The Adeoshun Murders of 1884 began with disappearances that deeply unsettled Lagos and ended with a triple murder conviction that attracted attention far beyond West Africa. At the centre of the case was Adeoshun, a refugee from Dahomey whose activities came under police scrutiny following the disappearance of Mrs Selina Cole.
The investigation led officers towards Ikoyi Road, where human remains were discovered in the bush. Property belonging to Cole was also found at Adeoshun’s residence. He was ultimately convicted of murdering three women, Mrs Selina Cole, her sister Abati and Mrs Catherine Clegg, and was subsequently hanged.
Those events alone made the case remarkable. Yet the story grew much larger when reports reached Britain and were reproduced by newspapers in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Some accounts claimed that twelve skeletons had been discovered and portrayed Adeoshun as responsible for the deaths of numerous women.
What began as a Lagos murder investigation had become an international crime sensation.
Lagos Was Already Worried About Crime
The Adeoshun case emerged at a time when residents of Lagos were already openly concerned about security and the effectiveness of the colonial police.
In January 1884, clergy, merchants, traders and other residents participated in efforts to draw the attention of the colonial authorities to problems affecting the settlement. Among their concerns were inadequate police protection and crimes including murder, arson and burglary.
The complaints were directed through the colonial administration to Britain, where Lord Derby was serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies.
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Historian Tekena N. Tamuno later placed the Adeoshun affair within this wider atmosphere of public anxiety. His history of policing in Nigeria records concern in Lagos over unexplained disappearances of women during the years preceding the case.
When Selina Cole disappeared, therefore, the case touched an existing fear within the city. It was not merely another missing-person report. It became part of a wider public concern about whether the authorities could adequately protect Lagos residents.
The Disappearance of Selina Cole
According to Tamuno’s account, Mrs Selina Cole and her servant disappeared in 1884.
The police investigation was directed by Superintendent A. C. Willoughby.
Attention eventually turned to bush along Ikoyi Road. During the search, police discovered four skeletons. Tamuno records that the remains included those identified as Mrs Cole and her maid.
Investigators also found property belonging to Selina Cole at Adeoshun’s residence.
This discovery created an important connection between the missing woman and the man who would eventually stand trial for murder.
Adeoshun was described by Tamuno as a refugee from Dahomey who operated as a doctor, alchemist and conjurer. Women were apparently attracted by claims that he possessed unusual knowledge or powers associated with wealth.
The criminal proceedings that followed, however, centred on murder.
Adeoshun was convicted of killing Selina Cole, her sister Abati and Catherine Clegg.
A contemporary newspaper account credited to the London Standard reported that his trial took place on 9 July 1884. According to that account, he faced three murder charges and was found guilty.
He was sentenced to death.
Tamuno records that Adeoshun was subsequently hanged.
The Woman Asked to Meet Adeoshun at 4 a.m.
One of the most striking episodes associated with the case concerns another woman who had dealings with Adeoshun before his arrest.
One surviving newspaper version gives her name as Idown, although variations appeared as the report was reproduced in different newspapers.
According to the account, the woman visited Adeoshun and was shown objects which he represented as having the ability to increase wealth. One demonstration reportedly involved the claim that a shilling could be made into two.
She later returned to his house carrying £10, beads and cloth.
Adeoshun then allegedly instructed her to obtain two fowls, two bottles of rum, white cloth and two kola nuts.
She was told to meet him near Ikoyi Road at four o’clock in the morning.
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She was also reportedly instructed not to tell anyone about the appointment and to cover her face with the cloth.
The meeting did not take place.
Three days later, according to the contemporary report, Adeoshun was arrested.
The episode provides an important glimpse into the way Adeoshun may have persuaded women to enter vulnerable situations. A woman carrying money and goods was being directed towards an isolated early-morning meeting in the same general area where human remains were discovered.
The Story of the Blindfolded Victims
As news of the murders spread, newspapers published increasingly dramatic accounts of how Adeoshun was believed to have killed his victims.
One version described women being blindfolded and instructed to hold live fowls while kneeling before being struck with a heavy weapon.
The account appears to have developed from attempts to reconstruct what might have occurred during meetings similar to the one arranged with the woman who later testified.
She had reportedly been instructed to bring fowls and other items, cover her face with white cloth and meet Adeoshun near Ikoyi Road before dawn.
She did not, however, witness another woman being killed.
The grisly description of victims kneeling blindfolded with fowls in their hands subsequently became one of the most memorable elements of the international newspaper story.
It also helped transform what was already a serious murder case into the kind of sensational colonial crime story that attracted nineteenth-century newspaper readers.
The Mystery of the Four and Twelve Skeletons
One of the most enduring questions surrounding the Adeoshun Murders of 1884 concerns the number of human remains discovered.
Tamuno, drawing on contemporary Lagos reporting, states that police found four skeletons in bush along Ikoyi Road.
Newspapers overseas carried a much larger figure.
The account reproduced in the Savannah Morning News in September 1884 claimed that twelve skeletons had been discovered. A similar version later appeared in New Zealand’s Timaru Herald.
The international reports also connected three of the remains with the women named in the prosecution.
It is possible that additional remains were discovered as searches continued, although surviving accounts do not provide a clear sequence showing when such further discoveries may have occurred.
What is certain from the criminal proceedings is that Adeoshun was convicted of three murders: those of Selina Cole, Abati and Catherine Clegg.
The larger figure of twelve became part of the international story and contributed greatly to the notoriety of the case.
From Lagos to Newspapers Around the World
The transformation of the Adeoshun murders into an international sensation reflected the growing speed with which information could travel through the nineteenth-century British Empire.
Steamship connections carried news from West Africa to Britain. From British newspapers, stories could then be reproduced by publications across the English-speaking world.
By 22 September 1884, the Savannah Morning News in Georgia was publishing the case under the dramatic headline, “How a Magician Killed a Dozen Women at Lagos”, attributing its account to the London Standard.
On 4 November 1884, the Timaru Herald in New Zealand also carried a version of the story.
Descriptions of Adeoshun as a “magician”, “charmer” or “conjuror” fitted a wider nineteenth-century newspaper tendency to portray African religious and spiritual practices through language that emphasised mystery and exoticism.
Such descriptions made the story particularly attractive to foreign readers.
Yet stripped of that sensational vocabulary, the underlying events were recognisable elements of a criminal investigation: women had disappeared, human remains were discovered, a missing woman’s property was traced to a suspect, witnesses were questioned, a prosecution followed and three murder convictions were secured.
Selina Cole, Abati and Catherine Clegg
The international fame of Adeoshun’s name has often overshadowed the three women whose murders resulted in his conviction.
They were Selina Cole, Abati and Catherine Clegg.
Their deaths occurred during a period when Lagos was developing rapidly as a commercial centre under British colonial rule.
Merchants, clergy, traders, journalists and other residents were increasingly participating in public discussions about government, policing and security.
The murders therefore belonged to a larger story about urban life in nineteenth-century Lagos.
Selina Cole’s disappearance became the event that brought police attention decisively towards Adeoshun. The discovery of her property at his residence strengthened the case against him, while the search around Ikoyi Road uncovered human remains that deepened public alarm.
Abati and Catherine Clegg subsequently became part of the murder prosecution that ended with Adeoshun’s conviction.
Remembering their names restores the victims to the centre of a story frequently dominated by descriptions of the murderer.
What the Murders Revealed About Policing in Lagos
The case also became significant in the history of policing.
Lagos residents had already expressed dissatisfaction with the protection available to them before Adeoshun was arrested.
The murders appeared to confirm some of those anxieties.
Police under Superintendent Willoughby ultimately secured a major prosecution, but the case revealed the scale of the challenges facing law enforcement in a growing colonial settlement.
The fears surrounding disappearances of women were especially disturbing because they suggested that some crimes might have continued without detection for considerable periods.
The investigation also demonstrated the growing role of newspapers in shaping public understanding of crime.
The Lagos Observer recorded developments for local readers, while newspapers thousands of miles away turned the case into a dramatic international story.
The same murders therefore existed in two different public worlds: one experienced by Lagos residents concerned about security, and another presented to foreign readers as an extraordinary tale from West Africa.
The Lasting Story of the Adeoshun Murders
The Adeoshun Murders of 1884 remain among the most disturbing criminal episodes recorded in nineteenth-century Lagos.
Selina Cole disappeared. Superintendent A. C. Willoughby directed the police investigation. Human remains were found in bush near Ikoyi Road, and property belonging to Cole was discovered at Adeoshun’s residence.
Adeoshun was convicted of murdering Selina Cole, her sister Abati and Catherine Clegg.
He was sentenced to death and subsequently hanged.
Reports of the case then travelled around the world, becoming increasingly dramatic as newspapers described twelve skeletons, mysterious ceremonies and an alleged method of killing involving blindfolded women and live fowls.
The result was a story that combined a genuine Lagos murder prosecution with the sensational style of nineteenth-century international journalism.
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Conclusion
The Adeoshun murders were both a major criminal case and an important episode in the social history of colonial Lagos.
The disappearance of Selina Cole triggered an investigation that led police to Adeoshun, to human remains near Ikoyi Road and to property belonging to the missing woman. The subsequent prosecution ended with convictions for the murders of Selina Cole, Abati and Catherine Clegg.
The case also exposed the fears of Lagos residents at a time when public complaints about crime and policing were already being voiced.
When the story travelled abroad, it acquired another life. Newspapers transformed the Lagos murders into a spectacular international tale filled with claims of magic, ritual and twelve victims.
Behind those headlines were three named women whose deaths brought Adeoshun to the gallows and left one of nineteenth-century Lagos’s most haunting criminal stories.
Author’s Note
The Adeoshun murders show how a criminal case can illuminate far more than the actions of one offender. The deaths of Selina Cole, Abati and Catherine Clegg unfolded in a Lagos already debating crime, policing and the responsibilities of colonial government. The worldwide newspaper attention that followed also shows how African events were frequently reshaped for foreign audiences through sensational language and exotic imagery. At the centre of the story, however, remain the three women whose murders resulted in Adeoshun’s conviction and whose names deserve to be remembered as part of the history of nineteenth-century Lagos.
References
Tekena N. Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria, 1861–1965: Origins, Development, and Role. Ibadan University Press, 1970, pp. 26–27.
Lagos Observer, 19 June, 17 July and 11 September 1884, cited in Tekena N. Tamuno, The Police in Modern Nigeria, 1861–1965.
“How a Magician Killed a Dozen Women at Lagos”, Savannah Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 22 September 1884, reproducing an account attributed to the London Standard.
Timaru Herald, Timaru, New Zealand, 4 November 1884, contemporary report on the Adeoshun case.
British Parliamentary Papers, correspondence relating to public grievances and policing in Lagos, 1884–1885.
