had threatened his sister with a gun last year.
Akpan was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2017, but his sister asked that the charges be dismissed.