Adam (unsolved Thames Murder Case)

"Adam" was the name police gave to an unidentified male child whose torso was discovered in the River Thames in London, United Kingdom, on 21 September 2001. Investigators believe the child was likely from southwestern Nigeria, and that several days before his murder, he was trafficked to the United Kingdom for a muti ritual sacrifice. To date, nobody has been charged with Adam's murder, and his true identity remains unknown.

Background

On 21 September 2001, the torso of a young boy was discovered in the River Thames, near Tower Bridge in central London. Dubbed "Adam" by police officers, the unidentified remains belonged to a black male, around four to eight years old, who had been wearing orange girls' shorts.

The post-mortem showed that Adam had been poisoned, his throat had been slit to drain the blood from his body, and his head and limbs had been expertly removed. Further forensic testing examined his stomach contents and trace minerals in his bones to establish that Adam had only been in the United Kingdom for a few days or weeks before he was murdered, and that he likely came from a region of southwestern Nigeria near Benin City known as the birthplace of voodoo. This evidence led investigators to suspect that Adam was trafficked to Britain specifically for a muti killing, a ritual sacrifice performed by a witch doctor that uses a child's body parts to make medicinal potions called "muti".

Investigation

Unable to find a match for Adam in databases of missing children in Britain and Europe, investigators made requests to the public for assistance. However, the story initially only received moderate publicity, due its proximity to the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States. In the UK, coverage and interest in the case increased over the next year, and rewards were offered for information leading to the killers' conviction, or to Adam's identification. However, the story had not yet received much publicity in Nigeria.

When the investigation had reached an impasse in 2002, London officials flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela, Nobel Prize winner and former President of South Africa, made a public appeal requesting any information that might be relevant to help the police in London identify Adam. Mandela's appeal was broadcast all over Africa and translated into tribal languages, including Yoruba, the local language in the region that investigators linked to Adam.

In 2003, London Metropolitan police travelled to South Africa to consult detectives and muti experts of the SAPS. The experts suggested that the orange shorts meant Adam was related to his killers. In Muti rituals, the colour red is the colour of resurrection: accordingly at least one of Adam's killers was related to him, and was trying to apologise to his soul, praying that he might rise again.

The police subsequently travelled to Nigeria and launched a campaign to track Adam's parents. Despite visiting elementary schools and looking at reported missing children in the region, there was no success.

Developments

On 29 March 2011, it was reported that the torso was that of a 6-year-old named Ikpomwosa, after a television crew managed to track down a woman who used to care for him in Germany, due to his parents being deported back to Nigeria. Joyce Osiagede, a mother of two, had told ITV's ''London Tonight'' that she handed the 6-year-old to a man—reportedly named Bawa—who proceeded to take the child to London. Detectives said that this was a "major breakthrough".

In February 2013, the BBC
...