CHITRADURGA: An overdose of sleeping pills is said to be the reason for the deaths of five people of a family, whose skeletons were recovered on December 28, 2023, in Chitradurga.
Superintendent of police Dharmendra Kumar Meena in a press conference said the final report received by the district police from forensic experts suggested that death could be due to complications caused by nordazepam and oxazepam drugs found in sleeping pills. However, the exact cause of death could not be determined.
Further he said that the forensic experts collected as many as 71 items as samples from the house for analysis. A study of the soft tissues of the skeletons showed the presence of drugs, he said.
Apart from this, the utensils from the house were also collected from the kitchen, which showed traces of cyanide ions. But the cyanide ions were not found in the soft tissues of the skeletons. There is no material to suggest that they consumed cyanide, he said.
Responding to a call by neighbours of the abandoned house on December 29, the police barged inside the building on Challakere Road in Chitradurga, where they found as many as five skeletons. The house had remained locked since 2019. Based on a complaint filed by a relative of the family residing in the house, the deceased were identified as retired executive engineer Jagannath Reddy (80), an native of Dodda Siddavvanahalli, his wife Premaleela, their children Krishna Reddy, Narendra Reddy and Triveni.
SP Meena said, after the incident came to light, the forensic experts from Davangere and Bengaluru visited the spot and collected samples for analysis. The post-mortem was conducted by Dr Venu and Dr Krishna of the Forensic Medicine Department at Basaveshwara Medical College in Chitradurga.
No bone fractures
The final report from the analysis confirmed that there were no bone fractures. The police investigation and the opinion of the experts suggested that the death could have occurred somewhere between the last week of February and the first week of March in 2019. Forensic experts also reported that the deaths occurred about four-and-a-half to five years ago,” he said.
Speaking to TNIE, Pawan Kumar said, “Jagannath Reddy (80) is my relative. However, the entire family was not in touch with the extended family, hence we never went to their house and for the past several years Jagannath Reddy and his children were not even seen. The skeletons found may be of Jagannath, his wife and children. They might have died long back.”