KOCHI: Scanning the crime scene is vital in any investigation. Old-school sleuths swear by the belief that clues left behind by the preparator can help crack even the most complex cases. It was such a meticulous examination of the crime spot that recently led to the arrest of a man, who had murdered his wife and tried to portray it as a case of suicide, at Eruveli near Chottanikkara in Kochi.
It was Christmas night. A phone call from a private hospital alerted officers at the Chottanikkara police station about a woman who had been taken there dead with injuries on her neck. Shaiju, the 37-year-old husband of the deceased Shari, spun a tale of his wife’s purported suicide. However, scepticism gripped the investigators, prompting Ernakulam Rural Police Chief Vaibhav Saxena to assemble a dedicated team led by Puthencruz DySP T B Vijayan.
An officer, who was part of the probe, says Vijayan insisted on recording the husband’s statements again. “Shaiju initially claimed his wife had fainted, but gave another at the hospital. He wove a twisted narrative of Shari hanging herself using a dupatta when he left the house to buy liquor to celebrate Christmas,” the officer recalls.
“Shaiju claimed that the door was locked from inside when he returned home. On breaking into the house, he found Shari hanging from a roof beam. He then rushed her to the hospital. That was his version.”
The officers were not convinced. And, on scrutinising the crime scene, several inconsistencies emerged. “The room told a different story,” says the officer. “The distance from the beam to the floor was 2.18m. The combined length of the two dupattas used for hanging was about 5m. That math didn’t align with the suicide narrative. Something was amiss.”
The crime scene divulged more clues that pointed toward a case of murder. The dupattas and the latches of the door were intact. “The weight of the deceased woman was about 70 kg. So while cutting her free, the dupatta would have ripped apart. However, in this case, the dupatta edges were straight-cut,” says the officer. “Similarly, had the door been forcefully opened, the latch would have broken or bent. But it was intact.”
Suspicion mounted as the officers noted that the saliva that frothed out of the deceased woman’s mouth had dripped towards her ear. “Had it been a case of death by hanging, the saliva would have dripped downward, towards the floor,” explains the officer.
By that time, the autopsy report was submitted, and the police surgeon told investigators about strangulation and injury marks on the body. Shaiju was grilled again, and, this time, he claimed that he had quarreled with his wife before leaving the house. According to him, Shari drank from the liquor bottle he had stocked up to celebrate Christmas. They fought over that, and Shaiju headed out to buy another bottle. When he returned, the door was closed and she did not open the door.
“He kept changing his versions,” the officer recalls. “However, he eventually cracked and confessed as we told him his fingerprint was traced from the door latches, which revealed that he had been inside the house when Shari died.” According to the police, Shaiju and Shari had got married after separating from their former partners. “On Christmas night, when Shaiju returned home, he found Shari chatting with a man in the neighbourhood. He suspected she was having an affair,” says the officer.
“Shaiju served Shari liquor. When she turned tipsy, he strangled her and stuffed a piece of cloth in her mouth. Later, he tried to portray it as a case of suicide.” Shaiju was arrested within two days after the incident. “It was the expertise and experience of DySP Vijayan that helped us solve the case,” he adds. “As taught in the police academy, all criminals leave some traces behind. Once we decipher the puzzles, justice prevails.”