Read Online The Most Evil Secret Societies in History by Shelley Klein - Free Book Online
Authors: Shelley Klein
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by another youngster, Bernard Ngoepe, who was out collecting some wood. Raising the alarm, an ambulance was called with the medics doing all they were able to save the young boy, but by the time a helicopter had arrived to rush him to hospital, Sello had slipped into a coma and ten days later he died.
Following the boyâs murder, all the children in Moletjie were, unsurprisingly, terrified. Steve Boggan reported that Bernard Ngoepe was so traumatized by what he discovered that he could barely speak for months after the incident and needed special counseling.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, police investigating the âAdamâ murder were continuing to draw a blank. Detectives had little to go on. After all, the body had no face, no fingerprints and no dental records which would normally help identify a corpse. No child of Adamâs age had been reported missing, nor were there any witnesses to his murder. The only clue police had to go on were a pair of orange (a lucky color in muti) shorts that the boy had been wearing. The label inside them was âKids & Co.,â a brand name for a British company, Woolworths, which owned a chain of stores in Germany. Amazingly, officers were able to trace the shorts back to a batch of 820 pairs in the age 5-7 bracket that had been sold throughout 320 German outlets, but after that, they again drew a blank.
A Sangoma sets out his stall in the West African state of Mali. Taken in the late 1950s, the photograph shows animal skulls for sale alongside plants and other items used to make healing or ritual potions.
Similarly, when police started questioning Londonâs Afro-Caribbean community, little progress was made. A thorough check was made on attendance records at over 3,000 nurseries and primary schools, but seemingly no child of Adamâs age had gone missing. The police even requested that the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, make a public broadcast subsequent to which a press conference was held in Johannesburg. Mr. Mandela said:
It seems likely that the boy might have come from Africa [â¦] I wish to direct my appeal specifically to people in Africa. If anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age, who might have disappeared around that time, 21 September 2001, please contact the police in London, either directly or through your local police [â¦] Such cruel wastage of the lives of our children and youth cannot be allowed to continue. 6
Despite such an impassioned plea, however, still no one stepped forward with any substantial information.
Not that all hope was lost, for with advances in technology a thorough examination of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, which is exclusively passed on from mothers to their children) of Adamâs remains did throw some light on his origins. Scientists compared Adamâs mtDNA to 6,000 sequences that had previously been garnered in other scientific studies, and found that Adamâs sequence matched neither those from southern Africa nor from eastern Africa, but only mtDNA from the north-western section of the country. Secondly, in order to narrow further the search for the boyâs origins, Ken Pye, a professor of soil geology at the University of London, was asked to join the operation and run a series of tests on Adamâs bone composition. The chemical strontium, which is present in soil and water, can work itself through the food chain from plants to animals and finally, when either of these are consumed, into human bones. Depending on where we originate, our bones also contain a strontium signature that should match our environment. Even if we move from one location to another, it takes approximately ten years for our strontium signature to change so that in the case of Adam, who was still only young, his bones would prove a vital clue to his place of birth. Professor Pye, having carried out the necessary tests, concluded that the young
Following the boyâs murder, all the children in Moletjie were, unsurprisingly, terrified. Steve Boggan reported that Bernard Ngoepe was so traumatized by what he discovered that he could barely speak for months after the incident and needed special counseling.
Meanwhile, back in Britain, police investigating the âAdamâ murder were continuing to draw a blank. Detectives had little to go on. After all, the body had no face, no fingerprints and no dental records which would normally help identify a corpse. No child of Adamâs age had been reported missing, nor were there any witnesses to his murder. The only clue police had to go on were a pair of orange (a lucky color in muti) shorts that the boy had been wearing. The label inside them was âKids & Co.,â a brand name for a British company, Woolworths, which owned a chain of stores in Germany. Amazingly, officers were able to trace the shorts back to a batch of 820 pairs in the age 5-7 bracket that had been sold throughout 320 German outlets, but after that, they again drew a blank.
A Sangoma sets out his stall in the West African state of Mali. Taken in the late 1950s, the photograph shows animal skulls for sale alongside plants and other items used to make healing or ritual potions.
Similarly, when police started questioning Londonâs Afro-Caribbean community, little progress was made. A thorough check was made on attendance records at over 3,000 nurseries and primary schools, but seemingly no child of Adamâs age had gone missing. The police even requested that the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, make a public broadcast subsequent to which a press conference was held in Johannesburg. Mr. Mandela said:
It seems likely that the boy might have come from Africa [â¦] I wish to direct my appeal specifically to people in Africa. If anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age, who might have disappeared around that time, 21 September 2001, please contact the police in London, either directly or through your local police [â¦] Such cruel wastage of the lives of our children and youth cannot be allowed to continue. 6
Despite such an impassioned plea, however, still no one stepped forward with any substantial information.
Not that all hope was lost, for with advances in technology a thorough examination of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, which is exclusively passed on from mothers to their children) of Adamâs remains did throw some light on his origins. Scientists compared Adamâs mtDNA to 6,000 sequences that had previously been garnered in other scientific studies, and found that Adamâs sequence matched neither those from southern Africa nor from eastern Africa, but only mtDNA from the north-western section of the country. Secondly, in order to narrow further the search for the boyâs origins, Ken Pye, a professor of soil geology at the University of London, was asked to join the operation and run a series of tests on Adamâs bone composition. The chemical strontium, which is present in soil and water, can work itself through the food chain from plants to animals and finally, when either of these are consumed, into human bones. Depending on where we originate, our bones also contain a strontium signature that should match our environment. Even if we move from one location to another, it takes approximately ten years for our strontium signature to change so that in the case of Adam, who was still only young, his bones would prove a vital clue to his place of birth. Professor Pye, having carried out the necessary tests, concluded that the young
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