SCIENCE IN CRIME DETECTION

A clever way to identify the assault weapon

‑Dr. Anil Aggrawal

In this month's column I am going to tell you about a very interesting case, which I solved sometime back. This case involves the identification of a murder weapon in a very clever way.

On March 22, 1995, the police called me to a scene of crime where the dead body of a 59 year old woman was found. I received the call at about 10 am, and I reached at the place immediately. The place was a posh house in Vasant Kunj, and the lady was the sole owner of the house. She was identified as one Vindhya Kumari. She was a very rich woman who had inherited a lot of money from her parents. She was living with a 17 year old servant Ramu in the house for the last few years. Ramu would look after her day-to-day needs. He was from Nepal, and had been recommended to her by a friend. Apparently he was quite happy with Vindhya Kumari.

In the morning of March 22, at about 7 pm, when the milkman knocked at her door, there was no response from inside. Sensing something serious, he called the neighbors. All of them tried to get the door open somehow, but when there was continually no response from inside, they broke open the door. As soon as the door was opened, everyone was horrified to see the dead body of Vindhya Kumari in a pool of blood on the floor. There were deep gashes on the back of her neck, as if she had been hit brutally several times with a heavy cutting weapon, such as an axe (figure 1). A search of the other rooms revealed that the safe had been broken open. Some papers were lying strewn around, but there was no sigh of cash or jewellery inside the safe. Obviously the murder had been done with the intent of robbery. And moreover it appeared to be the work of some insider, a person who knew the habits of Vindhya Kumari, as to when and where she slept, where her safe was, how much money was inside her, how best to break open the safe and so on. Immediately information to the police was sent and it arrived at the scene at about 8 am. Eventually they called me, and I arrived at the scene at about 10.30 am.

Every one was naturally interested in finding where Ramu was, as he could shed great light on the murder mystery. But to everyone's surprise he was not to be found anywhere. The neighbors confirmed that they had seen him till the evening on the day before, so obviously he had disappeared the night before or at best on the morning of 22 March. Ramu's absence made him the prime suspect in the eyes of the police.

Enquiries from the neighbors revealed that Vindhya Kumari had gone to bed as usual at about 9 pm, on 21st March. A lady living in a house just opposite to hers confirmed that the lights in her flat were on till about 9 pm the previous day, and she distinctly remembered seeing the lights go off at about 9 pm. It obviously meant that Vindhya Kumari was awake till 9 pm and she went to bed after that. This meant that she had died sometime between 9 pm on 21st March and 7 am on 22nd March, when the milkman arrived, and got no response.

I made a preliminary examination, and from the state of her body I calculated the time of her death. I found out that she had been done away to death at about 2 am on the morning of 22nd March.

A brief history about the life of Vindhya Kumari would be in order here, if only to understand the case better. She married a jobless young man at the tender age of 23, and at the time of marriage it was decided that Sawan Kumar - the man she married- would remain at her parent's house after marriage. Vindhya Kumari was the only child of her industrialist parents, and they naturally wanted that their son-in-law should stay with them. This suited Sawan Kumar, as he was from a poor family and did not have any place to live. His only asset was that he was a good-looking man. Apart from that there was nothing of note worth mentioning about him. In her youth, Vindhya Kumari was apparently taken away by his charms, and had taken the rash decision to marry him.

Sawan Kumar was not very much educated, and after marriage he did not feel any need to look for a job either. He would just loaf around and live like a parasite on his wife's money. He was a gambler and a drunkard too. In such circumstances it was quite natural for him to have frequent tiffs with his wife and in-laws. For 20 long years, they carried on their life somehow, but gradually the tiffs came to such a pitch that he and his wife decided to separate. As their case did not fit into any of the divorce clauses, they could not get a divorce. However they decided to live separately. Sawan Kumar asked for a hefty amount as "alimony", but his in-laws agreed for only Rs 2000 per month. This amount was just enough for him to make his both ends meet, but would not be sufficient for him to buy alcohol or to carry on his gambling activities. He resented this very much and secretly nurtured a desire to get even with Vindhya Kumari and her parents some day.

As time passed, both her parents passed away, and Vindhya Kumari was left on her own. There were strong rumors that a lot of cash, jewellery and other valuable items were lying somewhere in her large mansion. As she did not trust anyone she would keep all the money to herself. In all probability, this was known to Sawan Kumar too and as he was perpetually in need of money, he secretly desired to acquire that money.

After his in-laws expired, he tried to meet Vindhya Kumari a couple of times, and would try to extort some money out of her by emotionally blackmailing her. Vindhya Kumari was a soft-hearted woman, and she did give her some money on both occasions, but refused to part with large sums of money as was demanded by Sawan Kumar. This served only to infuriate him further. On his second meeting with Vindhya Kumari, he had stayed longer at her house, and had even had a cup of tea with her.

Returning back to our case. The police began pursuing Ramu hotly as they were of the firm view that he had murdered Vindhya Kumari, and had decamped with all the cash and jewellery. To every one's surprise he returned all by himself on April 1. The police was secretly keeping an eye on the house of Vindhya Kumari. As soon as Ramu arrived at the house, the pounced upon him and arrested him. This seemed to surprise him a lot, and he tried to protest meekly, but the police would not listen to him. A search of his baggage revealed a large dagger, and the police immediately came to the conclusion that this was the dagger used to kill Vindhya Kumari.

Ramu was taken to the "torture chamber", and given a thorough beating. He kept insisting that he had gone to Nepal to meet his parents after taking due permission from his employer Vindhya Kumari. His story was that he was working with Vindhya Kumari till 21st evening. He had already asked for permission to leave for Nepal, about a week earlier. He recalled that when he was asking for permission, even Sawan Kumar had come there to ask for some money, and he had even shared a cup of tea with his mistress. He had himself prepared the tea for both of them. Ramu asserted that this story could be confirmed from Sawan Kumar. He further said that he left the house at about 7 pm on 21st, as he had to take the 9 pm train. This seemed to fit well with the neighbors' observation who had seen him till 21st evening. As far as the dagger was concerned, his story was that he had brought it from Nepal to give it as a present to one of his friends, who had earlier requested him to bring one from Nepal.

The police did not believe his story one iota and sent the dagger to me for the blood stain analysis. They believed that I would find Vindhya Kumari's blood over it. But when I examined the dagger, I did not find any blood over it. The police believed that Ramu had washed the dagger thoroughly. However I thought that Ramu was innocent. If indeed he had killed Vindhya Kumari, and had decamped to his country with all the cash, there was no need for him to come back, and least of all to bring back the murder weapon.

I decided to concentrate on Sawan Kumar. The police was of the opinion that Sawan Kumar would never do such a thing. After all he was getting some regular income from his ex-wife. Why would he kill her and put his own income in jeopardy? I decided to give his house a thorough search anyway.

On 15th April, the police raided his house (mainly under my pressure), and searched it thoroughly. They did not find anything of note. I arrived sometime after the police had entered, and I spotted an ornamental leather scabbard hanging from the wall. The police had not cared to search it, as it was taken to be an ornamental weapon, but I unhooked the scabbard from the wall, and took out the weapon from it. It turned out to be a khukhri (figure 3). A khukhri is a heavy curved knife, not unlike a chopper, commonly used in Northern India. It apparent had been bought by Sawan Kumar as an ornamental weapon. The blade was clean and showed very early rust along the edge, suggesting that it had been washed quite recently, i.e. within the last month or so. The cutting edge was irregularly jagged from heavy use.

The moment I examined the weapon, I knew I had the killer in my hand. I had preserved the skull of Vindhya Kumari, which showed deep cuts due to the weapon (figure 2 A). As one can see clearly, these cuts show a definite pattern. The cutting edge of the khukhri also showed some pattern (the pattern of raggedness), and if I could match the two patterns, I could be sure that the khukhri found at Sawan Kumar's house had indeed been used to kill Vindhya Kumari. The ragged pattern of the khukhri had produced the peculiar pattern on Vindhya Kumari's skull, and my job now was to match the two patterns.

I cut a Lifebuoy soap with the khukhri. In the process, it left its distinctive marks of raggedness over the soap (figure 2 B). Now under the microscope, I painstakingly matched the two patterns, i.e. the one found on Vindhya Kumari's skull and that produced on the soap. To my utter satisfaction, the pattern matched perfectly. This meant only one thing; that the khukhri had indeed been used to kill Vindhya Kumari. The chances of two entirely different weapons, producing exactly the same cut marks, were so remote that the possibility of another weapon being used in the murder could virtually be ruled out.

The police now began interrogating Sawan Kumar more assiduously. Initially he resisted, but when faced with hard scientific facts, he broke down and admitted his guilt. He had always wanted to "kill the golden goose" and get all the " golden eggs" in one go. He knew every little detail about his ex-wife's house. He knew her habits as well, as to when she slept, where she slept and so on. During one of his recent visits to her house he had listened to the talks between Ramu and Vindhya Kumari, in which Ramu was requesting for a week's holiday starting from 21st March. Vindhya Kumari had granted him the holiday while Sawan Kumar was still in the house begging for more money. Sawan Kumar now knew that on 21st evening she would be alone in her house. He decided to kill two birds with one stone. He would kill her on 21st night itself and since Ramu would not be in the house, no body would know who killed her. There would be no one to protect her either, or to raise a hue and cry. Moreover everybody would conveniently suspect Ramu, as he would be absent from the house. For this murder he decided to use his khukhri which used to hang from the wall of his house as an ornament. After the murder, he came home, washed the khukhri thoroughly, and put it back in place. His mistake was that he thought that no one would suspect him. Even if someone came to his house on a routine checking, no one would take a notice of an ornamental weapon. Lastly even if someone took notice of it, it would be impossible for someone to connect the murder with this weapon. So his reasons for keeping the khukhri in his own house were fairly sound. On the contrary, if he had disposed of the khukhri by throwing it somewhere, the chances were quite large that it would be discovered by someone sooner or later, and then the chances of this khukhri being traced back to him were enormous. There were many people in the locality who knew that this kind of khukhri belonged to him. So he decided not to do away with his khukhri and keep it back in its place. This was a perfect murder plan by Sawan Kumar, but unfortunately for him, careful forensic work took him to the gallows.

(Dr. Anil Aggrawal)

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