"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.
Dubbed "Adam" by police officers,[1] the unidentified remains belonged to a black male, around four to eight years old, who had been wearing orange girls' shorts.
[2][3] Further forensic testing examined his stomach contents and trace minerals in his bones[5] to establish that Adam had only been in the United Kingdom for a few days or weeks before he was murdered,[5] and that he likely came from a region of southwestern Nigeria near Benin City[1] known as the birthplace of voodoo.
[3] Unable to find a match for Adam in databases of missing children in Britain and Europe, investigators made requests to the public for assistance.
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.
[4] 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.
[4] In July 2002, a Nigerian woman arrived in the United Kingdom from Germany, claiming to have fled from a Yoruba cult that practised ritual murders.