A teenage boy shot dead in his bed by two gunmen who broke into his home may have been a victim of mistaken identity, police said today.
Detectives said Michael Dosunmu, who had just celebrated his 15th birthday, was a quiet, church-going schoolboy whose background gave no clues as to why he would be targeted.
"Michael was an innocent boy who has been killed in cruel and tragic circumstances," said Chief Superintendent Malcolm Tillyer. "My heart goes out to his family."
The gunmen are thought to have specifically targeted the house in Peckham, but killed the wrong person, Scotland Yard said.
"We believe that they were targeting the premises, but it's possible that they weren't necessarily targeting him individually," a spokesman added. "It is possible that it wasn't him that they were after."
The killing was the third in three days in south London.
On Saturday, a 21-year-old man was stabbed to death close to the boy's home, while James Smartt-Ford, 16, was shot dead a few miles away at Streatham ice rink. Police have not linked the deaths.
Two gunmen burst into Dosunmu's house in the early hours of yesterday and shot him in his bed, the family's vicar said.
"His father told me that his daughter heard a gunshot, then a bang, as somebody kicked the door open and came in to the house," the Reverend Julius Shabiaba, of the Celestial Church of Christ, told the Daily Mail newspaper.
"They went to her bedroom, so she covered her head with the duvet. They came in and pulled the bedclothes off, but she pretended she was sleeping.
"Maybe they knew who they were looking for, because they went out and did the same to her brother Michael - but then shot him in his bed."
He was a "perfect sweet and gentle boy", he added.
Police are hunting two suspects who ran from the scene. Detectives from Operation Trident, set up to tackle gun crime and drug-related violence in London's black community, have begun an investigation.