Adam
In 2002, a woman of West African origin was arrested in Glasgow in connection with the murder of a young boy whose torso was found in the Thames in London. The child’s torso, clad only in a pair of orange shorts, was spotted floating in the Thames near Tower Bridge on 21 September, 2001. It had been in the water for up to 10 days. The boy was named Adam by police officers working on the inquiry.
Police have described the case as unprecedented. The boy aged between four and seven had been beheaded and his legs severed above the knee. His arms had been cut off and his atlas bone the vertebra that supports the skull had also been removed. Police followed the theory that he might been the victim of a ritual muti killing, in which body parts are taken for their supposed magical powers. Scotland Yard consulted a specialist South African police unit that investigates occult crimes.
Experts on African religion consulted by Scotland Yard believe Adam may have been sacrificed to one of 400 orisha, or ancestor gods, of the Yoruba, Nigeria’s second largest ethnic group. Oshun, a river goddess, is associated with orange, the colour of the shorts put on Adam’s body after he was killed. The body was kept for another day before being dumped.
Through a series of pioneering forensic science inquiries, the police managed to piece together much of the mystery. Pollen recovered in the boy’s stomach showed he was alive when he arrived in London and stayed there for several days before being murdered. From tests on mineral levels in the boy’s bones, forensic scientists were able to establish that Adam spent his life in a 100-mile stretch of land in Nigeria, near Benin City in the south-west of the country, before he was brought to Britain. Metropolitan police travelled to Nigeria and launched a campaign to track Adam’s parents. Despite visiting primary schools and looking at reported missing children in the region, there was no success.
Watch it here:
Adam remains unidentified. His body, kept in Poplar mortuary in Tower Hamlets, was laid to rest in an unmarked grave at a London cemetery, in 2006. Several arrests have been made in a case which showed links between human trafficking and ritual abuse, but no-one has yet been charged. The officers still hope that one day, Adam’s family will come forward so he can be properly buried in his own country.
The Independant article is here. The BBC article is here.
Categories: Forensics, News: Cold Cases, Unidentified
Tags: Autopsy, Crime Labs, Cruelty, Evidence, Forensics, London, Police, Ritual Killings, Torso, UK, Unidentified
Thank you Vidocq. Your article here shows the importance of the work that so many professionals do, in order to work towards solving these cases, as does Kew Gardens Video. You are a part of that right here.
Thank you very much! I am fascinated by their investigation! I hope that one day, we will know who Adam really was.
I’d also like to thank you for your support on Twitter! Cheers, Vidocq
What a great post about this amazing story – and thanks for embedding our video. We’re pleased you like it. If you’re interested in Kew’s work in this area, you can find out more about the Jodrell Laboratory (where the investigation took place) and ‘Plants in action’ at http://www.kew.org
Thanks, Claire!
I find the case and the investigation fascinating and am following on Twitter!
Keep up the great work you do!
Cheers, Vidocq
What really troubles me, is the fact, that the african woman turned to the police for help-at least that`s how it appears to me – and was suspected of participating in the crime. Surely she must have been desperate for her childrens saftety-otherwise she would not turn to a foreign in-her-eye”racist” police force-especially, if she stayed illegally in the U.K. Maybe the assassin/s brought several of these orange trousers and left one or two in her flat for her children. In this case, there must be a link between the woman and her aquaintances and the killing of Adam… Africans come and go in and out of flats of people they know.
Somehow I feel sorry, that the woman lost her children to an unknown foster family in Scotland.
Star0000
Thank you for commenting on Adam’s unsolved murder case. A multitude of questions remain open, alas. But, I have a few for you too:
Concerning the woman arrested in Scotland: I am not sure how she got arrested or whether she turned to police as you wrote. If she did, why? As far as I have been able to read up on her, nowhere did I find any expressions coming from her side regarding a racist police force. Where did you read that? Please provide the link so I can read that article too.
About the connections, I do believe that somehow everyone was instrumental but to what degree, the jury is out on that one. As police stated, the man arrested, Kingsley Ojo, may not have murdered Adam himself but definitely knows more and is somehow involved.
About the comings and goings…that is not limited to Africans. People of all walks of life, colours, and nationalities are in and out each others lives and residences.
Last, I’d like to know which woman you refer to at the end of your comment. The woman arrested by police has been “repatriated” to Nigeria and her file has been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. The woman Ojo was involved with was Barbara Bourne. She had lost a newborn son a few years before. Ojo used the dead boy’s birth certificate to obtain a driving licence and passport. There is no information that she had more children and whether she indeed lost them to a foster family. If so, why? Should you have more information about this as well, please provide the sources, links, etc so we all can read up on this.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Hi Vidoq,
finally I turned to this website once more… To try to answer your question : the african woman ,named Joyce Osagiede, turned to the British Police in panic and claimed, that she fled a Yoruba Voodoo Cult who wanted to force her to sacrifice her children. She used to live in Germany before – as there were also links to the west-africans arrested later , who also stayed in Germany for some time.
The police surveyed her home in Dublin ? Glasgow ? and finally found an identical piece of orange shorts (produced in Germany or Austria) at her place. Later some of her acquaintances were arrested in connection with human trafficking, document fraud, illegal stay and tried in London, I believe.
She was also repatriated to Nigeria and sobbed during the flight for fear, that she will never see her children again.
I do not know, which article it was- since I read many of them in the meantime.
Star0000
Thanks for checking back with me and for updating your comments. It remains a strange case and I’d love to have more information so, should you come across those articles again, send me the link!
Cheers, Vidocq
Hi Vidocq,
it should work out, once you google the name of the african woman…I did not claim, that the british police is racist, allthough I am pretty sure, that the police force is under enormous stress. Sometimes there are also reports via youtube, that do support this point of view.
I simply think, that it must have been an enormous burden – IN CASE, the person stayed in Britain illegally – for her to turn to the police for help. In my opinion, she would ONLY do so, if she was really desperate and truly feared for the life of her children. In the end she became a prime suspect herself.
Regards, Star0000
‘Adam’ now has a strong candidate name and age: Ikpomwosa, age 6 years, and an apparent route to the UK.
From Wikipedia, referencing the UK newspaper ‘The Sun’: “On 29 March 2011, it was discovered that the torso belonged to that of 6-year old, Ikpomwosa, after a TV-Crew managed to track down a woman who used to care for him in Germany, due to his parents being deported back to Nigeria. Mother of 2, Joyce Osiagede had told ITV London Tonight that she handed the 6-year old to a man – reportedly named Bawa, who proceeded to take the child to London. Detectives have said that this is a ‘major breakthrough.”
Thanks, Rick, for the update! Much appreciated.