A district court found two youth guilty of drugging, raping, and murdering a Latvian tourist, who had a history of clinical depression, at a swampy and out-of-the-way wooded locality near the Kovalam beach resort, approximately 20 km south of Thiruvananthapuram city in 2018.
The accused are Umesh and Udayakumar, school dropouts with a history of violence, sexual assault and drug abuse.
Additional District and Sessions Court judge K. Sanil Kumar said he would pronounce the quantum of the sentence on Monday.
Police search
The Latvian tourist had gone missing from an Ayurveda spa near Pothencode here on March 14, 2018.
A police search based on a missing person complaint filed by the woman’s sister yielded no results for weeks.
The European woman’s disappearance rattled the State’s tourism sector and raised questions about the safety of foreign tourists, especially backpackers frequenting Kovalam.
Blunt force injury, drowning
Forty days later, an angler discovered a putrified body at Thiruvallam, the tidal mouth of the Karamana river.
A forensic DNA test identified the body as that of the missing person. Forensic experts concluded that she had died of blunt force injury to the neck and forcible drowning. Liquefaction necrosis had separated the victim’s head from the torso.
Moreover, forensic doctors failed to detect the presence of spermatozoa, given the advanced state of decomposition. Hence, the prosecution’s theory of rape rested mainly on circumstantial evidence and confession statements.
Victim was ‘depressive and trusting’
During the trial, the prosecution told the court that the woman was trusting and tended to wander, given her melancholic mental disposition.
The prosecution said the youth found her roaming aimlessly on the bank of the estuary near Grove Beach and invited her to share a “white beedi”, a local euphemism for a marijuana-laced cigarette.
Local residents told the court that they had seen the woman accompany the youth but did not notice her return.
The prosecution argued that the accused had drugged their victim to erode her resistance and repeatedly raped her.
Evidence Destruction
In order to destroy evidence, the youth attempted to drown her and later strangled the woman with a vine to make the murder appear as a suicide. Neighbours testified that the crime spot was their regular haunt for years.
The Thiruvallam police had investigated Umesh earlier on suspicion of sexually assaulting a boy at the spot earlier.
Both youth did handy jobs for a living and had picked up a smattering of English during their interactions with foreign tourists arriving at Kovalam.
Defence argument
The defence argued that the police had foisted the case on the youth to save face. It said the prosecution had no evidence that the youth had raped the victim. Moreover, the prosecution failed to prove the crime’s motive. The defence also argued that an initial forensic finding had pointed to suicide by drowning. The defence said it would appeal the verdict in the High Court.
Dy. SP J. K. Dinil investigated and charge-sheeted the case. Advocate G. Mohanraj prosecuted the case.
