Pioneering scientific police work has confirmed that an African boy whose torso was found in the Thames in 2001, was the victim of a voodoo-style ritual killing.
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And ground-breaking forensic work has even narrowed the location to one of three areas of the West African nation.
Now a senior detective and a Government forensic scientist have travelled to Nigeria to gather further evidence which they hope will not only lead them to the boy's home village but also to his identity.
Last night a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: 'The main thrust of the investigation is to try and identify who murdered Adam, and to do this we need to establish who he really is.'
It is the first time that the examination of radioactive isotopes has been used in a British criminal investigation. Isotope levels in bone reflect the geology of the area where someone has grown up.
The extraordinary forensic work also involved the detailed analysis of a sinister substance in the boy's stomach which has now been positively identified as a 'black magic' potion.
Scientists also made a microscopic examination of pollen found in his lungs and intestine which proved he had been in the London area for at least 72 hours before his death.
Detectives think he was brought to Britain specifically for a human sacrifice.
Speculation that the killing involved witchcraft has been rife since the black boy's body - without head, arms or legs - was found in the Thames near London's Globe Theatre on September 21, 2001 by a man walking across Tower Bridge.
Police frogmen also recovered a set of candles wrapped in a cotton sheet. Daubed in felt tip on the sheet was a West African name - Adekoyejo Fola Adeoye. Part of the name was also on the candles.
A post-mortem revealed another potentially vital clue. In the boy's stomach was a concoction of minerals and vegetable matter, which police suspected was fed to him as part of the ritual killing.
Forensic tests revealed that 'Adam, was a five or six-year-old boy from Nigeria who had been poisoned 48 hours before his death and was paralysed but conscious when he was killed.
Officers believe his death was a ritualistic killing and he had been poisoned with an extract from the carabar bean.
The potion included tiny clay pellets containing small particles of pure gold, a clear indication that Adam was Britain's first-known victim of a Muti ritual killing, prevalent in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Muti murders are carried out in the belief that the body parts of children are sacred. They command large sums for use in medicines said to provide good luck, virility and business success. The bodies are often disposed of in flowing water.
Much of the scientific analysis-in the Adam case has been conducted by Professor Ken Pye, head of the forensic geoscience unit at Royal Holloway University of London, who also worked on the Sarah Payne murder inquiry.
The only clothing on Adam was a pair of orange shorts, exclusively sold in Woolworths in Germany and Austria.
Det Insp Will O'Reilly, who is leading the investigation and who earlier this year travelled to Johannesburg in South Africa in the hunt for clues, has been liaising with his counterparts in Germany and Belgium over two similar child deaths.
A black teenager was found dead from an apparent ritual killing in Frankfurt while the mutilated torso of a white child was found in Belgium.
A 31- year- old asylum seeker of West African origin, was questioned was arrested in connection with his death in July 2002,after clothes in her Glasgow tower-block flat were found to have come from the same shop as Adam's shorts. but she was deported to Nigeria months later.
Mrs Asaguede came to police attention after social workers became increasingly alarmed at her boasts about knowledge of human sacrifice.
DNA tests have since established that Mrs Asaguede is not Adam's natural mother but detectives are still anxious to trace her husband and to establish the whereabouts of their own young son.
The couple, who also have two daughters, aged six and seven, had lived in South London but are also known to have connections in Germany. Mrs Asaguede is on police bail pending further inquiries.
In December 2001 a £50,000 reward was offered for any information leading to the successful conviction of those responsible, and in April 2002 Nelson Mandela made a global appeal for information about the murder.
Ten years on Det Ch Insp Dunn said they would continue to do all they could to bring Adam's killers to justice.
"This is a case which is hugely important for the people of London and the people of Nigeria that we successfully conclude this investigation.
"We must not have any further cases of people being brought into the country for criminal slaughter."
"If you do bring trafficked people and those people come to harm, then we will leave no stone unturned in seeking you out," he warned.
Word for the day;“The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
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