A team of special Scotland Yard detectives may soon arrive in Ghana to continue their black hole investigation into the death of a five year old black boy whose severed torso was found floating on the Thames River in UK last September.
Clues from forensic tests conducted by Scotland Yard Police strongly suggest that the boy might be of West African origin and was trafficked to England for ritual purposes from either Ghana, Togo, Benin or Nigeria.
The Scotland Yard police who are currently in Nigeria after an unsuccessful find in South Africa have very scant details to follow up on the case. The name of the boy is not known. His country of origin is also not known.
“All we have is the trunk of a little boy and a very small pair of shorts,” said Scotland Yard’s Serious Crime Group Commander, Andy Baker. The police also have pieces of forensic and DNA reports which offer clues that the little boy is from a West African country.
“But when the work of the forensic tests identifies his home, we will go to that country and make direct contact with the government.”
The boy has however been named by police officers who found his body as Adams.
According to cyber investigations confirmed by a Reuters news report, Chris Olakpe, Nigerian Police spokesman, has said that the team may come to Ghana after their investigations in Nigeria. The detectives are expected to visit southwest Nigeria, the inland capital, Abuja, and two other cities in the Northern region in the hope of finding clues.
Reports from UK indicate that at the time the body was found, Adam’s head and limbs had been removed and he was wearing only a pair of orange shorts.
Further analysis of the stomach contents and bone chemistry show that Adams could not have been brought up in London. Detectives are now working on the horrifying theory that he was bought as a child slave from West Africa and smuggled to Britain solely to be killed for what has been described as ritual purpose.
Three months after Adam’s body was found, police say they discovered candles and sheets two miles upstream from the Tower Bridge. A name, Adekoye Jo Fola Adeoye, akin to Nigeria, was found on the sheet. It had been written three times on the sheet in crude blue ink. The same name was also inscribed on the candles.
The police have no evidence that the discovery is linked to the death of Adams.
Meanwhile, experts on African religion ,consulted by the Scotland Yard Police, believe Adam may have been sacrificed to one of the 400 Orisha, ancestor gods of the Yoruba people, who are Nigeria’s second-largest ethnic group. Oshun, a Yoruba river goddess is said to be associated with orange colours which fits into the colour of the shorts which was placed on Adam’s body, hours before he was offered to the Thames River.
The cultural clues they say fits neatly with the forensics as Yorubas are said to be found in Benin, Togo and Ghana as well as Nigeria. Thousands of Yoruba slaves were reported to have been taken to the Caribbean, where elements of their religion formed the basis of voodoo rituals.
According to Scotland Police sources, a close examination of the body revealed that the head and limbs were sliced, indicating that it was carried out by an expert using extremely sharp knives specially prepared for the purpose.
Intelligence deductions suggest that the horrific operation, reminiscent of animal sacrifice, was carried out in a planned manner - The flesh around the limbs and neck was first cut down to the bones which were then slashed with a single blow from an implement much like a butcher’s meat cleaver. A
Mr. Richard Hoskins, a lecturer in the study of religions at Bath Spa University, who claims to have studied ritual killings across Africa, told newsmen in UK that, “This looks like a deviant variety of a West African religion. Someone would have done it to gain power. But the vast majority of Africans would find this abhorrent.”
In an unprecedented missing-person investigation, the police have even tracked down the origins of the orange shorts, which were made exclusively in China for German Woolworth stores. The say they believe Adam may have arrived in England from Germany, a common route for child traffickers.
When the team of detectives packed their bags and moved towards Africa, to the remote Zulu settlement of Eshowe in the KwaZulu-Natal Province, North of Durban, where the locals were reported to be living in fear after the bodies of six villagers were found with organs missing.
According to press reports, one of the victims of the Zulu murders was a nine-year old Bhekinhos Ngema, whose eyes, tongue and testicles had been removed by assailants.
Already, the Scotland Yard Police have flown a Dr. Scholtz, a South African academic and a renowned expert on witch doctors and black magic to study Adam’s remains.
Dr. Scholtz’s report is said to have stated that scars on the youngster’s torso bear all hallmarks of a ritualistic death and that the little boy’s murder may have been carried out as part of an African occult ceremony in the UK.
“The person is sacrificed to awaken the supernatural force required to attain a goal,” he said, adding that “the nature of the discovery of the body, features of the external examination including the nature of the wounds, clothing and mechanism of the death are consistent with those of ritual homicide as practised in Africa.”
Scotland Yard’s Serious Crime Group Commander, Andy Baker, is reported to have said that they were looking at the possibility of ritual murder.
Dr. Anthony Minnar, a South African police researcher, was quoted by the Scotsman newspaper to have said that such rituals have been handed down through generations and don’t occur in South Africa alone. “They are also very common in the Ivory Coast and Ghana,” he added.
Meanwhile, three weeks before the body in the Thames was discovered, the naked torso of a white girl aged between five and seven years was found floating near the Dutch Lake resort of Nulude. The girl had been butchered in exactly the same manner as Adams.
A similar incident had occurred in Hamburg, Germany where a large number of Ghanaians and other West Africans live and work. Dutch police were collaborating with German authorities at the time Adams’ body was discovered.
Expert forensic analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggests that Adams was almost from West Africa. He was circumcised at the age of 4-5 and experts say that it is in West Africa that babies are circumcised shortly after birth.
Police sources say they suspect that some rich West Africans might have imported Adams from West Africa, probably using a specialist witch doctor for the task. The witch doctor, they say, might have procured the boy in West Africa, perhaps paying a fee to his family in expectation of bringing him abroad.
According to European newspapers, these cases have prompted a continent-wide alert that African ritual killings have been imported to Europe. An international conference is said to have been held in the Dutch city of The Hague, to discuss the phenomenon.
For now the Scotland Yard Police say evidence points to West Africa as holding the answers to the riddles of Adams’ slaughter. The detectives hope to comb, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo and Benin after their visit to South Africa. The police have put a £50,000 reward for anybody who may come up with evidence of his relations and nationality.