One of the signs (encircled) outside Brendon Gonsalves’s residence that the police are investigating. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
There is one question hanging just as uneasily in the air at Aarey Milk Colony as the general eeriness of the forest. Everyone wants to know what happened to Brendon Gonsalves on December 19, 2016, and there are no easy answers. At least none that has explained how he was found with his head decapitated in a patch of grass off the main road. Twenty two-year-old Brendon, a college student, was missing just minutes after leaving his home in Goregaon East early morning on December 19, 2016. Only minutes earlier, at 7 am, he had returned home after walking his dog, only to venture out again. Three days later, the condition in which the body was found — submerged in a drain, naked and with the head lying some distance away — put off even seasoned investigators who visited the scene of the crime, not to mention a local farmer who made the discovery.
The police, used to finding bodies dumped in the wilderness of Aarey, were perturbed to find two crosses carved into Brendon’s severed head. It did not help that when digging deeper the police drew up a picture of a strange young man. Perusing through Brendon’s belongings, the police found a diary in which he had sketched demonic figures and headless bodies, and a man stretching out to hack down with an axe. “It is very odd that he met the same fate,” said an official at the Aarey police station.
Disturbing discoveries continued as the probe proceeded. A scan of Brendon’s iPhone revealed a collection of music and images, which led him to be dubbed “anti-Christ” by investigators. “We found a lot of English music containing strange and profane lyrics. It was very difficult to listen to those songs,” said a policeman part of the investigating team. With Brendon’s mother and sister, who lodged a missing person’s complaint when he disappeared, clueless about the motive for the murder, the police have been unable to identify a suspect.
As in any long-drawn investigation, the police have questioned over 500 people since December 2016, including Brendon’s friends, neighbours and acquaintances, and local people in Aarey Colony after minutely perusing each number found in his phone. Brendon was a strange boy. He regularly smoked up with friends in remote parts of Aarey and Kurar. We also found it odd how a boy with no job and little money had an iPhone 6,” said a senior police officer.
In their search for possible suspects, the object of suspicion was a Mercedes car spotted in CCTV cameras. The car was parked near the spot where Brendon’s body was found and a woman was seen alighting from it. The police said cameras spotted the car again parked further down the road. But a pursuit of the car and its passenger hit a dead end, said the police. Even as the search for the murderer went on, the police could not ignore clues found at the scene of the crime.
“The body was laid at the foot of a large Gulmohar tree and was covered in cow dung, which might indicate some sort of human sacrifice. We found a similar spot near a temple inside Sanjay Gandhi National Park,” said an officer. The police probed whether Brendon had been killed there and dumped in Aarey, but discarded that theory considering the distance from Aarey and abundance of cow dung in Goregaon.
The Mumbai Police Crime Branch, which is also investigating the murder, has also had no luck so far. “There have been moments during the past year when we felt close to making a breakthrough, but each time it has come to nothing,” said an officer, adding that the police had not ruled out anything and were still probing every angle. Vijayalaxmi Hiremath, senior inspector, Aarey police station, said the murder probe was their top priority. “It is an intriguing case and there is a lot of effort going into solving it. The day we detect it, it will be very big,” she said.
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