Boy’s Kidnapers Asked Directions to Police Station

Police said Thursday that two boys who kidnaped a toddler were looking for a police station shortly before the boy was killed.

Detective Superintendent Albert Kirby, lead investigator in a case that has shocked Britain, said police believe 2-year-old James Bulger was killed last Friday evening, a few hours after he was led away from a shopping center.

“The more that witnesses come forward and the descriptions remain the same, the more I am now convinced that the abductors probably caused his death,” Kirby said Thursday.

The child’s battered body was found along a railroad track Sunday. No cause of death had been determined by Thursday, but police said he died before a train struck him.

The abduction was filmed by security cameras, and the two kidnapers have not been found.

Police officers said they have moved a 12-year-old boy questioned in connection with the murder, fearing he would be attacked by angry crowds that gathered outside his home. The adolescent was released from custody, and police said he had been cleared of any involvement in the murder.

Three people were held briefly by police after the murder. No one has been charged.

Security cameras at the shopping center and a nearby construction site captured pictures of James wandering away from his mother, then being led away by two boys believed to be between 11 and 13 years old.

Kirby said one witness saw James and the two boys at 4:45 p.m. Friday talking to an older woman, whom police were trying to find.

The witness overheard the youngsters ask the woman for directions to a police station, he said. The witness went up to the boys and “noticed the baby because although he looked very tired, he was of a very clean appearance,” Kirby said.

Kirby said that when she asked why they were going to the police station, the older boys replied: “We want to take this little boy there. We found him down by the Strand (shopping center).”