A 30-year-old employee of a tabloid was found dead in her office on Varadarajan Street, Kannamapet in Mambalam on Thursday evening.
Police suspect it to be a case of murder for gain as a gold chain and two gold rings she was wearing were missing. Police identified the deceased as Jyothi Lakshmi, a resident of adjoining Bajanai Koil Street, who was working as a paginator and office assistant at Future Line , a neighbourhood weekly tabloid, for the last four years.
Around 6.30 p.m., her employer Sreekumar (46) allegedly came to the second floor office, which was locked from outside, to find Lakshmi lying in a pool of blood. Her throat was slit but no murder weapon was found on the crime scene. The victim and her employer were the only staff members of the firm.
Speaking to The Hindu , Jayaleelavathi, the owner of the office building who resides on the first floor, said she did not hear anything unusual in the evening.
The murder had taken place between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. as Lakshmi had gone home for lunch as usual and returned around 4 p.m. She lived with her husband Muthupandian, a salesman at a garments showroom in T. Nagar. The couple have a daughter who lives with her grandparents in Theni, Lakshmi’s neighbours said.