The mother of a student found dead in a pond in Epping Forest said that she “just wants answers” as the police watchdog confirmed that it would examine the handling of the case.
Richard Okorogheye, 19, had been missing for two weeks when a body was found during extensive searches of the 6,000-acre woodland in Essex. Okorogheye’s mother, Evidence Joel, said today that she did not believe her son would have travelled deep into the forest of his own accord. He had sickle cell disease and did not take his medication with him.
Scotland Yard has made referrals to its directorate of professional standards and to the Independent Office for Police Conduct “as a matter of routine” because Okorogheye was reported missing before his body was found.
Joel has previously suggested that her son met someone online who had gained his trust. She asked how someone with his condition had been able to travel to Essex alone from the family home in Ladbroke Grove, west London. “It’s too far for Richard to walk into the darkness alone. How did he get there? We don’t know. I feel something happened there,” she said.
“The forest is massive and scary, it’s a place that one wouldn’t wish to go at night. It was not a very comfortable place to be,” she added, having visited the scene to lay flowers.
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Speaking publicly for the first time since the body was formally identified, Joel said: “My heart feels as if it has been ripped apart. I am completely hollow and devastated and empty. Life is already empty, there’s like a cloud just hovering around, it took the sun away from me. What am I going to look forward to? What is there to look forward to again?”
The cause of death is pending but the Metropolitan Police said it had found no evidence of physical trauma or assault.
Okorogheye left home at about 8.30pm on March 22. Police said further inquiries had established that he took a 20-mile taxi ride from the W2 area of London to a residential street in Loughton, Essex. He was last seen on CCTV in Loughton, walking alone on Smarts Lane towards Epping Forest at 12.39am on March 23. He was reported missing the next day. His death is being treated as unexplained and police do not believe any third party was involved.
The force said Okorogheye’s phone had not been used since his disappearance.
Joel said her son had spoken of “struggling to cope” with the pressure of studying IT at Oxford Brookes University and had been shielding during the pandemic. As someone with sickle cell disease Okorogheye would only leave the house to go to hospital for regular blood transfusions.
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His mother has said that she hopes to build a foundation in his name to support sufferers of sickle cell disease. Joel has thanked the public for donating to a fundraiser, set up by her cousin Blessing Okorji, to cover funeral costs and to build a memorial bench near where Okorogheye’s body was found.
