Obscure Occurrences : The mystery behind the Torso found in the Thames || Adam

 On 21 September 2001, at around 4 pm, a 32-year-old businessman named Aiden Minter was crossing the tower bridge in Central London. Unbeknownst to him, he was about to witness something that would leave him mentally scared for years to come.

The Dark History of The River Thames

 800 feet long with a 200-foot tower on each end, the Tower Bridge is London’s defining landmark. it stretches over the river Thames, a river with a rather dark history. Since the days of the Roman Empire, the city of London has depended on the Thames for trade and transport but the river has claimed its fair share of victims. It is said that on average, one body a week is pulled from the Thames and those are just the ones that get found.

 Before 1830, public executions in London were common thing and those who were found guilty on charges of piracy faced the worst fate. They were marched over the London Bridge and hanged with a shortened rope which was meant to choke them to death instead of snapping their neck. Once they were dead, their bodies were cut down and chained to the bank of the Thames until its tides submerged them. To add to its body count, over 700 people attempt to kill themselves by drowning in the river every year.

 The Thames was also a backdrop for a series of unsolved murders where the lifeless torsos of four women were found in the river between the years 1887 and 1889. These murders were fondly called the “Thames Torso Murders” and the identity of the killer had never been found. Fast-forward to 2001, Aiden, the 32-year-old businessman, spotted a similar torso of an unknown six-year-old boy floating across the river.

Discovery

 On 21 September 2001, while Aiden was on his way to a creative meeting with a design agency, he saw something floating in the water of the Thames. In its high tides, he noticed something strange “move fast in the flow of the river.” In line with his statement, it initially appeared to be a beer barrel or a broken mannequin but as it got closer and closer, he understood that it was “the torso of a small boy.”

 The authorities were immediately called and the boy’s torso was pulled out of the river. Once on dry land, the police were able to conclude that the body belonged to a young black boy who was around six years old. The boy’s throat had been intentionally slit and his head, legs and arms had been expertly removed. He only had a pair of bright orange shorts on his body and it was the only clue the police could immediately recognize.

Reconstruction of the Torso (Source: BBC)

 Soon after the discovery of the dismembered and beheaded torso, Andy Baker, a detective superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, gave a press conference during which he said that a sharp-bladed instrument had been used to cut the boy. “We've not identified the child and consequently we've taken the unprecedented step. We've given him a name, Adam. Until his family is identified, we will act as his family and his community will be the community of London”, he added.

Initial Investigation

 The Metropolitan Police began their investigation and they named it Operation Swallcliff. The investigation was led by detective superintendent Adrian who, enlisted tidal experts and oceanographers to help him figure out where the body had been initially placed into the Thames. With their help, it was deduced that Adam's body had most likely been placed into the river somewhere between Teddington Lock in West London and the Thames Estuary in East London thus, making the potential point somewhere along the 12-mile radius. The police gathered surveillance footage from this area but they were not able to find anything helpful.

 An autopsy on Adam’s body was done by a pathologist named Michael Heath and despite Adam's body not having any blood, he was able to determine that Adam had died in a very violent and brutal way. Adam, however, was not sexually abused and seemed to be well-fed. Traces of cough syrup was found in his stomach and small intestine along with pollen spores from the Arden tree and a strange mixture of substances. This mixture was made up of pellets made from clay, real gold flakes, crushed bones, and ground-up calabar bean which although highly poisonous acts as a paralytic while used in small doses. The autopsy also revealed that Adam’s limbs and head were removed with the precision of a trained surgeon.

The German Connection

 While Adam's autopsy was being done, the police searched through reports of missing children but none of them matched their unidentified victim. Thus, the only lead the police had to work on was the orange shorts that Adam had been wearing.

 The shorts were traced back to a batch of 820 pairs of Kids & Company orange shorts. They had been manufactured in China but they were sold at Woolworths stores around Germany. Also, they were being sold in these stores only a few weeks before Adam's death. With Germany being a common route and a hub for those involved in human trafficking, the investigating officials understood that it was an important piece of the puzzle.

Was Adam the victim of a Ritualistic Killing?

 With no blood in his torso, no fingers to examine his fingerprints and a missing head, the police found it really hard to figure out more about Adam. So, they sought the help of experts from different fields which included Professor Kenneth, who helped them with his impressive forensic work. He did an isotopic analysis on the strontium isotopes and its results revealed that Adam belonged to West Africa which was further narrowed down to Benin City.

 Parallelly, Will O’Reilly and Andy Baker travelled to South Africa to meet with Nelson Mandela hoping that with his help, they could reach the people of Africa and find a lead to work with. However, despite Mandela doing the best he could, there were no new leads.

 In early 2002, the London Police found a shrine with seven half-burned candles wrapped in a white sheet which had washed up on the southern shore of the Thames. The candles had strange words carved on them and the same words were written on the sheet as well. The oddity of these objects led the police into speculating that Adam’s murder was a ritualistic killing and that these objects were connected to his death.

 The sheets and candles were eventually tracked back to a Nigerian family living in London. It was discovered that these objects were indeed used in a ritual where the family had prayed for the safe return of their son. Although this clue did not have any connection with Adam’s murder, it bought the speculation of ritualistic murder to the forefront. This speculation along with the fact that Adam came from Benin City, a place known as the birthplace of voodoo, made the investigators think that Adam could have been the victim of a “muti” killing.

 Muti is a traditional medicine practice in South Africa and the witchdoctors who perform it are called “sangomas”. The most common forms of muti are benign where clients are given potions made from plants and herbs to heal their ailments. However, as the ailments become more complex, they call for potions made from animal body parts. If these potions do not bring the desired effect and if the client has enough money to pay the sangomas, a potion made from human body parts is handed to them. The belief system states that the body parts of young children are especially powerful which makes the bodies of young children more valuable than the bodies of the elders. Muti killings are disturbingly common and South Africa’s police force investigates an average of one a month. Because of the preciousness of their body parts, most victims of these murders are children.

 Thus, to determine if Adam was indeed a victim of muti, the London police contacted the experts of IPU ( Investigative Psychology Unit) in South Africa. These experts confirmed that Adam’s murder was indeed a ritualistic killing but, considering the fact that his genitals and internal organs were still intact, they suggested it was not a muti murder. So, they put the London police in touch with a local sangoma named Credo Mutwa who told them that Adam’s injuries were more consistent with the ritualistic killings performed by the Yoruban people who inhabited Western Africa.

 Yorubans believe in a God named Olorun who demands blood sacrifices. Thus, to please Olorun, the Yorubans would slaughter animals, drain their blood into a pot and serve it to him along with the animal’s body parts and head. At times, the victims of these sacrifices were not animals but humans.

 Dr Hendrick Schultz, a South African expert in ritualistic and witchcraft murders was tasked with performing a second post-mortem examination on Adam and his findings were reported that “Adam's Body bore all the Hallmarks of a ritualistic death” and “the nature of the discovery of the body features of the external examination including the nature of the wounds clothing and mechanisms of death were consistent with those of ritual homicide as practised in West Africa”.

 As the strange combination of weird substances found in Adam’s stomach did not make any sense to the police, they reached out to an expert named Dr Richard Hoskins. According to him, the Yorubans made a portion with the ingredients found in Adam’s stomach, heated it in a tin container over an open flame and fed it between 24 to 48 hours before the sacrifice to their sacrificial victim. Also, with Olorun’s favourite colour and the colour of Adam’s shorts being the same, this seemed to be a more plausible explanation for the investigators.

 The detectives in Adam's case believed that Adam was trafficked from Benin City to London and sacrificed in accordance with the Yoruban rituals. Whoever had been responsible for Adam's death, they speculated, was a practitioner with great expertise in these kinds of rituals who was most likely imported from outside of the UK.

Finally, a Suspect

 With Adam’s birthplace known and a strong theory on his murder established, the police began to thoroughly comb London and the surrounding communities. Keeping their ear to the ground for whispers about human sacrifice amongst the communities, they began to realize that the practice of bringing a child to the country specifically for the purposes of sacrifice was far more common than they had originally thought. Inspector Will O’Reilly further confirmed it by telling, “We've uncovered what we believe is a criminal network concentrating on people trafficking. We don't know how many children are involved in this operation but, it is certainly in the hundreds if not the thousands coming from mainland Africa through Europe and into the UK”.

 In July 2002, unbeknownst to the investigating officers, things started to unfold 400 miles away in Glasgow. Social services in Glasgow had become involved with a family after they had received reports that a woman named Joyce was struggling to care for her two young daughters. In line with detective Nick Chalmers, “her two daughters were taken into care because there were suggestions, she had become involved with prostitution once she arrived in Glasgow. The police went to her house and found the kids were not being cared for and they were taken to a place of safety”.

 The previous December, Joyce had presented herself to immigration officials in Croydon, told them that she was from Sierra Leone and sought asylum. She also claimed to the officials that she had been part of a cult whose leader was her husband. According to her, her husband had taken part in many ritualistic killings which included the murder of 11 children and one of these children was their oldest child. Her husband had sacrificed his own child in 1995 in order to gain power for the cult. Following this event, she had apparently fled from the cult with her two daughters.

Joyce (Source: BBC)

 After her daughters were taken away from her in the July of 2002, Joyce showed up at the Social Services Office the following December with a bizarre request. She told them that she needed her children for a ritual that was to take place at her house that evening. When the social workers asked her if this ritual involved the cult she had fled from, she said “Yes”. This reply shocked the workers and it led them into taking her to court in an attempt to get an order of protection for the two girls.

 A local police officer who was in court on the day this order was granted, connected Joyce, her cult, and her rituals to the case of Adam. So, he contacted the detectives on Adam's case in London to let them know that their next clue might be bringing them to Glasgow.

Pursual of Joyce

 Detective Nick Chalmers visited Joyce at her apartment and thoroughly checked it. During his check, he found an envelope that contained a blockbuster card but the address on it was different from the address of her house. This address led Nick to an apartment in Catford, London where he was welcomed by the woman who lived in it. In line with this woman, Joyce told her that she had lived in Germany for a while. Thus, the German connection which was speculated earlier was finally coming into play.

 The police returned to Joyce’s apartment with a search warrant. During their search, they found several sets of children’s clothing that were made by Kids & Company. Joyce told them that the clothes were purchased from a Woolworths store in Germany for her daughters. Considering the fact that the shorts Adam was wearing were in fact made for girls, the police understood that Joyce was somehow related to Adam’s murder. To add to the suspicion, every time she was questioned, Joyce came up with a completely different story and it appeared as if she was trying to brush something under the carpet.

 Further Investigations revealed that Joyce was not from Sierra Leone but from Benin City in Nigeria. It was also discovered that she had stayed in Germany for a brief period of time with her husband after which she had lived under multiple different names in multiple different countries. In fact, three different apartments in London were linked to Joyce and in these apartments, the police found multiple forged documents, umpteen plane tickets, her mobile phone and her wedding video tape. The videotape revealed that her wedding ceremony involved the brutal sacrifice of a live goat. Two phone numbers were stored in her mobile phone and they were the numbers of her husband Samuel and a man named Kingsley Ojo.

 When the police felt that they were getting close to solving Adam’s murder, Joyce was controversially deported back to Nigeria and it seemingly appeared as if the High commission was trying to protect Joyce and prevent her from revealing dark secrets. After returning to Nigeria, she went completely off the grid only to reappear twice and give the police misleading details. She was eventually declared mentally unstable and with no concrete evidence to link her to Adam’s murder, the police stopped pursuing her.

 With Joyce no longer in reach, the police turned their attention towards the two men she was affiliated with, Kingsley and Samuel.

Pursual of Kingsley Ojo and Samuel

 At the end of 2002, detectives tracked Kingsley to an apartment in London but when they reached the place, it was empty. However, with warm food laid out on the table and the bedroom window left wide open, it was clear that Kingsley had just fled his apartment. While investigating the apartment, the police found a video depicting the beheading of a man in a ritualistic murder. Multiple forged documents, envelopes with substances similar to the one found in Adam’s stomach and a rat’s skull with a nail shoved through it were also found in his apartment.

 During a completely separate investigation on July 29 2003, over 200 law enforcement agencies raided nine London addresses and arrested 21 people involved with human trafficking. One among them was Kingsley Ojo and he was nabbed by the police authorities. It was discovered that he was originally from Benin City and Kingsley was only one of his 12 different names. Furthermore, he was an important figure in a major human trafficking ring operating across multiple countries.

Kingsley Ojo (Source: BBC)

 Kingsley claimed that he didn’t know anything about Joyce or Adam but his call records suggested otherwise. Despite pleading innocent, he was charged with two charges of using forged travel documents and two charges of human trafficking. Thus, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison following which he was ordered to be deported. Probing his illegal activities, the police tracked down an Italian brothel which served as a holding station for trafficked victims. However, many children who ended up in this brothel were never allowed to leave and they were forced into child prostitution.

 Two young Nigerian girls who were rescued from this brothel told the authorities that they were from Benin City. In line with their statement, before being brought to Italy, they were led into a chamber that was covered in orange fabric. Inside this chamber, they were fed potions that made them "feel funny". They had also been warned that they would be killed if they tried seeking help.

 Despite his involvement in human trafficking, the police were not able to find any concrete evidence that connected Kingsley to Adam’s murder and after getting released from prison, he eventually went off the grid.

 Joyce’s husband Samuel was tracked down to an apartment in Dublin, Ireland and just like Kingsley, he was living under a different name. Samuel agreed that he was indeed a witch doctor but he claimed that he did know anything about Joyce or Adam. Considering the fact that they already had the wedding tape of him and Joyce, the Police were able to immediately figure out that he was lying. Furthermore, it was discovered that Samuel was already on the wanted list of the German police because of his alleged involvement with human trafficking. 

Since they were not able to find any evidence that connected him to Adam’s murder, the police found themselves at a dead end yet again.

Samuel (Source: BBC)

Aftermath

 With no new clues to work upon, the case of Adam’s murder eventually went cold but the case gave the London police invaluable information about the human trafficking ring and the ritualistic sacrifices connected to it. Police investigation revealed that loads of young African children were being smuggled into the country for human sacrifice, prostitution and other illegal purposes. One of the findings suggested that some of these children were sold to men who were infected with HIV as these men believed that copulating with a child would cleanse them of their disease. With no one to care for them, what really happens to these trafficked children is mostly not known. 

 Even today, the real identity of poor Adam, a similarly trafficked child, remains unknown and what really happened to him is an unsolved mystery.