NELLORE: A former employee and his accomplice have been held for the ghastly murder of a popular fast food centre-owning couple during early hours of August 28 at Ashoknagar in Padarupalli area of Nellore.
The couple killed was Vasireddy Krishna Rao, 54, and Suneetha, 50, belonging to Krishna district. They had migrated to Nellore 25 years ago and had settled in Ashoknagar.
According to Nellore district SP Ch. Vijaya Rao, main accused Mannuru Siva Kumar, 26, belonging to Utukuru village in Sydapuram mandal, had been working at the fast-food centre for over 10 years. As he had gained the couple’s confidence, they had also let him do their household work. This gave him an insight into financial dealings of the couple.
Notwithstanding his closeness to owners, Siva Kumar began nursing a grudge against Krishna Rao’s wife Suneetha after she thrashed him for not making a chapati properly at the fast food centre some time ago.
The festering grudge and knowledge of sizeable cash in the house led to Siva Kumar devising a plot with his friend K. Ramakrishna, 22, of Utukuru, to rob the house assuming that ₹20 lakh will be available in the house. The duo recced the house several times and attempted to rob the house on August 26. But dropped the idea, as they found the couple sleeping inside the house and there was no scope for entering the house.
On August 27, Siva Kumar and Ramakrishna entered into the compound of the house in the night and hid there before Krishna Rao could arrive from the hotel. The owner came past midnight. Soon after he opened the door, the two hit him on the head with a stick. They then slit his throat with a pen knife to ensure he was dead. They took ₹10,000 found in the pocket of Krishna Rao.
They then broke open a cupboard on the first floor and found nothing. They came to the ground floor and first struck Suneetha too on the head, while she was asleep in the bedroom. The blow killed her instantly. The offenders robbed ₹1.60 lakh found in a cupboard in the bedroom and left the house. They took care to avoid CCTV cameras in the area. After reaching home in Ramakotinagar, Ramakrishna took ₹90,000 and Siva Kumar ₹70,000.
Subsequent to the murder, Siva Kumar remained with the family members of the couple and attended their funeral in Krishna district.
In the interim, as part of their investigation, investigators had picked up fingerprints of all workers in the hotel, including Siva Kumar. They tallied the prints with those they picked up from the crime scene. Fingerprints’ wing alerted police about Siva Kumar prints matching those found on the scene.
After police grilled Siva Kumar in their own style, the latter spilled the beans. He took the investigators to the house of Ramakrishna, who had purchased a few electronic goods for his house and handed over ₹43,000 cash to his wife claiming that he had borrowed the money from financiers. In all, police seized ₹83,000 cash and three mobile phones from the possession of offenders.
Nellore SP appreciated Vedayapalem police led by circle inspector K. Narasimha Rao and the investigating team for cracking the mystery behind the double murder.
