WAVERLY - Authorities Friday charged Nathan McKinney with obstruction of prosecution for failing to cooperate with the investigation into his father's murder.

McKinney's father, Paul "Frank" McKinney, 52, was found dead in his Sumner home, Jan. 18, 2006. McKinney testified Tuesday and Wednesday in the first-murder trial of Lawrence Hamby, 27, also of Sumner, who is accused of beating and strangling Frank McKinney.

Bremer County Attorney Kasey Wadding said he waited until after McKinney finished testifying because he was worried that McKinney could flee the state before the trial.

McKinney told jurors he initially helped Hamby cover up his father's death by making it appear like an overdose and hid evidence of the murder. He said he and Hamby injected McKinney's body with a mixture of Everclear alcohol and Thorazine.

Nathan McKinney also lied to Division of Criminal Investigation agents, stating Hamby was in Fairbank helping a friend fix a computer the night of the murder. He recanted his story the next day.

McKinney was born in Lafayette, Ind., and lived with his mother until he was 17. He told jurors he didn't have any relationship with Frank McKinney until after his mother's health failed and she was put in a nursing home.

For a time, McKinney said he lived place-to-place and relied more on a "street family," a group of friends who were in a similar situation. The night of his father's murder, he testified that he called some of those people and expressed an desire to go back to Indiana.

McKinney was held on a material witness warrant for sometime, and later on a probation violation for a 2006 second-degree theft conviction.

Obstruction is an aggrivated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison.

Contact Josh Nelson at (319) 291-1565 or josh.nelson@wcfcourier.com.