UK UK - 'Adam' 4-7 YO Boy found in Thames in 2001

Was this boy the torso in the Thames? Five-year-old 'victim of voodoo ritual' named by former suspect

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The five-year-old’s identity has remained a mystery after he was smuggled into Britain and murdered in a voodoo-style ritual killing.

He was drugged with a ‘black-magic’ potion and sacrificed before being thrown into the Thames, where his torso washed up next to the Globe Theatre in September 2001.
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Now Nigerian Joyce Osiagede, the only person to be arrested in Britain as part of the inquiry, has claimed that the boy in this picture is Adam. She said his real name is Ikpomwosa.
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She added: ‘They used him for a ritual in the water.’ Claiming the boy was six years old, she said: ‘He was a lively boy. A very nice boy, he was also intelligent.’
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much more, with pictures, at Daily Mail link above

I can't even imagine how someone could kill a child like that. What a beautiful little boy.

Blessings on little Ikpomwosa's soul. It's very heartening to know that LE never gave up. They went to great lengths to identify this precious child. We must wake up to the dangers lurking for our children. There are many wicked monsters out there and each child is dear, each one is like a jewel......

"They used him for a ritual in the water." Rarely has a sentence seemed so cold.

Are these people from another planet? Rituals that involve children's body parts, I just don't understand!!

RIP Adam, precious child.

Here's a 2002 BBC article about muti killings in South Africa. Featured are the confession of a mother forced to participate in her son's murder; and a 12 year-old whose genitalia were cut off. He lived. The article also mentions the then unidentified boy's torso that washed up on the Thames.

So terribly sad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1899609.stm

WARNING: Graphic descriptions

oy. I can't handle it. Maybe tomorrow. Not clicking this link tonite.

WOW - What lengths did the LE go to get those results, that is amazing.

What a beautiful little soul, may he rest in peace.

I'm still... perplexed by 'muti'

Did anyone check to see if we have this little tyke in our unidentified forum?

I'll go take a look.

Salem

ETA: I did not find a thread for him. I am so glad he at least has his name back.

I think that groups who do this and procurers who locate and deliver a child specifically for a ritual are really banking on society believing that ritual killings are far too outrageous to believe. That's the way they hide in plain sight. They play on our doubts.

Missizzy said:

I think that groups who do this and procurers who locate and deliver a child specifically for a ritual are really banking on society believing that ritual killings are far too outrageous to believe. That's the way they hide in plain sight. They play on our doubts.

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I don't think people have a lack of belief in African ritual killings, given the explosion of news about them in the past years.

It is far more likely the killers can hide in plain sight because law enforcement in Africa is either paid off, involved or intimidated, along with people who know what is going on, and, horrifically, a large amount of people elsewhere just don't care enough when Africans are killed.

WhyaDuck? said:

I don't think people have a lack of belief in African ritual killings, given the explosion of news about them in the past years.

It is far more likely the killers can hide in plain sight because law enforcement in Africa is either paid off, involved or intimidated, along with people who know what is going on, and, horrifically, a large amount of people elsewhere just don't care enough when Africans are killed.

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:goodpost: I think you hit that nail right square on the head, Ducky.

much more on this tragic tale at Daily Mail:

Voodoo and human sacrifice: The haunting story of how
Adam, the Torso in the Thames boy, was finally identified

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Post mortem results, too grim to bear much repetition, reveal that he was still alive when his throat was cut; the West African poison that was found in his intestine is a paralysing agent, not an anaesthetic. There’s a very real chance that Adam would have seen what was coming.

Unable to move and unable to scream, Adam’s last sight on earth would have been of a man approaching him — and then the flash of a razor-sharp knife.
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Lengthy, quite interesting Daily Mail piece serves as both a precursor and a coda to this sad story:

How a criminologist probing the ritual 'boy in the Thames' murder had to
confront the personal tragedy of his own daughter's mysterious death in Africa

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‘The living dead control this world and everything in it, Mr Richard. They bring life, and they take it away. They tell us what to do.

‘And twins have a special power, Mr Richard. Mbo is calling your Mpia to come and join her in the shadowlands. I am sure of it.’

‘Her twin sister? Calling her? But she’s . . .’ I stopped myself.

‘No, Mr Richard,’ Tata Mpia said gently. ‘Mbo is not dead. That is the thing I am trying to say to you.

‘She is one of the living dead. And she is calling out to her twin sister, calling her to the world of the living dead.’
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They had a show about this case on NatGeo, it is way too disturbing for words.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases-uk/380umuk.html

ID 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21365961

She has been unreliable in the past and has psychiatric problems. She is currently taking medication.
In 2011 she identified a photograph discovered by the police - and shown to her by a journalist - as the dead boy and said his name was "Ikpomwosa".
Ms Osagiede now says that was all a misunderstanding and reveals the picture is "Danny, my friend Tina's son, he lives in Germany".

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:banghead:

The police said "the investigation remains ongoing and any new information provided to the team will be thoroughly investigated".
Anyone with any information should call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21365961

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a cold cases book by Vanessa Howard called "Britain's Ten Most Wanted" published in 2009.

And a week ago, fate stepped in and I discovered WebSleuths.

I'd never imagined that there was such a place as this - somewhere for all us investigators-at-heart to fight together in the war against injustice. A place where average Joe's can huddle together and discuss their findings, research and gut-instincts. A safe place for professionals to share their expertise.

It made me realise that there really is a way to bring justice to the silenced. For those whose faces were forgotten by the media, their stories became legends yet people like us wanted to ensure they were never lost a place in our hearts and minds, and that their cases would never truly run 'cold'.

As I poured through the first three chapters of this book, I used Google and YouTube to scour the internet to see if there had been any updates since the publication of my paperback to bring the killers of those cases to justice. One had been resolved.

But my heart broke when I started reading chapter four, simply titled Adam.

A little boy's headless, limbless body, with an approximate age of no more than five or six years old, whose body showed brutal signs of ritual abuse and torture. His body was discovered at the edge of the Thames River in London.

Nobody had reported him missing. Nobody came forward with any information.

There were no new leads on the case, nor any headway in being able to identify the boy. A former resident of Germany came forward and told police that she used to mind the boy and gave investigators a name, but wrongly identified a photo which she claimed was the boy she'd seen and had handed over to "Bawa". It was in fact, a photo of her friend's son. However, she identified "Bawa" as KO, an asylum seeker who arrived in London in 1997. Bawa was known to police but they have had no reason to connect him to the murder.

In 2002, a Nigerian woman came forward after fleeing Germany and claimed that a cult had tried to kill her son - and that Adam had been murdered by his own parents. Coincidentally enough, orange shorts (like those found on Adam's body) were found in her flat, boasting the very same clothing label. Her movements and connections were monitored and investigators soon found that she was associated with "Bawa". KO, known as "Bawa", had his residence searched and while investigators found evidence of ritualistic paraphernalia, there was no trace of Adam's DNA to link KO to the crime. He was, however, charged on child trafficking charges and incarcerated for four years.

Investigators suspect that Adam was a victim of muti ritual sacrifice. They believe he had only been in the UK for less than a week or two, and had probably been trafficked from Nigeria purely for the purpose of the ritual sacrifice.

Eighteen years later, there are still no leads. No updates. No breakthroughs.

Who was Adam, and who is responsible for his murder?

Source: Wikipedia
Adam (murder victim) - Wikipedia

Source: Britain's Top Ten Most Wanted, Vanessa Howard, 2009, John Blake Publishing Ltd, p 87-114

The BBC have just published an interesting article on the 20th anniversary of the discovery of 'Adam'. A 4-7 year old black boy who was found in the River Thames in London 20 years ago today wearing just a girls' pair of yellow shorts.

According to police, subject to some type of ritual sacrifice. He had been poisoned, had his throat cut and blood drained, and then dismembered. Forensic testing and stomach content testing showed that he'd only been in the UK a couple of days and had likely been born/ grown up in Southern Nigeria.

It's an incredibly sad story and I truly hope that 'Adam's' identity is found and those who committed this heinous crime are brought to justice.

It's the longest unsolved child murder case in the recent history of the Metropolitan Police. Twenty years ago, a young African boy was murdered in a brutal ritual, his head and limbs removed, and his torso dumped in the Thames.

On Tuesday the Met Police made a renewed appeal for members of the public to "be bold" and come forward with any information that may help them solve this case.

The boy's identity has remained a mystery - he was known simply as "Adam", a name given to him by detectives.

Over the years, there have been arrests and forensic breakthroughs. But no-one has been charged with his killing.

We have followed the case from the very beginning, even travelling to the place where it's thought the boy may have been born, in an effort to find out what really happened.

Twenty years on, we've been talking to the people closest to the case. Some, speaking for the very first time.

And we have visited Adam's unmarked grave in a sprawling cemetery in south London.

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The torso in the Thames: A 20-year mystery


(Apologies to mods if there is an old thread. I searched under every term I could think of).

rbbm.
Torso found in Thames identified: 'Victim of voodoo ritual' named as 5-year-old 'Adam' | Daily Mail Online
Dumped in the Thames: The five-year-old boy identified as Adam
''He was drugged with a ‘black-magic’ potion and sacrificed before being thrown into the Thames, where his torso washed up next to the Globe Theatre in September 2001.''
''Now Nigerian Joyce Osiagede, the only person to be arrested in Britain as part of the inquiry, has claimed that the boy in this picture is Adam. She said his real name is Ikpomwosa.
In an interview with ITV’s London Tonight, Mrs Osiagede said she looked after the boy in Germany for a year before travelling to Britain without him in 2001.
She claimed she handed the boy over to a man known as Bawa who later told her that he was dead and threatened to kill her unless she kept silent.''

"She added: ‘They used him for a ritual in the water.’
Claiming the boy was six years old, she said: ‘He was a lively boy. A very nice boy, he was also intelligent.’
Detailed analysis of a substance in the boy’s stomach was identified as a ‘black magic’ potion.
It included tiny clay pellets containing small particles of pure gold, an indication that Adam was the victim of a Muti ritual killing.
Muti murders, common in sub-Saharan Africa, are carried out in the belief that the body parts of children are sacred. Bodies are often disposed of in flowing water.''
2011
Police to fly to Nigeria following new lead in Thames torso case
''Boy, aged five or six, may have been identified, 10 years after police found a mutilated body in river near Tower Bridge''

29 Mar 2011
''Detectives investigating the case of a boy whose mutilated torso was discovered floating in the Thames nearly 10 years ago are to fly to Nigeria in a fresh attempt to find his killer.
The development comes as it was reported that the child, aged five or six and referred to by police as "Adam" in the absence of a real name, may have been identified. A Nigerian woman who cared for the boy while living in Germany a decade ago said that his real name was Ikpomwosa, according to a report on ITV London Tonight.
Joyce Osiagede, who was shown a photograph of the boy earlier this month in Nigeria, was reported have been questioned by police in Glasgow in 2002 before she was deported, after they connected her to the case. Osiagede, who said she was willing to talk to police if they went to see her, said she had looked after Adam in 2001 as a favour to a friend but then gave him to a man she calls Bawa.
"I travelled with my two children to Britain to seek refuge ... I phoned Bawa and said: 'Where is Ikpomwosa? He said: 'He's dead'." She was asked: "You say you didn't have anything to do with the killing?" She replied: "No. I'm a mother, I have children. I can't kill somebody's child."

UK police plead for help over Nigerian boy's torso found in Thames in 2001
Sept 21 2021
''Asked if she knew who killed Adam, she said: "Yes ... No. I don't know the group of people.''
''I gave Ikpomwosa to Bawa and when I go to Scotland, Britain, he said Ikpomwosa is dead."
''The case has been the subject of numerous high-profile appeals over the years, including by Nelson Mandela who asked all African communities to help the police
British detectives have made inquiries in Britain, South Africa, Holland, Germany and Nigeria.''