A coroner has recorded an open verdict on a student who went missing and was later found drowned in a pond in Epping Forest, saying, “We are in the realms of speculation.”
Richard Okorogheye, 19, was found in Wake Valley pond on Apr. 5, 2021, two weeks after he left his home in Ladbroke Grove, west London, on the evening of March 22.
At the time his mother, Evidence Joel, criticised the police’s handling of the missing person inquiry and said because he had sickle cell anaemia and had left home without his medication he should have been treated as a more urgent priority.
But when the inquest began in Chelmsford on Monday, the coroner, Sean Horstead, said he had reduced the scope of the hearing because the evidence suggested, on the balance of probabilities, the teenager was dead before his mother filed the missing person’s report at 6:51 p.m. on March 23.
Mr. Horstead said it would remain a mystery how Mr. Okorogheye, a computer studies student at Oxford Brookes University, ended up in the water.
On Tuesday the inquest heard Mr. Okorogheye left his home 8:34 p.m. on March 22, after his mother left for her night shift as a nurse.
Sex Worker Said Student was in ‘Good Spirits’
The sex worker, who was not named at the inquest, said he was “in good spirits” and told her he was going to call his mother in the taxi home.But instead he took a minicab to Loughton in Essex, where he was dropped off at 12:29 a.m., about a mile from the pond.
Minicab driver Mohammed Halas said Mr. Okorogheye “appeared well, didn’t engage in conversation, just sat in the back of the car listening to something on his earphones.”
Ms. Joel had told the inquest on Monday she had no relatives or friends in Loughton or Epping and was not aware of his son knowing anyone in the area.
The inquest heard Apple had examined the student’s iPhone and found evidence which said its last use was at around 2 a.m. on March, 23, 2021 when it sent an “electronic handshake,” checking in with the network by satellite. The iPhone was later found in the pond.
Mr. Horstead said: “We will sadly never know why he was in Epping and why he walked to that destination. We will also not know how he found himself in the water. We are in the realms of speculation. It’s possible he tripped and fell.”
He said: “What we do know from the evidence is he wasn’t a swimmer, didn’t like water and encouraged his mother to facilitate him not having to do swimming lessons. It adds to the mystery of how he found himself on the edge of this small lake and found himself tragically and fatally in the waters.”
Mr. Horstead said he was sure there was no “third-party involvement” in Mr. Okorogheye’s death.
Mother Praised for ‘Strength and Fortitude’
He offered his “most sincere condolences” to Mr. Okorogheye’s mother and praised her “strength and fortitude.”In July 2022, Ms. Joel rejected an apology from the Metropolitan Police, which accepted a report by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) that said she had received a “substandard level of service.”
Ms. Joel said one of the police operators said to her words with the effect of, “If you can’t find your son, how do you expect us to?”
But the Met denied it had acted any differently because of Mr. Okorogheye’s ethnicity and the IOPC report said there was no evidence of racism.
Mr. Horstead said there were “lessons to be learned” from the case for the police but he said it appeared steps had already been taken by the Met, including the setting up of a centralised hub for vulnerable missing persons, which is due to become active by the end of the year.
He said he had decided there was no need for him to write a prevention of future deaths report.
