In a gruesome act of covering up a murder, a 48-year-old woman allegedly chopped her husband’s corpse to pieces along with her son at their house in Triplicane on Friday.
The woman had killed her husband with a fatal blow to his head with a hammer.
The woman and her son were nabbed by police when they tried to burn the man’s head and limbs at a dumping yard in Manali.
The man’s torso, sliced in two, was tied up in sacks in the kitchen.
The victim V. Mani (60), a former employee of a computer firm in Egmore, and his wife Padmavathi were residing in a second floor single-bedroom house in Pachaiyappan Street in Triplicane.
The couple’s son Yuvaraj (31), a salesperson with a machine tools dealer in Madhavaram, lives with his family in Kilpauk.
According to police sources, around 3.30 p.m., a man and a woman on a motorcycle, carrying large shopping bags, halted at a bridge near the CPCL plant in Manali. The man, who was later identified as Yuvaraj, ran to a garbage dumping area nearby and tried to set a human head, hands and legs on fire.
“A few motorists who were passing through the bridge spotted two hands sticking out of a bag and raised an alarm. A police patrol team which was nearby rushed in and detained Yuvaraj and his mother Padmavathi who was with him,” said an officer.
Questioning revealed that the mother and son were carrying the head and limbs of Mani after they had chopped his body into seven pieces at their house around 8 a.m.
“Mani and Padmavathi had a heated argument over some issue in the morning. An enraged Padmavathi attacked him with a hammer, which might have resulted in his death. She called Yuvaraj and together they sliced Mani’s body into pieces in the kitchen,” an investigating officer said.
The couple’s house is located near the Triplicane mosque and the area is thickly populated with residences, lodges and shops.
Residents were in the dark about the murder until a police team arrived for investigations around 4 p.m.
