Twenty-five years after Aidan Minter made his shocking discovery, the case has been revisited in a new documentary, The Body in the River, which aired on Channel 5 (article included below).
The murder mystery was never solved. The boy’s identity remains unknown, the perpetrator(s) got away with their heinous crime.
I present the following article published by MyLondon.new for reasons of completeness though it contains little additional news compared to my previous posts.
It is followed by a Daily Mail article on the recently released documentary ‘Boy in the Thames Case’, available on Channel 5.
However, this also contains few new facts. Hence, the mystery remains. (webmaster FVD)
‘I saw a decapitated boy dumped in River Thames – one thing left me in utter disbelief’
Published: March 13, 2026 By: Daniel Windham – MyLondon
Aidan Minter
Aidan Minter says he will never forget the day he saw a headless boy’s body floating in the River Thames, a horrific discovery that has remained unsolved for more than two decades.
A man who discovered the mutilated body of a young boy in the River Thames has described the moment he realised what he was looking at as one of the most horrifying experiences of his life.
More than two decades after the shocking discovery, the case has been revisited in a new documentary, The Body in the River, which aired on Channel 5. Despite years of investigation, the child’s killer has never been brought to justice.
The victim — later named “Adam” by police — is believed to have been between four and seven years old and originally from Africa. Investigators concluded he had been trafficked into the UK before being brutally murdered in what experts believe was a ritual killing.
The grim discovery was made on September 21, 2001, when IT consultant Aidan Minter was crossing Tower Bridge and noticed something unusual drifting through the water below.
At first, he thought the object might be a shop mannequin with a piece of red cloth attached. But as it passed beneath the bridge, the horrifying truth became clear — it was the torso of a child.
Handout photo issued by ITV London Tonight of a child, named Adam by police(Image: PA)
Recalling the moment years later, Minter said the injuries immediately shocked him.
He told the programme: “So when I saw the the body as it floated under, I remember thinking that the amount of damage that have been done to it was just incredible. I was just in utter disbelief.
“It’s quite alarming when you see it up close because I was only about 30 ft away from me at the time. And the incoming tide was quite fast but it was long enough to see all of that detail.
“All of the injuries that had been inflicted on that. I’ve never seen anything like that before. And. I’ll never forget it. But it is probably one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Police recovered the body further upstream near Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre later that day.
Forensic analysis revealed the boy had died after his throat was cut. His arms, legs and head had all been deliberately removed, and those body parts have never been found.
Investigators also discovered he had been fed a strange mixture shortly before his death. Tests showed it contained African river clay, ground bone, vegetation and traces of gold and quartz. He had also been given small amounts of Calabar bean — a toxic plant known as the “doomsday bean” — which can cause paralysis while leaving a victim conscious.
Houses of Parliament, Thames River and Westminster Bridge in London(Image: Getty Images)
Experts concluded the killing was likely ritualistic, possibly linked to a distorted form of spiritual practices sometimes associated with “muti” killings or certain West African belief systems.
The case sparked international attention, prompting an appeal from former South African president Nelson Mandela.
He said: “The boy comes from somewhere in Africa, so if anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age who might have disappeared around that time please contact the police.”
Despite a number of arrests over the years, no one has ever been charged with Adam’s murder.
Former Metropolitan Police commander Andy Baker, who worked on the investigation, believes crucial evidence still exists somewhere in London.
He said: “When you think what that child went through, someone out there knows what happened. Whether that’s the murderer himself or those involved in the murder. There must be a crime scene somewhere. And it’s in London.
“There must be a place where Adam was laid upside down, tilted, head down, and then brutally dismembered and had his throat cut in such a violent way.
Andy Baker of Metropolitan Police(Image: Channel 5)
“There will still be traces of blood at that premises, so even now I’d appeal to anyone who knows anything. If they know where it is, we can go and get that forensic evidence. And then it starts again.”
Over the years, detectives uncovered evidence linking the boy to Nigeria. Pollen samples and scientific analysis suggested he had lived near Benin City before being brought to Europe.
A woman named Joyce Osagiede later admitted she had cared for the boy in Hamburg, Germany, where she purchased the distinctive orange shorts he was wearing when his body was found. However, investigators were unable to gather enough evidence to charge her or anyone else.
Multiple theories emerged, including the possibility that the child — whose real name may have been Ikpomwosa or Patrick Erhabor — had been trafficked before his death.
In 2006, Adam was buried in an unmarked grave in London.
Today, the case remains one of the most disturbing unsolved murders in British criminal history. For those who worked on it — and for the man who first spotted the body — the lack of answers still weighs heavily.
Detective Nick Chalmers, who was part of the investigation, said: “This was an innocent young child. There are people responsible for his death who haven’t been brought to justice. Twenty years on, I wish we knew the identity of Adam – and his parents. In reality, he is a missing child from a family, who probably don’t know he’s buried here in London.”
‘The Body In The Thames’ is available to watch and stream on Channel 5
The longest unsolved child murder case in modern UK history could still be answered because ‘someone out there knows what happened’, a retired detective has said.
‘Adam’ was a name given by Scotland Yard to a young boy whose dismembered body was discovered floating in the River Thames in London on September 21, 2001.
The child’s identity remains unknown 25 years later with no one ever charged despite an investigation that took police to South Africa, Holland, Germany and Nigeria.
Adam, who is thought to have been a Nigerian boy aged five or six, is believed to have been trafficked to the UK via Germany then murdered in a ritualistic killing.
His body, which had the head and limbs severed, was discovered near the Globe Theatre and numerous high-profile appeals followed, including by then President of South Africa Nelson Mandela.
Now, a new Channel 5 documentary called ‘The Body in The River’ which aired last night has re-examined the heartbreaking and disturbing story of Adam.
Despite a series of people being arrested, there has never been a charge over his murder – but police still believe the evidence they need is somewhere in London.
Andy Baker, a former Metropolitan Police commander who worked on the investigation, has told the programme that the case could still be solved.
The spot near the Globe Theatre where the boy’s torso was found in the River Thames in 2001A photo was released in 2011 claiming to be Adam – but this claim was withdrawn a year laterA police officer shows a pair of shorts found on Adam when his torso was discovered in 2001
He said: ‘When you think what that child went through, someone out there knows what happened. Whether that’s the murderer himself or those involved in the murder. There must be a crime scene somewhere. And it’s in London.
‘There must be a place where Adam was laid upside down, tilted, head down, and then brutally dismembered and had his throat cut in such a violent way.
‘There will still be traces of blood at that premises, so even now I’d appeal to anyone who knows anything. If they know where it is, we can go and get that forensic evidence. And then it starts again.’
The boy’s body was discovered by a passing businessman called Aidan Minter who spotted it while walking across Tower Bridge just ten days after the 9/11 attacks.
He initially thought it was a tailor’s mannequin, but realised it was a child’s dismembered and decapitated torso – and police pulled this from the water.
Investigations found the black boy could have been in the water for up to ten days after having his throat slit. His arms, legs and head were all amputated.
Police had few clues on his identity, other than a pair of orange shorts he was wearing – but appealed to the public for help, including on Crimewatch.
Some 60 people called the BBC show in an attempt to help and detectives offered a reward of £50,000 for information that led to a murder conviction.
Police also took specialist pathologist advice from as far afield as Africa and carried out groundbreaking work on DNA and pollen samples inside the body.
Officers established that the boy had been drugged with a ‘black magic’ potion and sacrificed in a voodoo-style ritual killing before being thrown into the Thames.
They used pioneering techniques to trace radioactive isotopes in his bones to his native Nigeria – and even asked Mandela to appeal for information, which he did.
But they always struggled to identify the boy, despite travelling to Nigeria to try to trace his family. Detailed analysis of a substance in the boy’s stomach was identified as a potion which included tiny clay pellets containing small particles of pure gold.
Andy Baker, a former Metropolitan Police commander who worked on the Adam investigation, has told a new Channel 5 documentary that the case could still be solved 25 years laterA graphic prepared by Scotland Yard detectives investigating the murder of Adam in 2001ITV News tracked down Joyce Osagiede in Nigeria in 2011, and she said Adam was the boy in the photo – and his real name was Ikpomwosa, although withdrew this claim one year later
This indicated that Adam had suffered a Muti ritual killing, when a victim’s body parts are removed and used by witchdoctors as ‘medicine’ based on a belief that the body parts of children are sacred. The bodies are then often disposed of in flowing water.
Another theory was he was a human sacrifice linked to Yoruban beliefs in Nigeria, in an offering to the goddess Oshun – typically associated with water and fertility.
Police had a breakthrough in July 2002 when social workers in Glasgow were alerted to the safety of two girls living with their African mother Joyce Osagiede.
She had ritualistic objects in her home and spoke about cults, killings and of sacrifices during a family court hearing – which led to police searching her property.
Detectives found clothes with the ‘Kids & Company’ label – the same one as on Adam’s shorts – and in the same sizes as his clothing. Osagiede was then arrested.
Officers never charged her, but by December that year police had determined his birthplace to a strip of land around Benin City in Nigeria – Osagiede’s home city.
German police discovered she had lived in Hamburg until late 2001 – the city where the orange shorts found on Adam’s body were believed to have been purchased.
Osagiede was eventually deported after the Home Office rejected her asylum application but disappeared after arriving in Lagos on a chartered private jet.
Officers found she had a contact in her phone for a man called Mousa Kamara, and discovered evidence of Nigerian rituals known as Juju at his London home.
Kamara, whose real name turned out to be Kingsley Ojo, was arrested but released on bail because there was no evidence directly linking him to Adam’s murder.
Police did however charge Ojo with people smuggling and using fake documents to obtain a passport and driving licence. He pleaded guilty and was jailed for four years.
Kingsley Ojo was arrested but released on bail because there was no evidence directly linking him to Adam’s murder. Police did however charge Ojo with other offences and he was jailedDetective Inspector Will O’Reilly and John Azah lay a wreath on the Thames for Adam in 2002
While in prison, Ojo contacted police and said he wanted to help track down the killer, feeding them information for two years following his release. But officers eventually determined they could not rely on him, and he was deported back to Nigeria in 2008.
By 2011, another lead came when police searched through Osagiede’s belongings left with a friend in Germany and found a photo of a boy aged about five taken in 2001.
ITV News tracked down Osagiede in Nigeria, and she claimed Adam was the boy in the photo – and his real name was Ikpomwosa. She said she looked after him then gave him to a man called Bawa. But detectives could not positively identify the boy.
One year later, Osagiede’s brother Victor contacted BBC News and said the boy in the photo was in fact not Adam or ‘Ikpomwosa’. A reporter travelled to Benin City and found Osagiede, but she appeared confused and gave two other names for Adam.
Osagiede also identified someone in photo as ‘Bawa’ – which was actually a picture of Ojo. The BBC then tracked down Ojo in Nigeria but he continued to deny involvement in Adam’s murder and no evidence has ever linked him to the crime.
Since 2013 the investigation has become a ‘cold case’ with no significant new lines of enquiry – and Victor confirmed in 2020 that Osagiede had died in Nigeria.
Police launched an appeal on the 20th anniversary, with Detective Chief Inspector Kate Kieran saying the case remaining unsolved was ‘incredibly sad and frustrating’.
Speaking in 2021, she added: ‘We recognise people may not have wanted to speak up at the time and may have felt loyal to the person or people involved in this.
‘However, over the past 20 years, allegiances and relationships may have changed and some people may now feel more comfortable talking to us.’
The case has remained unsolved since then, but Scotland Yard will be hoping that the documentary could change this. The Daily Mail has contacted the force for comment.
‘The Body In The Thames’ is available to watch and stream on Channel 5
Warning: the article presented below contains graphic details of torture and murder that some readers may find distressing.
The main thrust of the article presented below was already the focus of an 2014 article which I posted in 2019, Children accused of witchcraft: abuse cases on the rise in UK. More than ten year after the publication of the first-mentioned article there is reason to again draw attention to this terrifying phenomenon. It is difficult to imagine that in our immediate environment children are abused, tortured, and sometimes killed because of the belief in witchcraft of the adult perpetrators, sometimes close relatives.
It all began with the discovery of the mutilated torso of a young boy floating in the river Thames, in 2001. The police gave him the name ‘Adam’ and under this name the poor victim became known worldwide. I have covered in much detail the horrific and sickening discovery and the harrowing story behind it. See my posts entitled The unsolved case of the torso in the Thames, Part I (dated March 25, 2019), Part II (March 27, 2019) and Part III (March 28, 2019).
Unfortunately, the case of ‘Adam’ does not stand alone as the article below amply demonstrates.
We must all be vigilant in identifying signs of child abuse and other crimes promptly and bringing them to the immediate attention of the authorities and relevant agencies. Vulnerable individuals in our society, such as young children, deserve a normal, loving life, free from threats and pain. (webmaster FVDK)
The disturbing evidence that witchcraft is spreading across Britain unchecked… 30 years after discovery of horrific voodoo-style murder should have ended it for good
Published: February 26, 2026 By: Aidan Radnedge and Nick Pyke, The Daily Mail
A quarter of a century has passed since the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie and the shocking realisation that voodoo-style murder and abuse were taking hold in the capital of a modern, affluent democracy.
Victoria met a horrific end. Tortured, beaten with implements including coat hangers and a bike chain, deliberately scalded and forced to sleep in a bin liner in a freezing bathroom, she finally died of multiple organ failure at the age of eight. Her tiny body, weighing just 3st 10lb, was marked by 128 separate injuries.
Her ‘crime’? The girl was said by relatives to have been possessed by ‘kindoki’, or evil spirits, requiring exorcism by a pastor and justifying a campaign of sadistic violence.
The killing in 2000 and the public enquiry that followed should have been seismic: a warning to the public and politicians that, however improbable, belief in witchcraft was emerging as a fact of life in Britain.
Yet today, despite the horror of Victoria’s death and subsequent cases, there is disturbing evidence that ritual violence – involving beliefs and practices overwhelmingly imported from abroad – is continuing to spread unchecked.
The latest official figures show a huge increase in the number of children identified as potential victims of abuse ‘linked to faith or belief’, a category including claims of witchcraft and spirit possession.
Analysis released late last year by the Local Government Association, representing councils and their social services departments in England, found there had been 2,180 cases of possible faith-linked abuse in 2024, a disturbing 49 per cent increase in the seven years since 2017.
Moreover, the true scale of the problem could be significantly worse amid fears that ritual abuse is routinely under-reported because social workers and others wish to avoid being labelled racist.
Among the most notorious cases was eight-year-old Victoria Climbié, tortured to death in 2000 by relatives who believed she was possessed
With motives ranging from ignorance and fear to the demented belief that human sacrifice confers supernatural protection, and even wealth, the cases that do reach the public eye are harrowing, the majority with links to sub-Saharan Africa.
A recent documentary film, Kindoki Witch Boy, tells the story of Mardoche Yembi, who had been sent from the Democratic Republic of Congo to live with his aunt and uncle in North London.
At the age of 12, Mardoche was branded a witch by relatives, accused of bringing bad luck and subjected to two months of traumatic exorcisms. The film is now available on YouTube.
An even more disturbing case took place on Christmas Day in 2010, when 15-year-old Kristy Bamu was beaten and drowned by his sister and her boyfriend in the London borough of Newham after being accused of ‘kindoki’, like Victoria Climbie.
Kristy endured four days of torture with knives, sticks, metal bars, a hammer and pliers. He drowned after being forced into a bath for ritual cleansing. Kristy’s siblings were also beaten but survived because they ‘confessed’ to being witches.
Magalie Bamu, then 29, and her partner Eric Bikubi, 28 – both Congolese – were jailed for life in 2012.
In sentencing them, the judge said: ‘The belief in witchcraft, however genuine, cannot excuse an assault to another person, let alone the killing of another human being.’
There are accusations of ‘possession’ in other cultures, too, with cases of abuse reported in Christian, Hindu and Muslim families, where some still believe in the idea of evil spirits known as ‘djinns’.
Just days before Kristy’s Bamu’s murder, Shayma Ali strangled then disembowelled her four-year-old daughter with a kitchen knife during a frenzied attempt to exorcise the girl.
Ali, who had gouged out the eyes of her daughter’s dolls to prevent them ‘seeing evil’, was sent to a mental hospital.
In 2005, two women were jailed at the Old Bailey after being convicted of child cruelty for torturing and threatening to kill an orphaned child refugee from Angola whom they claimed was a witch.
The Old Bailey was told that the girl, known only as Child B, was starved, cut with a knife, beaten with a belt and a shoe and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to drive ‘the devil out of her’.
At one point, the eight-year-old was bundled into a zip-up laundry bag and told she would be ‘thrown away’ into a river. She was rescued after being found in her bare feet, shivering, outside a council house in Hackney.
His head, arms and legs had been removed in what detectives believe was a ritual killing, potentially as a sacrifice or in a ‘muti’ ceremony, in which body parts are taken in the belief they produce potent magical remedies.
The boy, aged between four and seven and found wearing only a pair of orange shorts, had recently arrived from Nigeria.
Britain’s leading rituals expert, Dr Richard Hoskins, brought into advise on the case, concluded that Adam was a victim of human sacrifice.
Victoria Climbié had been sent to England by her parents who hoped she would gain a better education than in her native Ivory CoastVictoria’s parents set up the Victoria Climbié Foundation following her death, campaigning for improvements to child protection in the UK
His 2012 book on the subject, The Boy in the River was serialised in The Mail on Sunday and is now scheduled to be dramatised as a feature film.
Dr Hoskins concluded that the boy had been trafficked to London, speculating that he was butchered while drugged but conscious by a ‘babalawo’ witchdoctor using rituals from the Yoruba people Osagiede of south-west Nigeria.
In Yoruban religion, wrote Dr Hoskins, ‘deities forming a bridge between this world and higher realms require sacrifice.
‘Not necessarily human sacrifice, of course, and especially not nowadays, but the practice persists in some deviant offshoots.’
In 2002, a Nigerian woman called Joyce Osagiede told Glasgow social workers that she had married a member of a cult called The Black Coat Eyes Of The Devil Guru Maharaj.
When later interviewed by British police in Lagos, she said she had been a cult organiser and had bought a pair of orange-red shorts similar to those found on Adam. She added: ‘I know he was killed in Lewisham.’
Osagiede later claimed to an ITV journalist that she had brought Adam to London and that his real name was Ikpomwosa. No one has ever been charged with his murder.
Yet it is the fate of Victoria Climbié that today remains the most notorious case of witchcraft abuse and killing in this country.
Victoria had been sent to England by her parents to gain a better education than in her native Ivory Coast but found only misery and death.
Victoria Climbié was starved, tortured, beaten with bike chains and kept prisoner in a freezing bathroom by her great-aunt Marie Therese Kouao and her partner Carl Manning (pictured)Marie-Therese Kouao (left), Victoria Climbié’s great-aunt, was complicit in her murder
Her great-aunt Marie Therese Kouao and her partner Carl Manning were jailed for life in 2001, convicted of murder and child cruelty.
The case was followed by a major public enquiry under Lord Laming which, in turn led to an overhaul of child protection measures in the UK, including the landmark 2004 Children Act.
Even now, ritual violence receives all-too-little attention, says Lancaster University’s Professor Charlotte Baker, who is co-director of the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks.
‘If you spoke to many people about this issue, they’d think it was something from about 1,400 years ago,’ she told The Daily Mail last week.
‘Many schoolteachers might feel they shouldn’t ‘go there’, if they suspect something is taking place because they’re not comfortable handling such issues.
‘This needs to be treated seriously, disclosures need to be treated seriously – and the right questions need to be asked.
‘The UK must improve and make sure that anyone who does speak up to make disclosures about this abuse being carried out are taken seriously and responded to professionally.’
Former Conservative MP Tim Loughton, children’s minister in David Cameron’s coalition government and later chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, had his own experience of trying to combat ritual abuse.
Victoria’s parents Berthe and Francis are pictured at her grave in Kensal Rise Crematorium in London, along with daughter Joelle, in 2003 on the third anniversary of Victoria’s deathA boy named Adam’s head, arms and legs were removed in what detectives believe was a ritual ‘muti’ killing – his torso was discovered in the River Thames near Tower Bridge in 2001
‘The particular problem [at the time] was among communities of migrants from places such as the Congo, which were very closed communities, mostly but not exclusively in London, with very evangelical Christian church settings,’ he recalls.
‘There were very strange practices, all connected with voodoo – abusing children in attempts to drive the devil out of them and all this sort of nonsense.’
During his time in office, he launched a task force on faith-based child abuse, but he fears that official attention has now slipped.
Rohma Ullah, director of the National FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) Centre – which also tackles what it refers to as witchcraft and spirit possession abuse – is among those who believe frontline staff are wary of raising the alarm.
‘Witchcraft and spirit possession are among the most poorly understood areas in child protection,’ she says. ‘That’s really concerning and alarming. We know the data is not good enough and that professionals don’t know how to act. They don’t know what to do.
‘Professionals are anxious about discussing someone’s faith or beliefs because it’s very personal.
‘They fear being accused of being racist, for example – and so questions don’t get asked and opportunities get missed.’
She says that teachers as well as social workers should be alert to signs of abuse – such as, for example, a child appearing tired through having to pray all night to be rid of a devil inside them, or losing weight because food is being withheld at home.
15-year-old Kristy Bamu was beaten and drowned on Christmas Day 2010 by his sister and her boyfriend in east London after being accused of being a witchFollowing the murder, Magalie Bamu (left) and Eric Bikubi (right) were jailed for life
‘I would say the situation is fragmented,’ she continues. ‘Social workers are skilled in safeguarding, teachers are skilled in educating, police officers are skilling in preventing and addressing crime – but they also need to be equipped with specialist knowledge on this particular issue.’
Ms Ullah suggests the current figures, disturbing as they are, ‘probably don’t reflect the true prevalence of something that’s very hidden.’
She believes allegations of witchcraft and spirit possession receive too little attention when abusers to court and suggests they should be flagged as aggravating features when the perpetrators are sentenced.
And witchcraft has now been included for the first time in new toughened-up Crown Prosecution Guidance, published today in a bid to tackle ‘honour’-based abuse, forced marriage and other abuses.
Newly included in guidance for prosecutors are practices such as dowry abuse, immigration-related exploitation, transnational marriage abandonment and spiritual or ritualistic abuse linked to beliefs in witchcraft, spirit possession or demonic influence.
While there is no standalone withcraft-related offence, the Home Office said: ‘Prosecutors must treat these cases as serious criminality within the wider context of harmful practices and “honour”-based abuse, assessing which offences may apply on a case-by-case basis.’
Baljit Ubhey, CPS director of policy, said: ‘Our updated guidance equips prosecutors to identify emerging patterns of abuse, understand the wider context in which it occurs, and take swift, effective action to safeguard victims and bring perpetrators to justice.’
It is not as if we haven’t been warned. It is more than a decade since the United Nations reported: ‘Hundreds of children have been abducted from their families in Africa and trafficked to the UK, especially London. Many are raped and sexually abused.’
Commenting in The Mail on Sunday at the time, Dr Hoskins went further, arguing that ‘London has become the hub, the epicentre for a global trafficking enterprise involving thousands of children for exploitation, sexual abuse and even, in some unspeakable cases, ritual voodoo killing…’
‘There is a vast reservoir of lost children gathering in our own capital anonymously shuffled from flat to shabby flat – a dark pool feeding child exploitation and misery across the planet.’
Today’s evidence suggests that, chillingly, this terrible picture might now be darker still.
It’s impressive how the police uncovered everything, but it never led to a rial. The perpetrators went unpunished. A painful thought. (webmaster FVDK)
The photo Joyce Osagiede claimed to be Adam (Image: PA)
Mystery of boy’s torso found in Thames after ‘voodoo ritual’ remains decades later
Published: September 7, 2025 By: Saskia Rowlands – The Mirror, UK
More than two decades since little Adam’s torso was discovered in the river Thames, police are no closer to finding the boy’s killer after he was slaughtered in a horrific “voodoo ritual”
The child’s torso was dressed in orange shorts (Image: PA)
The torso of a little boy from Africa was found in London’s river Thames over two decades ago – but his killer is still on the loose.
An investigation found the youngster, aged between four and seven, was smuggled into Britain and slaughtered as part of a horrific voodoo ritual. Tests proved he had been plied with a powerful potion of gold dust and quartz, drugged into paralysis with a type of African bean and had his throat slit.
But despite several arrests and forensic breakthroughs over the years, nobody has been brought to justice for the horrific crime. As the 24th anniversary of the horror approaches, we take a fresh look at the evidence and how the story unfolded.
Officers recovered the body upstream (Image: SWNS)
The discovery
On September 21 2001, IT consultant Aidan Minter was walking across London’s Tower Bridge when he caught sight of something floating in the water. It was just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks in the US and the city was still strangely quiet.
At first, Aidan thought it was a shop mannequin with a red cloth attached to it. But as the object passed under the bridge and out the other side, he realised he was in fact staring at a headless child.
It’s a memory Aidan lives with to this day. He said during an interview in 2020: “I do think about him – I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.” Police pulled the body from the water upstream, close to the Globe Theatre, later that day. They named him Adam.
Aidan Minter spotted the torso in the river (Image: BBC NEWS)
The first week
Early investigations suggested Adam’s body may have been in the water for as long as 10 days. Police conclude he died from having his throat slit. His arms, legs and head had all been expertly amputated. The body parts have never been found.
There were no signs of physical or sexual abuse, and he had been well fed. He was wearing nothing but a pair of orange shorts – something which later gave officers their first breakthrough. The label indicated they were made by firm Kids & Company and the size and colour could only be found in a small number of shops in Germany.
Detective sergeant Nick Chalmers was one of the police officers assigned to the case and says it was the strangest and most complex of his career. He added: “You definitely have a tie to a case, and there’s this drive to find answers. The one thing that has lingered is the frustration that we didn’t find all the answers.”
Retired detective Nick Chalmers worked on the investigation (Image: BBC NEWS)
African connection
Tests showed Adam had lived in Africa until shortly before his death. Because his body had been precisely butchered, experts decided it had been a ritualistic murder.
Some thought it was a rare so-called “muti” killing found in southern Africa – when a victim’s body parts are removed and used by witchdoctors. Others said it was more likely a human sacrifice linked to a twisted version of Yoruban belief systems from Nigeria.
Nelson Mandela later made an impassioned plea to the African public for help, saying: “The boy comes from somewhere in Africa, so if anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age who might have disappeared around that time please contact the police.”
Nelson Mandela made an impassioned plea (Image: Mirrorpix)
Breakthrough
In July 2002, social workers in Glasgow became concerned for the safety of two girls living with their mum, an African woman named Joyce Osagiede. Council workers found bizarre, ritualistic objects in her home. And at a court hearing to take the children into care, Joyce told an alarming story of cults, killings and sacrifices.
Joyce Osagiede was considered a key witness (Image: BBC NEWS)
DS Nick Chalmers searched her home and found clothes with the same Kids & Company label and in the same sizes as Adam’s orange shorts. Joyce is arrested.
Officers were convinced Joyce was an important part of the story, but she was confused and kept changing her account. She denied knowing Adam, but was unable to explain the extraordinary coincidence about the shorts. Officers lacked enough evidence to charge Joyce. She remained in Glasgow awaiting an asylum decision.
The shorts were from a brand called Kids and Company (Image: SWNS)
September – November 2002
Forensic work narrowed down Adam’s birthplace to land near Benin City in Nigeria, which is Joyce’s home city. Pollen samples in his gut showed he had been living in the south-east of England for a few days or weeks before his death. Also in his stomach was an unusual substance made of African river clay – including vegetation, ground bone and traces of gold and quartz. The presence of ash showed the mixture had been burned before Adam ate it.
In November, Joyce was deported after the Home Office rejected her asylum application. She vanishes after landing in Lagos. Afterwards, German police say she lived in Hamburg until late 2001, which is the city where Adam’s shorts were purchased.
July – October 2003
A man named Kingsley Ojo is arrested as part of several human trafficking raids in London. Police discovered he was one of two contacts on Joyce’s phone. And during a search of his house, officers find an animal skull pierced with a nail, liquid potions, packets of sand and a videotape labelled ‘rituals’ which showed an adult being beheaded.
Kingsley Ojo was jailed with four charges of people smuggling and using fake documents (Image: PA)
Meanwhile, botanists at London’s Kew Gardens analysed samples of a plant found in Adam’s gut and discovered he was fed small amounts of Calabar bean, sometimes known as the Doomsday, and used in witchcraft ceremonies in West Africa. The dosage found would have paralysed Adam but not prevented any pain. Ground up seeds from the Datura plant, which acts as a sedative and causes hallucinations, were also found.
Traces of so-called Doomesday seeds were found in Adam’s stomach (Image: Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
July – December 2004
Kingsley Ojo was jailed with four charges of people smuggling and using fake documents to obtain a passport and driving licence. He was said to have performed ‘juju’ ceremonies for other inmates behind bars.
An inquest into Adam’s death recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, hearing that he died from neck wounds suffered while he was still alive.
Adam was laid to rest in an unmarked grave( Image: BBC NEWS)
2005 – 2008
Kingsley Ojo offered to help the team investigating Adam’s death and claims he has secret recordings of Joyce. While awaiting deportation, he convinced officers he could help and spent two years feeding them information.
In December 2006, Adam’s body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in a London cemetery. And two years later, Ojo is deported back to Nigeria after detectives decide they can’t rely on him.
In Nigeria, Joyce Osagiede finally admits she looked after Adam when she had lived in Hamburg in northern Germany and bought the orange shorts found on his body. A social worker assessing benefit claims later says she met Joyce on several occasions when she was in Hamburg and remembers seeing her with a small boy who she believes was Adam.
March 2011 – 2012
Joyce Osagiede claimed a photo found among her belongings in Germany was of Adam. She said his real name was Ikpomwosa and that she had looked after the boy, but gave him to a man called Bawa.
The following year, Joyce’s brother Victor said the boy in the photo was not Adam, claiming it was a misunderstanding. The BBC later met with Victor and Joyce who said the boy in the image was actually called Danny – who was later tracked down in Hamburg.
Joyce then suggests Adam was called Patrick Erhabor. She later identifies the man Bawa as trafficker Kingsley Ojo. Ojo continues to deny links to Adam’s killing and no evidence of his involvement is found.
The photo Joyce claimed to be Adam(Image: PA)
September 2021 – present
The Met Police launch a fresh appeal to find Adam’s killer to mark the 20 year anniversary of his body being found. The previous year, Joyce’s brother Victor revealed Joyce had died.
Aidan Minter, who spotted the body in the river, was diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder. He says he felt utterly helpless, knowing his discovery was somebody’s son.
For retired detective Nick Chalmers, the lack of answers is deeply frustrating. He said: “This was an innocent young child. There are people responsible for his death who haven’t been brought to justice. Twenty years on, I wish we knew the identity of Adam – and his parents. In reality, he is a missing child from a family, who probably don’t know he’s buried here in London.”
Whereas the criminal practice of ritualistic murders is a revolting and sad one, another phenomenon also draws our attention. Both phenomena relate to superstition. Of course I know that fearing witches or, rather, fearing persons who people believe are possessed by an evil spirit or are thought to be witches is a universal superstition that can be found on all continents of the globe. Moreover, I certainly do not want to stigmatize a particular group of people or race. However, the focus of this website being on ritualistic practices notably ritual murders in Africa, I cannot ignore the occurrence of ritualistic murders committed by Africans that take place outside the continent. For this reason I drew attention to the high profile case of the torso of a small black boy (‘Adam’) that was found floating in the river Thames in 2001. It proved to be a case of ritualistic murder, very likely committed by persons originating from West Africa. Unfortunately, also reports exist of ritual practices – even killings – of persons of African descent in other European countries (more later on this site).
The inclusion of the cases reported below is justified by the same reason – though these cases do not represent ritual murders. The ’cause-in-common’ of these distinct but related crimes is: superstition. Whereas the battle against superstition should be fought with all strength and conviction that we have, the rule of law should be strictly applied to those who commit these heinous crimes, be it murdering or torturing innocent people, notably children. Their suffering in the hands of the perpetrators of these crimes should end as soon as possible. Each new case is a case too much. (Webmaster FVDK).
Children accused of witchcraft: abuse cases on the rise in UK (2014)
Victoria Climbié (left) and Kristy Bamu (right), tortured to death by relatives who were sentenced to life imprisonment (UK)
Published: October 16, 2014 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
London’s Metropolitan Police reports that cases of abuse where the child is accused of being a witch or possessed by an evil spirit are on the rise.
Thus far this year 27 allegations have been received — up from 24 in 2013.
There were 19 such cases reported in 2012, and 9 in 2011. Some 148 cases have been referred to the Metropolitan Police since 2004.
The rise in the number of reports is likely due to greater awareness among social workers, healthcare staff, teachers, pastors and others.
However, police believe many more cases are kept hidden in families and communities.
Parents, other guardians, and in several cases pastors and church members who believe a child is possessed often resort to physical abuse in order to try and get the spirits to leave.
New guidance has now been issued on how to spot children at risk of abuse linked to witchcraft.
On October 8, the Metropolitan Police Service and CCPAS, the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service, hosted a multi-agency event at London’s City Hall to raise awareness of child abuse linked to faith or belief.
Speaking ahead of the conference, Det Supt Terry Sharpe explained:
“Abuse linked to belief is a horrific crime which is condemned by people of all cultures, communities and faiths.
“A number of high-profile investigations brought the issue of ritual abuse and witchcraft into the headlines but it is important that professionals are clear about the signs to look for.
“Families or carers genuinely believe that the victim has been completely taken over by the devil or an evil spirit, which is often supported by someone who within the community has portrayed themselves as an authority on faith and belief.
“Regardless of the beliefs of the abusers, child abuse is child abuse. Our role is to safeguard children, not challenge beliefs. We investigate crimes against children, but our main aim is to prevent abuse in the first place. This is a hidden crime and we can only prevent it by working in partnership with the community. Project Violet aims to build trust with communities and emphasise that child protection is everyone’s responsibility.”
A training film aimed at all front-line professionals who work with children was launched at the event. The DVD, commissioned by our Project Violet team in conjunction with CCPAS, advises how to recognise the signs that a child may be suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm from abuse linked to witchcraft and spirit possession.
According to CCPAS the training DVD will be made provided to Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) so they may make it available to social workers and other front line staff.
HIGH-PROFILE CASES
High-profile cases include Victoria Climbié (link added by the webmaster FVDK) whose great-aunt and her boyfriend — along with their pastor — believed the girl was demon-possessed.
Beaten, burned with cigarettes and forced to sleep in a bathtub, the 8-year-old girl died in February, 2000 — with 128 injuries on her body.
In 2001 the headless, limbless body of a boy aged between five and six was found floating in the river Thames. Evidence strongly suggests the boy was sacrificed in a Muti ritual. (See elsewhere on this site, ‘The unsolved case of the torso in the Thames’. The murder boy was ‘named ‘Adam’ by the investigators. Information added by the webmaster FVDK).
In 2010, 15-year-old Kristy Bamu was tortured for three days by his sister and his boyfriend after being accused of witchcraft, and was subsequently drowned in a bathtub during an exorcism ritual.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
In 2005 a leaked police report revealed that children are being trafficked into the country in order to be killed as human sacrifices:
A confidential report into the sacrifice and abuse of children at African churches describes how pastors are profiting from the trafficking of black boys into Britain.
Uncircumcised boys are being smuggled into the country for human sacrifice by fundamentalist sects whose members believe that their ritual killing will enhance spells.
TYPES OF WITCHCRAFT
Most reported cases involve what is known as “traditional witchcraft” as opposed to “contemporary witchcraft.”
Traditional Witchcraft, such as performed by shamans or witch doctors, is a magical practice — not a religion. However, it can have religious elements.
Contemporary Witchcraft is one of many types of neo-Paganism. It is religion within the broader context of occultism.
MANY COUNTRIES
The problem of children who are accused of witchcraft is not limited to England. But after several high-profile cases there is a greater awareness — and official response — that highlights such cases.
Immigration also plays a role in the rise of reports — as many immigrants bring along various beliefs and superstitions.
Many Christian churches in Africa are part of the problem as well — as traditional beliefs are mingled with Christian theology regarding demons and exorcism.
An increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.
Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
Screen shot – the link to the source (below) gives acces to the video ‘Witch Child Documentary’
In 2010 UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s charity, said that accusing children of sorcery was a fairly new and growing trend in Africa, despite long-held traditional and mystic beliefs on the continent.
Where previously elderly women were accused, today the focus more often falls on young children, often some of the most vulnerable, such as orphans, disabled or poor.
Throughout Africa, the vast majority of children accused of witchcraft are not murdered but — if torture has not helped remove the evil spirits — are expelled from their homes and communities.
Child abuse linked to witchcraft on the increase “Met reveals it has investigated allegations of children having chilli rubbed into their eyes and being forced to drink noxious liquids in order to rid them of evil spirits.” Published: October 8, 2014 By: Martin Evans, Crime correspondent, The Telegraph
People-smuggler to be quizzed over boy’s body in Thames Published: July 27, 2004 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
A child trafficker who may have helped smuggle the River Thames “torso boy” into Britain was jailed for four-and- a-half years yesterday.
Kingsley Ojo headed a “substantial” network thought to have brought hundreds of youngsters and adults into the country to work in the sex trade, as domestic slaves or for benefit fraud. Now police hope he can shed some light on the ritual murder of the five-year-old boy they named Adam.
Southwark Crown Court in London heard that Ojo was arrested last year during a co-ordinated series of raids in the capital. He claimed to be Mousa Kamara, 30, from Sierra Leone but was soon identified as a 35-year-old Nigerian, originally from Benin City, where Adam used to live.
The court heard that Ojo had come to Britain in 1997 posing as an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone.
When police searched his flat, they found a video mock-up of ritual killings, a shot of what appeared to be a decapitated head in a basin and a voodoo artefact in the form of a rat’s skull, pierced by a long metal spike and bound in black thread.
Ojo, of Devonshire Close, Stratford, east London, admitted four charges. Two involved dishonestly obtaining a British passport in July 1999, and using a forged driving licence with intent to deceive, while two related to assisting illegal entry into this country in November 2002 and February last year.
Judge Neil Stewart said the offences were so serious that prison was inevitable. He told Ojo: “I’m satisfied your continued presence would be to the detriment of this country and I make a recommendation that you be deported upon your release from prison.”
Detective Chief Inspector Will O’Reilly, the head of the investigation into the unidentified boy’s death, said later that Ojo had been detained because of his close association with a woman, Joyce Osagiede, who was arrested in Scotland. “We believe she is closely involved in the Adam case … we also believe he assisted with her entry into the country,” he said.
He went on: “I firmly believe he [Ojo] can assist us with our inquiries and we will be looking to speak to him as soon as possible.”
Osagiede, who has since been repatriated to Nigeria, also came from Benin City, and the pair lived together for a while at a London address.
The woman, who had Ojo’s address among her belongings, told immigration officers that she had fled her country due to being caught up in a ritual cult.
She claimed her husband, who was arrested in Dublin last year and later deported to Germany, had been involved in a group which carried out “demonic rituals”. He had, she said, played an active part in the deaths of 11 children, one of whom had been their eldest child.
In her flat, police found chicken feathers and a number of other items used in west African curses. They also found clothes believed to have come from the same shop in Germany as the orange shorts found on the headless, limbless body of the child which was found floating near Tower Bridge in central London almost three years ago.
Osagiede’s two daughters are still in foster care in Scotland.
Related article: Jail for torso case people smuggler Published: July 27, 2004 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
A man suspected of having smuggled into the UK an African boy whose torso was later found in the Thames was jailed for four years and six months for people trafficking yesterday.
Kingsley Ojo, 35, from Stratford, east London, admitted four charges: bringing two men, whom he provided with false papers, into Britain in November 2002 and February 2003, and using a forged driving licence and passport.
Ojo headed a “substantial” network that is thought to have smuggled in hundreds of children and adults to work as prostitutes or domestic slaves.
Scotland Yard detectives do not think he killed the boy, named Adam by police, whose headless and limbless torso was recovered from the Thames in September 2001. But they believe he could hold the key to the horrific ritual murder.
Officers were initially baffled by the gruesome find. But painstaking forensic analysis of the boy’s bones established his diet, which narrowed down his place of origin to the region around Benin city in Nigeria.
Ojo, who was arrested with 20 others in a series of immigration-linked raids across London last July, is also from Benin city. He had falsely claimed to be Mousa Kamara, 30, from Sierra Leone.
Detective Chief Inspector Will O’Reilly, who heads the investigation, said Ojo was not thought to have murdered Adam, but police wanted to interview him again about his links with a woman arrested in Scotland.
Children’s clothes found in her Glasgow flat came from the same German shop as the orange shorts on Adam’s torso. She also comes from Benin city, and she and Ojo lived at the same address in London for a time.
“We believe she is closely involved in the Adam case,” Mr O’Reilly said. “Her main associate in this country was Ojo. We also believe he assisted her entry into the country. I firmly believe he can assist us with our inquiries and we will be looking to speak to him as soon as possible.”
The woman has since been “repatriated” to Nigeria and Mr O’Reilly said he could not comment further on her as a file had been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service.
When officers searched Ojo’s flat in London, they found a video of mock-up ritual killings and a rat’s skull, thought to be a voodoo talisman.
Southwark crown court heard that Ojo came to the UK in 1997, posing as an asylum seeker, and was granted leave to remain, but forbidden to travel abroad. But when he discovered his girlfriend, Barbara Bourne, had lost a newborn son a few years previously, he used the dead boy’s birth certificate to obtain a driving licence and passport.
He then brought in illegal immigrants on cheap flights from Naples. Police think those smuggled in may have paid up to 20,000 each for a new life in Britain.
Judge Neil Stewart said he was satisfied that Ojo had an organizational role and had profited from the enterprise, and recommended that he be sent back to Nigeria when he had served his sentence.
Five witchcraft inquiries Published: June 17, 2005 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
Police and social services in London are investigating five new suspected cases of child abuse involving witchcraft.
Britain’s leading expert on witchcraft, Dr Richard Hoskins, is working with social services on allegations about fundamentalist churches in Haringey and Hackney.
They involve two boys aged 11 and 14 and three girls aged 10, 12 and 13. They were all allegedly abused after being accused by their family of being “witches”.
A Metropolitan Police report, leaked yesterday, unmasked a “trade” in young African boys brought to London to be murdered as human sacrifices.
An inquiry in which members of the African community in Newham and Hackney were questioned found a number of sects that believe in powerful spells requiring the ritual killing of male children.
It also identified cases of children abused and killed after family members accused them of being possessed by “evil spirits”.
Dr Hoskins, a chief adviser to the Met, said almost all the cases he is investigating have similar features. The children have been accused of being “possessed” and allegedly abused and tortured.
Social services took them into their care after parents called for the children to be exorcised in fundamentalist churches.
Dr Hoskins said: “We are dealing with real cases here. I have got seven cases on my books of children nationwide who have been abused in the name of witchcraft. When you actually talk to them, these are hard and fast facts. But the issue as a whole has to be dealt with very sensitively.”
Dr Hoskins worked with police on the inquiry into “Adam“, the torso found in the Thames, which he is convinced was a ritual sacrifice.
In the Adam case, detectives also spoke to Tussan le Mante, a voodoo priest or hougan, who carries out rituals in his west London flat.
Le Mante was able to tell them accounts of child abuse of which he was aware through his connection with voodoo.
Police also found children are being sold to traffickers on the streets of African cities such as Lagos, Nigeria, for under ?10 then smuggled into the UK.
They arrive in London with false documents and accompanied by adults who believe they will bolster their asylum claims.
Dr Hoskins said: “We know this through work we have been doing on the Adam inquiry. It’s the same in Kinshasa. These children are ripe for people to abuse. They are easy prey.”
The 10-month study was commissioned by the Met following the death of Victoria Climbié who was starved and beaten to death after relatives said she was possessed.
Its aim was to create an “open dialogue” with the African and Asian community in Newham and Hackney. In discussions with African community leaders, officers were told of examples of children being murdered because their parents or carers believed them to be evil.
Earlier this month, Sita Kisanga, 35, was convicted at the Old Bailey of torturing an eight-year-old girl from Angola whom she accused of being a witch. Kisanga was a member of the Combat Spirituel church in Dalston.
Many such churches, supported mainly by people from West Africa, sanction aggressive forms of exorcism.
The caretaker of the building used by the church said its leader was “an extraordinary man”.
“The pastor would come down after preaching with froth coming out of his mouth,” he said.
“The congregation made massive noise and generally caused so much disturbance that the neighbours here kicked up a fuss and got the council to evict them.”
There are believed to be 300 similar churches in the UK, mostly in London. Last month, Scotland Yard revealed it had traced only two of 300 black boys reported missing from London schools in a three-month period. The true figure for missing children is feared to be several thousand a year.
The unidentified boy, named Adam by Metropolitan Police detectives, is believed to have been the victim of a ritual killing after being brought from his native Nigeria to Britain.
A substance found in the boy’s lower intestine was identified by an expert at Kew Gardens in London as the highly toxic calabar bean, from West Africa.
Police believe a preparation of the calabar bean – which can be fatal if swallowed, or cause paralysis in tiny doses – may have been used to subdue the boy, by slow paralysis, before his throat was cut. It was administered at least 24 hours before his death.
It also emerged yesterday that the murder squad, which has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds investigating the boy’s death, has prepared its first file of evidence in the case for the Crown Prosecution Service.
Scotland Yard sources played down suggestions that charges were close but officers have uncovered what they believe is cogent circumstantial evidence.
They have previously arrested a woman in Glasgow – who has since returned to Nigeria – and a man being held by police in Dublin. The pair, who are husband and wife, are not biologically related to Adam, it is understood.
The man in Dublin has been sentenced in his absence in Germany for trafficking offences and is wanted for extradition by the Germans.
A pair of child’s shorts on the headless and limbless torso of Adam, who was probably aged between four and six, also came from Germany.
Charges which might be brought in any trial include murder, conspiracy to murder and trafficking offences.
It also emerged yesterday that the Government’s leading law officer, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, QC, wants to lead the prosecution team in any trial arising from the Adam investigation.
The groundbreaking hunt for Adam’s killers Published: Monday August 4, 2003 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
Quoting: Sandro Contenta – Toronto Star (Canada), August 2, 2003 Link disappeared (webmaster FVDK)
DNA tests used to trace victim’s origin Boy’s murder linked to child trafficking
LONDON�One more turn of the tide and the torso of the boy in the River Thames would have been swept out to the North Sea, the story of his chilling end buried perhaps forever in a watery grave.
But the alarm was sounded when the bright orange shorts hanging from the torso caught the eye of a passerby up high on Tower Bridge.
Police fished out what was left of Adam, the name they eventually gave the still unidentified boy, at the foot of the Globe Theatre on Sept. 21, 2001
Since then, the story pieced together of what police consider London’s first known ritual killing is macabre enough to have challenged even Shakespeare’s imagination. And the investigative work that has brought police close to cracking the case is groundbreaking.
It combined unprecedented forensic research with old-fashioned legwork that took investigators to Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S., South Africa, Nigeria, Scotland and Ireland.
The latest break in the investigation came Tuesday, when Metropolitan Police raided several homes in London and arrested 21 suspected members of a child trafficking ring.
“We’re pretty convinced that we are on to a group of individuals who trafficked Adam into the country,” said Detective Inspector William O’Reilly.
The arrests highlighted a UNICEF report the next day estimating that thousands of children have been smuggled into Britain during the past several years to be exploited as sex slaves, or for slave labour.
But public attention was especially focused on what police described as evidence of occult rituals found in the raided apartments, such as an animal skull with a nail driven through it.
Most of those arrested come from Benin City, Nigeria, an area where remarkable forensic sleuthing in the case has determined as Adam’s home.
“I must stress we are not judging any cultures,” said Andy Baker, the police commander heading the investigation. “We are investigating a crime �the crime of murder.”
When the remains of Adam were found, investigators quickly figured out that his torso had been in the water for up to 10 days, that he was black, he was between four and eight years old, and murder ended his life.
It wasn’t the first limbless and headless torso 50-year-old Ray Fysh had seen in his forensic career. But it left him scratching his head.
Bodies are dismembered, he says, either to hide the victim’s identity, or to more easily transport and dispose of the body. But with Adam, no effort had been made to weigh down or conceal the torso once his killers dumped it in the Thames.
“In fact, he had orange shorts on, which made him stand out like a beacon,” Fysh says.
Even more puzzling was the conclusion that the shorts were placed on the torso after Adam was killed, because his legs could not have been hacked off with them on. The inside tag had washing instructions in German, and the brand was made exclusively in China for a German chain of stores.
“None of us knew, really, what we were dealing with at the time,” says Fysh, a scientist with Britain’s Forensic Science Service, and the forensic co-ordinator in the Adam case.
“Nobody had come across this sort of stuff before,” he adds.
Fysh’s team began with basic forensic work. They mapped a profile of Adam’s DNA, to be used to identify his parents if they’re ever found. They covered his torso with tape in a bid to lift any hairs or fibres that might belong to the murderer, and came up blank. Swab tests found no evidence of sexual assault.
Toxicology tests found only one drug in Adam, a cough suppressant called Pholcodine, bought without a prescription at any pharmacy. Adam was treated for a cough shortly before he was killed.
“It wasn’t obvious then, but looking back on it now, it shows some sort of duty of care to this child,” Fysh says.
The way Adam’s limbs were cut off was brutally precise.
The killer either used a series of heavy, razor-sharp kitchen knives, or one that was sharpened throughout the dismemberment.
“They cut the skin, peeled the muscle back, and then cut through the bone. They never went through a joint,” Fysh says.
Dismemberment occurred when Adam was already dead. But the cause of death was no less horrible. He was slaughtered like an animal.
“The cause of death was a knife trauma to the neck,” Fysh says, choosing his words carefully. “The child then went into extensive blood loss.”
About six weeks after Adam’s torso was discovered, police searching the river for the rest of his body found seven half-burned candles wrapped inside a white cotton bedsheet. The name Adekoyejo Fola Adoye was written three times on the sheet, and cut into the candles.
But in the end, the candles and bedsheet turned out to have nothing to do with Adam. Detectives found that Adoye lived in New York, and his London-based parents had performed a ceremony with the Celestial Church of Christ to celebrate the fact that he had not been killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Centre.
Still, police suspected they were stumbling into an uncharted area of the macabre and supernatural, and turned for guidance to Richard Hoskins, a specialist in African religions at King’s College in London.
Europol estimates there have been at least nine cases of ritual killing across Europe in the past 15 years, and Hoskins believes more are bound to occur as immigration grows.
Every year, about 300 people are killed in South Africa for muti, a Zulu word for traditional medicine. Muti is usually a mixture of herbs, but in rare cases human body parts are used.
About the same number are killed yearly in parts of Nigeria in illegal human sacrifices where the victim’s blood is offered to gods, spirits or ancestors, Hoskins adds. Body parts might be kept powerful trophies or souvenirs.
Tribes that practise animal sacrifices consider the ritual killing of humans a terrible moral and legal crime �a taboo that makes those who break it feel all the more empowered, especially when children are the victims, Hoskins says.
“Because of the innocence and the purity of the child it becomes the most powerful form of magic that can be done.”
The cut in Adam’s neck led Hoskins to believe the ritual was more likely from the west of Africa than the south.
“It was done in a very specific and deliberate way, clearly to bleed him to death in a relatively quick way. The point was to spill blood on the ground as an offering,” he says.
Hoskins says the orange colour of Adam’s shorts, and the dumping of his torso in the river is also ritually significant. He believes the murder or murderers sacrificed Adam to gain some sort of power or good luck for an undertaking in Britain.
For police, Hoskins’ theories were horribly fascinating, but brought them no closer to identifying Adam or his killers. Finding out whatever they could about his short life became the focus of Fysh’s forensic team by January, 2002.
Adam’s stomach was empty. The last time he ate was 12 to 18 hours before his death.
In his lower intestine �an area rarely examined in forensic work �they found traces of pollen from a tree found in London, but not in Africa.
“So we know he was alive and breathing in London before he was killed,” Fysh says.
Also in his lower intestine were tiny clay pellets with specks of pure gold embedded on their surface, along with what appeared to be finely ground up bones. To determine the origin of the crushed bones, they were sent to the New York forensic team that conducted innovative work to identify victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hoskins says the concoction in Adam’s stomach is typical of the potions used to prepare victims for ritual killings in sub-Sahara Africa. It’s part of a process that led to Adam getting cough medicine to ensure he was a healthy offering to the gods.
“The case of Adam is definitely a ritualistic killing. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Hoskins says. “The remarkable thing is that he was brought from Africa to the U.K. specifically for the purpose.”
Hoskins didn’t believe Adam was the victim of a muti killing, but police weren’t ruling it out without hard evidence.
In April, 2002, detectives travelled to South Africa for a Johannesburg press conference where Nelson Mandela made a public appeal for information about Adam.
But in July, a break in the case would point to Hoskins’ theory.
Social workers in Glasgow had reported seeing strange items in the home of a 31-year-old West African asylum seeker. Police searched the flat and found objects they believed were associated with curses, including whisky jars filled with chicken feathers. More significant were the clothes found, which police believe were purchased in the same German shop were Adam’s orange shorts were likely bought.
The woman, Joyce Osagiede, was arrested and questioned about Adam’s murder. She was not charged, and was later deported to her Nigerian hometown, in the Benin City area.
At about the same time, Fysh’s team decided to try something never before attempted in forensic work.
They began by mapping Adam’s “mitochondrial DNA” (mtDNA), which is exclusively passed on from mothers to siblings. Children have the same mtDNA as their mother, who in turn has the same mtDNA as her mother, and so on.
They compared Adam’s mtDNA to 6,000 sequences published in scientific studies. Adam’s sequence had never been found among populations in southern African, or in people in eastern Africa. But it matched mtDNA found in the northwestern part of the continent.
To further narrow the search, the team called on the services of Ken Pye, a professor of soil geology at the University of London. The next series of tests were based on the maxim, “We are what we eat.”
There is a certain level of the mineral strontium that works its way through the food chain; from water, to earth, to plants, to animals, and, finally, into the bones of humans.
In other words, people walk around with a strontium signature that matches the one in their environment. And if a person moves from one country to another, it takes six to 10 years before the strontium signature in the bones changes to match the new habitat.
Given Adam’s likely age, his strontium signature would not only determine the place of his birth, but the place where he grew up. It matched the signature found in a zone of ancient, Precambrian rock, which in Africa is mostly predominant in Nigeria. Suddenly, the forensic evidence also began matching Hoskins’ academic research.
Fysh and detective O’Reilly travelled to Nigeria last November and spent 2�weeks collecting rocks, animal bones and vegetables from local markets in a 10,000 square kilometre area.
They also collected post-mortem human bones from three sites around the country, including Benin City.
They returned to London with 120 samples, and by the end of January matched the strontium signature in Adam’s bones to that found in a corridor stretching from Benin City to Ibaden, where villages of the Yoruba tribe dot the only main road along the way.
It was, in forensic terms, a eureka moment.
“From a torso floating in the Thames, we now think the child was born and raised in the Benin City area,” Fysh says.
Detectives have since gone to the area to post leaflets on trees about Adam’s murder, and to encourage local residents who might have information to come forward. They also publicized a reward of $110,000 for tips leading to the arrest of Adam’s killers and a $5,500 reward for information that will identify him.
The next big break came July 2, when Irish police arrested a 37-year-old Nigerian man in Dublin on an extradition warrant issued by German police.
In March, 2001, Sam Onogigovie was sentenced in his absence to seven years in Germany, for forgery and crimes linked to the trafficking of people.
He’s believed to be the estranged husband of Osagiede, the woman arrested in Glasgow and deported to Benin City last year. Police are seeking a DNA test to determine whether he’s Adam’s father, but believe he was more likely involved in smuggling the boy to London.
“It’s a case we all dearly would like to solve,” Fysh says. “At the end of the day, it’s a murder of a very young boy in grotesque circumstances.
“We want to send a message out there we will not accept this in London. We accept people’s culture. But a murder we will not accept.”
Focus: Muti – The Story of Adam Published: August 4, 2003 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG
Quoting: Paul Vallely, Independent (England), Aug. 3, 2003 Link disappeared (webmaster FVDK)
The arrest of 21 people in connection with the discovery of a child’s mutilated body in the Thames points to a network of people traffickers and an underworld of abuse and domestic slavery. Paul Vallely, who has followed the case in the two years since the torso of the young African boy was found, says the evidence leads to the bloody ritual of muti, where the body parts of children are sacrificed in pursuit of spiritual power (Independent, England, August 3, 2003).
It was the body of a five-year-old African boy. The corpse had no head. The legs had been severed above the knee and the arms cut off at the shoulder. All that remained was a torso dressed – grotesquely – in a pair of orange shorts, which had been thrown into the Thames shortly before it was discovered in September 2001. Death had been from a violent trauma to the neck, and the limbs had been “skilfully” removed after death by an experienced butcher.
Yet it was not the gruesome details of the murder and dismemberment that last week – almost two years later – led 200 police officers to launch nine simultaneous dawn raids across London and arrest 21 people. It was the contents of the stomach of the child, whom the police – in an attempt to restore some humanity to the desecrated body – had named Adam. That, and the orange shorts in which the post-mortem showed he had been dressed after death.
Ironically, the clue that first put them on the trail to the arrests turned out to be a false lead. The body had been found by Tower Bridge. Initially, detectives wondered if the mutilation might be an attempt to disguise the identity of the victim of an accident, a family row or a sex crime. But then, two miles upstream in Chelsea, they found the remnants of an African ritual, with a Nigerian name written on a sheet, carved into seven half-burned candles. Might this be a ritual killing?
In the event, the Chelsea paraphernalia turned out to be unrelated. But before the police discovered that, they had sent to Johannesburg for Professor Hendrik Scholtz, a South African pathologist who is an expert in so-called muti killings – in which adherents of traditional African magic take human body parts and grind them down to make potions they believe bring good fortune to those who drink them. The professor came to England and, after a second post-mortem, confirmed the detectives’ fears. Muti had come to Britain.
The boy’s throat, he confirmed, had been cut and his blood drained from his body, probably for use in some ritual. Most significantly his first vertebra – the one between neck and spine – had been removed. This is known in Africa as the Atlas bone, for it is said to be the bone on which the mythical giant Atlas carried the world. In muti it is believed to be the centre of the body, where all nerve and blood vessels meet, and where all power is concentrated.
There was something else. Adam’s body was well-nourished and showed no signs of abuse, sexual or otherwise. Analysis of his stomach contents showed someone troubled to give him Pholcodine, a cough linctus, not long before he died. It was the classic muti scenario of an otherwise well-treated child being “volunteered” for sacrifice by his own family.
The police set out on two main lines of inquiry. The shorts – orange, they discovered, was a lucky colour in muti – carried the label Kids & Co, the brand-name for Woolworths in Germany. Detectives traced them to a batch of 820 pairs in size 116cm (age 5-7) that had been sold in 320 German stores. But then the trail went cold.
So, too, did a five-month trawl of London’s ethnic communities. Detectives came across plenty of rumours that muti ceremonies were taking place, but no evidence – and no sign of an identity for the murdered child. Painstaking checks of the attendance registers of 3,000 nurseries and primary schools found no missing five-year-old who tallied with what was known of Adam. When they sent forensic evidence to the United States for testing it came back with the verdict from the FBI that the case was “practically insoluble”. Even a public appeal by Nelson Mandela, broadcast across Africa, was fruitless.
But the dead child had not fallen totally silent. His DNA spoke up, as did the mineral levels in his bones. Analysts were able to establish that Adam had spent his life in a 100-mile corridor in the south-west of Nigeria, between Ibadan and Benin City. Revealingly, most of those arrested last week come from Benin.
The contents of his stomach were eloquent too. Forensic examination showed that the boy had been fed a muti potion of mixed bone, clay and gold.
There was something else. Analysis of pollen found in the boy’s stomach showed he had been alive when he came to London. It is thought he was brought across Northern Europe, possibly via Germany, and lived in Britain for a few weeks before his murder. “We’ve uncovered what we believe is a criminal network concentrating on people trafficking,” said Detective Inspector Will O’Reilly, who is leading the Adam inquiry. “We don’t know how many children are involved in this operation, but it’s certainly in the hundreds, if not the thousands, coming from mainland Africa through Europe into the UK.”
Lurid accounts of child trafficking have suggested the trade is primarily to provide recruits for the sex industry. But police believe that the majority of trafficked children are put to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, in what amounts to a modern form of slavery. Only a tiny number fall victim to muti.
Much of muti is innocent. The term derives from umu thi, the Zulu word for tree, which has become a byword for any traditional medicine, good or bad. Its everyday form consists of potions made from Africa’s indigenous herbs and plants to cure common ailments. It works. A pharmaceutical company has just signed a deal with the African National Healers Association to package some muti recipes. The South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has, with the aid of traditional healers, launched a “bio-prospecting” project to unlock the secrets of the nation’s 23,000 indigenous plants.
Most adherents stop with the plant recipes. But some believe that more complex complaints can be cured with animal parts such as crocodile fat, hawk wings, monkey heads or dried puff adders. Before the last World Cup qualifiers a hippo, lion, elephant and hyena were slaughtered to make a potion for the Swaziland team to give its footballers extra strength.
Muti becomes disturbing when it is extended to the notion that human body parts can be used to heal or bestow special powers. For muti is not just a medicine, it is a metaphysic. It asserts that there is only so much luck in the world and each person has a limited supply of it. Very young children have not yet used all their luck, which can be transferred to whoever takes the medicine derived from their remains. This is the origin of the widespread African myth that sex with a virgin can cure someone of Aids: the younger the girl, the more potent the “medicine”.
It is unclear how widespread human muti is in West Africa. But in South Africa, where the government set up a Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual Murders after a spate of killings of boys aged between one and six in Soweto, it is estimated that at least 300 people have been murdered for their body parts in the past decade. The figure could be as high as 500 a year. (Italics added by the webmaster FVDK)
The killings are rarely impulsive. They are done to order by sangomas, or witch doctors, commissioned by clients with a particular need. Thus human skulls are placed in the foundations of new buildings to bring good luck to the business. Body parts are buried on farms to secure big harvests, severed hands built into shop entrances to encourage customers. Human hands burnt to ash and mixed into a paste are seen as a cure for strokes. Blood “boosts” vitality; brains, political power and business success. Genitals, breasts and placentas are used for infertility and good luck, with the genitalia of young boys and virgin girls being especially highly prized. There is a belief that body parts taken from live victims are rendered more potent by their screams.
Discovering all this provided the police with another clue. The genitals of the torso in the Thames had not been removed, suggesting that his killers needed muti potions for some other purpose. Adam had been sacrificed for non-sexual reasons.
It was almost a year after the discovery of Adam’s body that the next piece of the jigsaw fell into place. A representative of the social services department in Glasgow contacted Scotland Yard and reported that one of their clients, a West African woman, had said she wanted to perform a ritual with her children. Her name was Joyce Osagiede. When police travelled to Scotland to arrest her they discovered among her daughter’s clothes a pair of orange shorts of the exact size and brand as had been found on Adam. They also discovered that she had been living in Germany – the only place the shorts had been on sale – before coming to Britain with her children. It was not enough to charge her. She later returned to Nigeria.
Then, earlier this month, police tracked down the woman’s estranged husband, Sam Onojhighovie. The 37-year-old Nigerian man had appeared at the High Court in Dublin as part of an ongoing attempt to extradite him to Germany, where he had been convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven years for offences linked to human trafficking. Scotland Yard officers visited him for questioning.
Of the 21 people arrested in the dawn raids last week 10 were illegal immigrants. None have been charged. Following the raids, Inspector O’Reilly said: “We are pretty confident we have a group of individuals who could have trafficked Adam into the country.” Police are investigating a variety of offences, including benefit fraud, selling false passports and credit card and banking swindles. So far they are still some way off piecing together the exact fate of the boy they know as Adam.
“In West Africa there are several reasons for human sacrifices – for power, money, or to protect a criminal enterprise,” said Inspector O’Reilly. “We believe the prime motive for the murder was to bring good fortune. We suspect Adam was killed to bring traffickers luck.”
Police are waiting for the results of tests to compare the DNA of Sam Onojhighovie – and everyone arrested last week – with Adam’s. If it shows that a terrible ritual murder was carried out to bring good fortune to an iniquitous scheme to traffic in human beings, there could be a grim final irony. The muti killing that was supposed to ensure the success of a criminal enterprise may actually have ensured its failure.
Suspect responsible for death of 11 kids, wife tells police Published: August 4, 2003 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG Quoting: Vanguard (Nigeria), Aug. 4, 2003 Link disappeared (webmaster FVDK)
LONDON – A Nigerian man questioned in connection with the suspected ritual murder of a boy whose torso was found in the River Thames nearly two years ago is responsible for the deaths of 11 children, his wife told British police, The Sunday Times reported yesterday.
Sam Onojhighovie, 37, was arrested July 2 in Dublin under a German extradition warrant for offences linked to human trafficking but has also been questioned in the Adam case, the nickname given to the boy found dead in September 2001.
His wife Joyce Osagiede told British immigration in November 2001 that she was escaping from a religious cult that had been active in her home country of Sierra Leone and in Nigeria, The Sunday Times said. She was later found to be from Nigeria.
Onojhighovie, who had been setting up branches of a new demonic cult in Germany and London, had killed 11 children, including the couples eldest daughter, she said according to the same source.
Police arrested 21 people Tuesday around London in connection with the Adam case. Those arrested were believed to be in their 20s and 30s and mostly Nigerians. They included 10 black men, nine black women and two white women, one of whom was nursing a baby.
Police have requested DNA tests from those arrested, believing one of them could be related to Adam. Adam�s limbless, headless remains were discovered floating in the River Thames near London�s famous Tower Bridge, triggering one of the most gruesome murder cases in the British capital in recent years. Police suspect the boy was the victim of a ritual killing after he was brought to Britain from the vicinity of the Southern Nigerian city of Benin.
Police investigating the murder of a boy whose torso was found in the Thames have arrested 21 people in raids across London.
Nine addresses in east and south-east London were searched by nearly 200 Metropolitan Police officers on Tuesday morning.
Ten men and eleven women were held by police. A baby belonging to one of the women was also taken into care while the woman was being questioned.
Among the items found was the skull of an animal which had a nail driven through it.
Commander Andy Baker, from the Metropolitan Police, said: “Some of the items would raise a few eyebrows – they look like some element of ritualism is involved.”
Most of those arrested were for immigration offences, identity fraud and passport forgery.
The police were acting on information from detectives who have been investigating why the limbless and headless body of a boy ended up in the Thames.
The victim, called Adam by officers, was found in the river near Tower Bridge in September 2001.
Police suspect that he was a victim of ritual killing after being brought over from Nigeria.
Officers travelled to the African country after forensic tests showed he was from the area around Benin City.
All of the people arrested on Tuesday are from the same part of Nigeria and police want to compare their DNA with Adam’s to see if any are related to him.
Police are also looking at their connection with a Nigerian man arrested in Dublin earlier this month in connection with the investigation.
Sam Onogigovie, 37, was held under an extradition warrant issued by police in Germany, where he has been convicted of crimes linked to human trafficking.
Detectives from Scotland Yard also questioned him about the murder of Adam.
Tuesday’s arrests were made by officers from Operation Maxim, the multi-agency unit tasked with targeting organised criminals who are in the UK illegally.
Detective Inspector Will O’Reilly, leading the Adam inquiry, said: “We’ve uncovered what we believe is a criminal network concentrating on people trafficking.
“We are convinced that we are on to a group, or individuals, that were involved in trafficking Adam into the country.”
Police also said there was evidence of children having been at the raided addresses.
Detectives think Adam was aged between four and six, and was alive when he arrived in London.
They are also trying to trace the witch doctor who brewed a potion containing bone fragments which the boy swallowed before he died.
The fragments have been submitted to New York’s medical examiner who will use techniques developed to identify September 11 victims.
“Interesting substances” found in the raids will also be compared with the potion found in Adam’s intestines.
Police think some of the items confiscated could be linked to rituals.
Human parts in bush meat Published: Thursday November 7, 2002 By: RELIGION NEWS BLOG quoting : Western Daily News (England), Nov. 4, 2002 http://www.thisisbristol.com/ Link disappeared (webmaster FVDK).
Human flesh is being smuggled into Britain hidden in consignments of illegal bush meat, experts warned last night.
The horrifying twist to the bush meat trade was revealed with news of a raid on a London shop where it is believed human body parts were being sold.
Detectives investigating the murder of a five-year-old boy, whose torso was found in the Thames and whom officers believe was the victim of a West African ritual killing, joined a raid by environmental health officers.
There they found the first evidence of its kind linking the trade in bush meat to witchcraft ceremonies.
Officers seized items including a crocodile head, used in ritualistic dishes to “increase sexual stamina”.
Other packages of unidentifiable meat have been sent for DNA testing.
Experts say they are convinced human flesh is finding its way on to the streets as part of the illegal trade which deals in flesh from animals such as monkeys.
Clive Lawrence, Heathrow Airport’s meat transport director who joined detectives on the raid, last night said: “We have been told by moles protecting their own businesses that human flesh is being sold in this country. There is also an established trade in smuggling children, a lot disappear and no-one knows what happens to them.
“I think it is not just restricted to London, but to everywhere with high population density.”
Mr Lawrence said it was likely the trade had extended its deadly cargo to Bristol, adding he believed the murder of the Thames child – named Adam by detectives – was not a one-off.
He said underworld sources told him a human head will sell for �10,000. Flesh from a slaughtered child turned into African medicine or a “Muti” pendant, giving the wearer “incredible sexual power”, is said to cost about �5,000.
Detectives from Operation Swalcliffe investigating Adam’s death say he was smuggled in to Britain alive five days before being murdered.
They believe he was sacrificed in a ritual intended to bring good luck to his killers. In the past year police have discovered seven cases of West African religious rituals on the Thames.
The torso of a little boy was discovered near the Globe Theatre in 2001 (Image: Daily Mirror)
Published: March 18, 2019 – Updated 12:56, March 21, 2019 By: Tilly Gambarotto MyLondon
In September 2001 the police found the torso of a young boy floating in the River Thames close to Southwark Bridge.
The little body, belonging to a boy between 4 and 7 years old, was spotted by a passer-by, who noticed him because of his bright orange shorts.
Police named him ‘Adam’.
Adam’s legs, arms and head had been expertly removed with extremely sharp knives as part of a suspected West African ritual sacrifice.
Poisoned and paralysed beforehand, his body had been drained of blood, and his intestines were found to contain a concoction of strange plant extracts.
It would be more than 10 years before the Metropolitan Police would find out the little boy’s real name, and the sorry story that led to his tragic death in London.
In the months after the discovery of Adam’s body, forensic teams traced the plant extracts back to West Africa, most likely Nigeria.
The boy’s body was found with no arms, legs or head (Image: Met Police)
To confuse things even more, his shorts could only have been bought in Germany or Austria.
Detectives travelled to West Africa to find out more about black magic, or ‘muti’, as it is called there.
‘Muti murders’ are committed for the purpose of using human body parts to make medicine or bring food luck, with the body parts of children or albinos considered particularly effective.
Police concluded the dark tradition of ‘muti’ had happened in their own city.
Several suspects were linked to the killing, with police uncovering what they believed to be a trafficking network bringing children from Africa to the UK.
Although there were arrests made for trafficking, the police were none the wiser about who had committed the horrific crime.
One woman, Joyce Osagiede, was arrested in Glasgow after a raid on her home led police to find a similar pair of orange shorts.
She was later deported to Nigeria and never charged with the murder.
In 2005, Adam was buried in an unmarked grave in Southwark cemetery. Only those involved in the investigation were present.
The case had gone cold, and for years it was believed that the Thames torso would never be identified.
Joyce Osiagede falsely identified this boy as Adam in 2011 before correcting herself a year later (Image: ITV London Tonight)
In 2011, an ITV journalist tracked down Joyce Osagiede in Nigeria. She was suffering from very poor mental health, but was able to reveal that she had known the little boy, whose real name was Ikponmwosa.
The little 6-year-old had, she claimed, spent time living with her while she was in Germany. She had then passed the boy onto a man she called ‘Bawa’.
When Joyce travelled to London a month later, she was told that Ikponmwosa was dead.
Asked if the boy in a photograph she showed the journalist was Adam, she replied ‘yes’.
“They used him for a ritual in the water,” she said in the interview shown on ITV’s London Tonight.
Although it appeared to be a massive breakthrough in the case, police were reluctant to believe Joyce, who was heavily medicated at the time of the interview.
And their suspicions had been right. Just one year later, Joyce gave an interview with BBC, in which she called the boy Patrick Erhabor.
Her previous identification of him as Ikponmwosa had just been a “misunderstanding”, she said.
And the man she had passed him onto was actually Kingsley Ojo, who was arrested for trafficking in 2004 but never formally linked to the murder of Adam.Adam’s killer still walks free. And his origins are likely to remain a complete mystery.
BBC journalists traced the boy shown in the photograph to discover he was actually ‘Danny’, now an adult in Hamburg and the son of a former friend of Joyce’s.
Will O’Reilly, who led Adam’s inquiry, said: “In West Africa, there are several reasons for human sacrifices – for power, money, or to protect a criminal enterprise. We believe the prime motive for the murder was to bring good fortune. We suspect Adam was killed to bring traffickers luck.
“While the sacrifice hardly bought any luck to the ring, it did not overly harm those at the top either.”
