A botched burglary might have been behind the murder of Avtar Singh-Kolar and his English wife Carole in their Birmingham home earlier this week, police suggested on Friday as they announced a reward of up to £10,000 for information that could help in tracking down their killers.
Detectives investigating the double murder which has shocked the local Indian community were reported as saying that they were looking at all potential angles, including the possibility they were victims of a random break-in that went wrong.
The comments came as local residents said that there had been a sharp increase in “nasty” burglaries in the area and police had been running anti-burglary operations.
Another line of inquiry was whether it was a revenge attack by someone with a grievance against the murdered couple's son, Jason, a police officer who discovered his parents' bodies on Wednesday morning when he went round to their house after failing to reach them on the phone.
But Superintendent Richard Baker said that at the moment there was “nothing to suggest at all” that Jason's job was relevant to the murder.
Describing it as an “atrocious crime,” he appealed for information and said he believed the local people held “the key to finding who is responsible for this terrible tragedy.”
Kolar (62) and Carole (58) had been married for 40 years and lived in the tree-lined Friary Road, Handsworth Wood, for most of their lives. They were described as a “close-knit” and “loving family.”
Neighbours were reported as saying that Kolar, locally known as Tari, had worked as a florist while Carole worked at a school-care centre looking after children including her own grandchildren who went to the same school.
The couple's daughter Michelle Kirwan (39) broke down describing her parents as “the sweetest and kindest people I have ever met.”
“The light was switched out in our lives and our hearts have been broken forever,” she said.
