A five-year-old boy found dead in a river near his home was described as “the kindest boy you could meet” by neighbours as two adults and a 13-year-old were questioned on suspicion of his murder.
Logan Mwangi, also known as Logan Williamson, was reported missing about 5.45am on Saturday and when police attended the home in Sarn, just outside Bridgend, south Wales, they found his body in the shallow Ogmore River, which passes about 400 yards from the property’s front door.
Logan was taken to Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend where it was confirmed that he had died.
On Saturday night police said that they were keeping an open mind as to what had led to the death. On Sunday night officers said that they had arrested a man aged 39, a woman aged 30 and a 13-year-old boy on suspicion of murder. They are being held at separate police stations and social services have been called in because of the age of the youngest suspect.
The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is ten. Police are not looking for anybody else in relation to the matter.
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Officers are believed to be reviewing images from a doorbell camera that had been attached to the front of Logan’s family’s ground floor flat.
Logan had been living on the edge of Pandy Park with his mother Angharad Williamson for about three years. The front-room window was filled with children’s drawings, including NHS rainbows and an Easter bunny.
Neighbours, who described Logan as a “cheeky chap”, said that his mother was the main resident but that her fiancé, Jay Cole, also lived there and the couple had had a baby daughter together in January last year.
A neighbour said: “She lived there with the little boy. Her partner seemed to come and go, we wouldn’t see him here all the time.
“She was pregnant before lockdown and we hadn’t seen her for a long time and when we saw her again she had had the baby.”
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The day before Logan was found dead he was seen kicking a football around with his stepfather on the patch of grass that separates the flat from the river.
Yesterday police officers were taking photographs inside and outside the property. Long stretches of the public footpaths along the river were closed off as searches were carried out.
Logan’s best friend from school, a five-year-old girl, arrived at the scene with her tearful mother to lay a card saying “I love you” on the heap of cuddly toys and flowers, which were added to by a steady stream of people.
Her mother, who did not want to be named, said: “Logan was very smart, intelligent, happy and polite. He was in the same school as my daughter and for the last few weeks he had Covid and was self-isolating. He was lovely — he had a smile that would light up the world.”
Logan was in a nursery class at Brynmenyn Primary School near by.
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Lois Shepherd, 25, left a cuddly toy chosen by her daughter Maisie-Rae, four. She said: “I’m just shocked and gobsmacked — this is such a small community, everyone is feeling the pain of what happened.”
Anyone with information has been urged to contact South Wales police.