In the latest teenage killing, Shakilus Townsend was ambushed by masked teenage boys who attacked him with a baseball bat and a knife while a girl gang member looked on. As he lay dying on a street in south London, he called out for his mother.
London police have arrested more than 1,200 people and seized 528 knives during a six-week crackdown sparked by the growing number of teenage stabbings.
POLICE INQUIRY
Police on Saturday asked people to look out for two new Sony portable play stations which were stolen from the south London flat on the day of the double murder and there was media speculation the two victims were tortured to reveal the PIN numbers of their bank cards.
The explosion that alerted neighbours was caused by a fire accelerant that police believe was used to destroy evidence of the attack in which the science students were bound to chairs.
The pair were to return home this month after a three-month internship studying DNA at Imperial College London.
Police are investigating a possible link between the murders and a burglary at the apartment a week earlier in which a laptop computer was stolen. Experts found no evidence of forced entry on Sunday, suggesting keys might have been stolen earlier.
Police have received about 25 calls from the public and are hunting a white man seen fleeing the scene. Bouquets of flowers were being laid at the murder scene on Saturday.
Claude-Gilles Dussap, director of the Ecole Polytechnique de Clermont Ferrand, where the victims were in the second year of a three-year master's degree, told the Daily Mail: "I have had a number of calls from families saying they are scared about their son or daughter and want them to come home. They think London is dangerous."
Clermont Ferrand is one of France's most prestigious scientific institutions, and Dussap said of the students: "They were brilliant students, the ones you know will go on to great things. They were well-known and well-liked."
