A 51-year-old woman was hacked to death at her house in a suspected case of murder for gain in Thiru Vi Ka Nagar on Thursday night. The woman’s gold jewellery weighing four sovereigns and `20,000 in cash were missing from the crime scene.
Police said Sumathi (51), wife of Krishnakumar, a Southern Railway employee with the Tiruchy Division, was found dead in her bed with multiple stab wounds to her neck and stomach, during the wee hours of Friday. Sumathi and her son Moulidharan (22) stayed in their first floor residence on Thiruvalluvar Street in Anbalagan Nagar in Thiru Vi Ka Nagar. Her husband was in Tiruchy on weekdays and visited the family during weekends.
On Thursday, Moulidharan, who works with an IT firm in Shenoy Nagar, left for work as usual around 10.30 pm and returned at 4.30 am. On his return, the 22-year-old called his mother from his cell phone to ask her to open the door — a practice that was followed every night. Since she didn’t answer his call on multiple attempts, Moulidharan pushed the door in a bid to break it open and was surprised to find it unlocked. He entered Sumathi’s bedroom and found her in a pool of blood.
On information, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar inspector S Ramanathan rushed to the spot and shifted the body to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital for post-mortem.
Neighbours told Express that Sumathi and her family had been living there for the past one-and-a-half years. “Sumathi would answer the door only after confirming through the peep hole that the person was known to her. She was very particular about that. We don’t know how the culprit entered the house and killed her,” a neighbour said.
A senior investigation officer said the culprit should have been a person known to the family since she let the person into the house. “The murderer stabbed her using a kitchen knife, probably lifted from the same house, but took it away after committing the crime. The culprit has decamped with four sovereigns of gold and `20,000 in cash. No fingerprints were lifted from the crime scene and the culprit did not go beyond the bedroom,” the police officer said.