The torso in the Thames mystery: How voodoo murder that saw boy, 5, decapitated and dumped in the river remains unsolved 25 years later as police urge witnesses to come forward

The longest unsolved child murder case in modern British history may still be answered because ‘someone out there knows what happened’, a retired detective has said.

‘Man’ was the name given by Scotland Yard to a young boy whose dismembered body was found in the River Thames in London on 21 September 2001.

Despite an investigation that took police to South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany and Nigeria, 25 years later the child’s identity remains unknown and no one has been charged.

Adam, thought to be a Nigerian boy aged five or six, is believed to have been smuggled to the UK via Germany and then killed in a ritualistic killing.

His decapitated and dismembered body was found near the Globe Theatre, prompting several high-profile appeals, including from then-South African President Nelson Mandela.

Now, Channel 5’s new documentary ‘The Corpse in the River’, airing next Thursday, re-examines Adam’s heartbreaking and disturbing story.

Although a number of people were arrested, no charges were ever brought in relation to the murder; But police still believe the evidence they need is somewhere in London.

Former Metropolitan Police commander Andy Baker, who worked on the investigation, told the program the case could still be solved.

A photo purporting to be Adam was published in 2011, but the claim was retracted a year later

A police officer shows a pair of shorts found on Adam’s torso when he was discovered in 2001

He said: ‘When you think about what that child has been through, someone out there knows what happened. The murderer himself or the people involved in the murder? There must be a crime scene somewhere. And in London.

‘There must have been a place where Adam was laid upside down, bent over, left upside down and then brutally dismembered and his throat cut so violently.

‘There will still be traces of blood in that facility, so even now I’m appealing to anyone who knows anything. If they know where he is, we can go and get the forensic evidence. And then it starts again.”

The boy’s body was found by a passing businessman named Aidan Minter, who noticed him walking across Tower Bridge just ten days after the September 11 attacks.

At first he thought it was a tailor’s dummy, but he realized it was the dismembered and decapitated body of a child, which the police pulled out of the water.

The investigation revealed that the black boy may have remained in the water for up to ten days after his throat was cut. His arms, legs and head were completely amputated.

Police had few clues about his identity other than the orange shorts he was wearing but appealed for help from the public, including Crimewatch.

Around 60 people called the BBC program to help and detectives offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a murder conviction.

Police also carried out groundbreaking work on body DNA and pollen samples, with advice from expert pathologists from as far away as Africa.

Officers found the boy was drugged with a ‘black magic’ potion and sacrificed in a voodoo-style ritual murder before being thrown into the River Thames.

They used pioneering techniques to trace radioactive isotopes in his bones back to his native Nigeria and even asked Mandela to appeal for information, which he did.

However, although they went to Nigeria to trace his family, they always had difficulty in identifying the child. On detailed analysis of the substance in the child’s stomach, it was determined to be a potion containing small lumps of clay containing small particles of pure gold.

Former Metropolitan Police commander Andy Baker, who worked on the man investigation, said in a new documentary on Channel 5 that the case could still be solved 25 years later.

Graphic created by Scotland Yard detectives investigating Adam’s murder in 2001

ITV News tracked down Joyce Osagiede in Nigeria in 2011 and said the boy in the photo was Adam and his real name was Ikpomwosa, but she retracted this claim a year later.

This suggested that Adam had been subjected to a Muti ritual murder in which body parts of a victim were removed and used as ‘medicine’ by witch doctors, based on the belief that children’s body parts were sacred. The bodies are then often thrown into running water.

Another theory, linked to Yoruba beliefs in Nigeria, is that it was a human sacrifice offered to the goddess Oshun, often associated with water and fertility.

Police made a breakthrough in July 2002 when social workers in Glasgow were alerted to the safety of two girls living with their African mother, Joyce Osagiede.

He had ceremonial objects in his home and spoke about cults, murders and sacrifices at a family court hearing; This led to police searching his property.

Detectives found clothes labeled ‘Kids & Company’, identical to those on Adam’s shorts, and in the same size as his clothes. Osagiede was later arrested.

Officers never charged him, but by December of that year police determined his birthplace to be a strip of land around Benin City in Nigeria, Osagiede’s hometown.

German police discovered that he was living in Hamburg until late 2001; The city where the orange shorts found on Adam’s body are believed to have been purchased.

Osagiede was deported after the Ministry of Internal Affairs rejected his asylum application, but disappeared after arriving in Lagos on a chartered private jet.

Officers detected him communicating with a man named Mousa Kamara on his phone and found evidence of Nigerian rituals known as Juju at the man’s London home.

Kamara, whose real name was revealed to be Kingsley Ojo, was arrested but released on bail as there was no evidence directly linking him to Adam’s murder.

However, police accused Ojo of smuggling and using forged documents to obtain passports and driving licences. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Kingsley Ojo was arrested but released on bail because there was no evidence directly linking him to Adam’s murder. However, the police charged Ojo with other crimes and he was jailed.

Detective Inspector Will O’Reilly and John Azah lay a wreath for Adam on the River Thames in 2002

While in prison, Ojo contacted the police and said he wanted to help find the killer and give them information for two years after his release. But officers eventually decided they could not trust him and he was deported back to Nigeria in 2008.

By 2011, another lead emerged when police searched Osagiede’s belongings left with a friend in Germany and found a 2001 photograph of a boy aged about five.

ITV News tracked down Osagiede in Nigeria and claimed that the boy in the photo was Adam and his real name was Ikpomwosa. He said he looked after it and then gave it to a man named Bawa. However, detectives were unable to positively identify the child.

A year later, Osagiede’s brother Victor contacted BBC News and said that the boy in the photo was not actually Adam or ‘Ikpomwosa’. A reporter went to Benin City and found Osagiede, but he seemed confused and gave Adam two more names.

Osagiede also stated that someone in the photo is actually ‘Bawa’, which is Ojo’s picture. The BBC later tracked down Ojo in Nigeria but he continued to deny involvement in Adam’s murder and no evidence was found linking him to the crime.

Since 2013 the investigation has become a ‘cold case’ with no significant new lines of inquiry, and in 2020 Victor confirmed Osagiede’s death in Nigeria.

Police launched an appeal on the 20th anniversary and Detective Chief Inspector Kate Kieran said it was “incredibly sad and frustrating” that the case remained unsolved.

Speaking in 2021, he added: ‘We know people may not have wanted to speak at the time and may have remained loyal to the person or people involved.

‘But loyalties and relationships may have changed over the last 20 years and some people may now feel more comfortable talking to us.’

The case has remained unsolved ever since, but Scotland Yard hopes the documentary could change that. The Daily Mail has contacted the force for comment.

‘The Body In The Thames’ airs on Thursday at 22:00 on Channel 5