Almost three years after the decomposed body of a woman, G. Latha (25), was found in a trunk box on April 20, 2011, at Virattipathu, a special team of police cracked the case on Friday. The team, led by Inspector of Police (Thilagar Thidal) K.T. Rajan Babu, arrested R. Sakthivel Murugan (32) and his friend S. Saravanan, both from Virattipathu.
On the fateful day, the woman, who had gone to a shop, did not return home. The S.S. Colony police registered a woman-missing case. Five days later, the police found the trunk box near a waterbody, in which they saw a highly-decomposed body of the woman. The probe into the murder had hit a roadblock. Subsequently, the case was handed over to the special team, which has been working on it for over a year now. The probe revealed that Murugan, a medical representative, had befriended the woman and invited her to his house. The woman, thinking that he was alone at home, went there. However, the woman found Murugan’s friend also there.
The police said after spending time in physical intimacy with the woman, Murugan insisted that she must ‘cooperate’ with his friend. “When Saravanan tried to sexually assault her, she resisted. In the melee, the woman fainted as her head hit the floor. The duo, in an inebriated state, strangulated her to death with her duppatta. They took off over seven sovereigns of gold from the body, packed it in the box and dumped it in an isolated spot,” they said.
The needle of suspicion turned towards Murugan while going through the records of criminals in the locality. Murugan had been arrested in a robbery case in Kalavasal in January 2013. His interaction with Saravanan also added to suspicion. Besides, he had the habit of selling sample drugs to medical shops, the police said.
The police established that the trunk box was brought from Murugan’s house. The special team included Head Constable Kumaresan and constables Jagadeesan and Ashok.
