Police hunt for witnesses after widow is bound, killed and set alight in her home

A pensioner who had just taken her grandchildren to school was bound at the wrists and ankles, murdered and then set alight in her home, Scotland Yard said yesterday.

Detectives investigating the "horrific and senseless'' murder of Victoria Adu-Mensah, 83, in south London, are investigating the possibility she was killed after a break-in went wrong. They are also looking at links to other attacks on elderly people in the area.

Mrs Adu-Mensah, a widow with three adult children, who shared her ground-floor flat on an estate in Brixton with her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, was found dead by firefighters called to the blaze on Thursday morning.

Detectives appealed yesterday for witnesses. They said that at about 8.40am on Thursday, after her daughter and son-in-law had left for work, Mrs Adu-Mensah accompanied her two grandchildren along Loughborough Road in Brixton to a lollipop lady.

Mrs Adu-Mensah's nine-year-old granddaughter had black trousers and was wearing a red coat, while her grandson, six, was wearing a navy blue coat and grey trousers.

Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Shepherd said: "People will remember Mrs Adu-Mensah as she walked extremely slowly." He said Mrs Adu-Mensah's "hard-working, law-abiding family" was absolutely distraught and shocked at the nature of the crime. Detectives said Mrs Adu-Mensah had returned to the flat after about five minutes. Neighbours saw smoke just under an hour later. Officers said they were looking for a murder weapon, but refused to speculate on the cause of death.

A post mortem revealed that Mrs Adu-Mensah died of suffocation after being gagged, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said.

Residents said four other elderly people close by had been attacked or had homes broken into in recent months and the area was overrun by drug addicts. Wesley Stephenson, with the Lambeth Police Consultative Group, said the killing had "shocked the community and put everyone on alert". Some people were scared of street crime in the area, others had complained about the drug problem but "nothing on this scale" had ever happened.

The group would be spearheading a drive to help improve the safety of its elderly and vulnerable residents, he said. "We will be looking at security provision for the elderly in the borough, hoping to make contact with the elderly and associated agencies to help those who are vulnerable.

"In this case, we will be trying to reach people who would not normally come forward to help the police. The killers must be caught."

Mrs Adu-Mensah was a widow. She moved from Ghana about eight years ago.