Villupuram police figure out murder passed off as mishap

Villupuram: The Villupuram police have unraveled the shocking facts behind the gory death of a couple and son in a bedroom blaze late night of May 15. What was earlier assumed to be a tragic accident due to electric short circuit in the air-conditioner has turned out to be murder committed by the couple’s elder son who decided to eliminate all of them due to bitter anger that the parents had planned a lavish wedding for his brother whereas his was a simple affair.

Accused Govardhan, 33, and his wife have been arrested and will be produced before a magistrate at Tindivanam court for remand on Monday.

They said 60-year-old welder Raji, his wife Kalaiselvi and younger son Gouthaman were sleeping in one of the bedrooms while elder son Govardhan and daughter-in-law Deepa Gayatri were using the other bedroom in their house at Subbarayan street. A fire broke out in the bedroom occupied by Raji late that night and Govardhan called the police and fire service. The fire service personnel doused the flames after some battle and the team found all three occupants charred.

Govardhan told the police he woke up when he heard noises and someone screaming. He rushed out of his room to find the noises coming from his father’s bedroom but when he tried to help, he found the door locked from inside, so they could not save the three occupants.

Initially, the police believed the story but  changed their diagnosis when they found the smell of petrol and also pieces of glass. When the reports of the autopsy came, the sleuths were shocked to learn that the old man had cut wounds on his body. The post-mortem doctors also confirmed that Raji had not died due to the blaze but because of heavy blood loss, obviously from the cut wounds.

Villupuram SP S Jeyakumar said that the strong smell of petrol and the broken glass, plus the autopsy report, called the bluff in Govardhan’s story. Besides, the technicians found there was nothing wrong with the air-conditioner and there was no short circuit.

Govardhan finally confessed his crime, telling the interrogators he had left beer bottles filled with petrol and a cotton wick stuffed into them in his father’s bedroom the previous night. When he lit them in the night to “finish off all the three in their sleep”, his father woke up and tried to run out for help. He caught him and stabbed him multiple times. The old man collapsed bleeding while the other two perished in the blaze.

Govardhan told the police he nursed a grudge against his parents as they pampered Gouthaman throughout. The last straw was when his marriage was fixed for later this month on a lavish scale whereas his own performed sometime back was very ordinary. Also, there were serious differences with father over property issues. Though he insisted his wife did not participate in the murder, police have taken her too into custody as she was aware of the kill plot and she did nothing to stop her husband from carrying out the ghastly murders.