A police inspector belonging to Andhra Pradesh, who reportedly confessed to having murdered his wife, suspecting her fidelity, and discarded her body by the bushes along the Tiruchi-Chennai Highway near Samayapuram earlier this week, was arrested here on Thursday by the Tiruchi Rural Police.
N. Satyanarayana (40), an Inspector attached to the Crime Investigation Department at Tirupati, reportedly admitted that he administered liquor to his wife Nagamalleshwari (35) and smashed her head early on May 21 before going to Tiruvannamalai and registering a police complaint the following day stating that his wife had gone missing.
According to the police, the couple visited Kodaikanal on May 19 and checked out from the hotel on May 21. They travelled in their car to Tiruchi via Dindigul. On reaching the outskirts of the city, Satyanarayana committed the murder.
The design of the jewellery the victim was found wearing served as the initial clue that she belonged to Andhra Pradesh. Correlating this with the complaint of missing woman case preferred by Satyanarayana with the Tiruvannamalai West Police Station, the Samayapuram police invited him to Tiruchi to determine the identity of the murdered woman.
Satyanarayana identified the body to be that of his wife, but maintained that she had gone missing when they had stopped on the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai for a nap early on May 22. He hinted that she had run away or could have been abducted and murdered.
Satyanarayana confessed following rigorous interrogation. The Investigation Officer could establish, with the help of cell phone tower recording and the time of his car crossing the Samayapuram and Thozhudur Toll Plazas, that Satyanarayana was present at the scene of murder.
Against the usual one hour, Satyanarayana took three hours and 17 minutes to cover the 70-km distance between the toll plazas.
