A teenage university student was tied up, tortured and then viciously beaten and stabbed to death in his own home.

The body of Michael Alexander Jones, 18, was found by his mother on Thursday evening at their home in Edmonton, North London. He is the fourth teenager to be murdered in Edmonton this year although the latest incident is not believed to be linked with any of the others.

Detectives described the killing as a “vicious and horrendous attack” but are at a loss to explain why Mr Jones, a student in geography at Queen Mary’s University in East London, was murdered.

Yesterday the quiet street of Victorian terraced houses where the teenager lived with his mother in a flat remained cordoned off as forensic science teams worked at the scene.

Detective Chief Inspector John MacDonald, who is leading the investigation, said: “We’ve got no reason to understand why anyone would have inflicted this amount of violence upon him. We need to know did anyone see anyone coming in or out of that house, or see Michael.

At the moment there’s nothing to go on.

“Michael was a hardworking lad who had been studying hard at an East London University. He does not appear to have been in trouble before and at this early stage there seems to be no apparent motive.”

His mother, a personal assistant, returned to her home at 5.15pm on Thursday and found her son dead in his computer room. There was no sign of forced entry and nothing appeared to have been stolen.

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