A court in Thiruvananthapuram Monday found a 35-year-old man guilty of killing his parents, sister and aunt at their home in Kerala’s capital city over three days in 2017.
While that he was mentally ill and that the murders were part of an occult experiment, the prosecution established that the crime was meticulously planned and was motivated by his resentment towards his family. He was dispirited after an unfinished engineering course abroad, angered by his isolated life within his wealthy family home, and motivated by violent video games and other online material, the prosecution said.
The court dismissed his claim of having been mentally unsound. His quantum of punishment will be announced by the Additional Sessions Court-VI on Tuesday.
The murders took place in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram between April 5 and 8, 2017.
The victims were Cadell’s father Raja Thankam, 60, a retired college professor, mother Jean Padma, 58, a leading doctor, sister Caroline, 26, and maternal aunt Lalitha, 70, who all lived in the same house.
The prosecution said Cadell was angry at allegedly not being allowed to carry out his studies the way he wanted to and not being allowed to interact with his friends. He was also purportedly angry at his father’s way of life.
Initially after the killings, Cadell had claimed that he committed the murders as part of an experiment to witness “ projection”, which involved the belief among some that the spirit can move outside the body. He claimed he wanted to watch the souls of his victims departing their bodies. However, with the help of a psychiatrist, police said they found the reasons for the killing spree were much less spiritual.
Cadell had returned from Australia in 2009 without completing the engineering course that he had gone there to take. He then felt he was neglected in the family. Over the years, hatred towards the family had been building up in his mind before culminating in the murders, the prosecution said.
On April 5, Cadell took his parents and sister to his room on the first floor of his house, one after another, telling them he wanted to show them a new video game that he claimed to have made. In the room, he hit them with a machete that he had purchased online.
For the next 48 hours, his maternal aunt Lalitha, who suffers from a partial visual impairment, lived on the ground floor of the house without realising what had happened upstairs. After that, she was also killed.
When the domestic help arrived, Cadell told her that the rest of the family had gone on a trip and that he would order his food from outside.
On the night of April 8, Cadell set the bodies of his father, mother and sister on fire. However, the fire got out of control and he fled, going all the way to , almost 800 km away.
In Chennai, he started seeing news of his family members’ murders flashing on TV, and he decided to come back to Thiruvananthapuram.
Police found his aunt’s body chopped up in the house and the other three bodies were found completely charred.
During the trial, Cadell argued that he was suffering from schizophrenia. But the prosecution contested this claim, saying there was no evidence pointing to such a mental condition in the accused.
Quoting medical reports, the prosecution argued that the murders were clearly planned and executed. He had made preparations for the murders months ago, including by watching YouTube videos, police found.
The police’s cyber cell, which examined Cadell’s laptop and other gadgets, found he had searched the internet about slitting throats and had watched videos pertaining to it. Days before the murders, he had even made dummy versions of his parents as part of his preparation. The charred dummies were recovered from the house after the crime.
According to the prosecution, Cadell had largely isolated himself and spent his days more in the virtual world than the real one. He was also found to have frequently been playing violent video games and allegedly got inspired by them.
