Missing kids: Police search for murder clues

IG, Abubakar

The Lagos State Police Command police authorities on Wednesday began a search for new clues to determine if the missing toddlers found dead after 39 days were victims of murder and not accident as initial theory suggested.

It was leant that police authorities were insisting that although the state of the corpses of the kids suggested that they suffocated in a vehicle, they still might have been murdered.

The theory on Tuesday was that the three-year-old kids, Falilu Tajudeen and Toheeb Adedokun, strayed from their home at 18 Taike Street and accidentally got trapped inside a Sport Utility Vehicle in the next building and later suffocated.

Our correspondent, however, learnt on Wednesday that the investigation was intensified as the corpses of the toddlers were taken to Ikorodu General Hospital Mortuary for autopsy.

A police officer, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said, “The cause of the deaths would be determined by the autopsy. If the result shows that the children died of hunger or suffocation, then we can assume that they actually died in that car but if the cause of death is strangulation or otherwise, then we’ll know that the children were killed and later dumped inside the car.

“We have taken the pictures of the car and are still carrying out investigation. We will get to the root of the matter but we have not ruled out homicide.”

PUNCH Metro had reported on January 30, 2013 that shortly after the children were declared missing, the police had arrested a man who claimed to know the whereabouts of the children.

A police source said the suspect was still in custody because it could not be ruled out that he had a hand in the death of the toddlers.

Another source at the Ketu Police Division, who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, however said the children may not have been murdered but died because no one deemed it fit to search thoroughly the compound where they were later found.

He said, “The vehicle was used as collateral and nobody went near it. The glass is also tinted so no one would have seen them even if they had checked from the window.”

Meanwhile, it was learnt that the two employees of the bank, Phillip Odi and Julius Odetola, were still being quizzed by detectives.

When contacted on the telephone, the spokesperson for the state police command, Ngozi Braide, said investigations were ongoing but she confirmed that it was too early to rule out murder.

“Investigations are ongoing but it is too early to say if they (toddlers) were murdered or not,” she said.

PUNCH