Priest arrested for murder of wife, staging crime scene

CHENNAI: Four days after the murder of a priest’s wife in her house on South Sivan Koil Street in Vadapalani, the city police on Monday arrested her husband for killing the 24-year-old woman and staging the crime scene to make her appear the victim of a violent robbery.
Investigators said Prabhu alias Balaganesh, 27, a priest at Vengeeswarar Temple (Vadapalani Sivan Koil), admitted to the crime after they confronted him with irrefutable evidence: his wife’s blood had stained his clothes.


Gnanapriya, the woman he married for love five years earlier, had infuriated him with repeated taunts about his inability to father a child, an investigating officer quoted Prabhu as saying.

Manoj Kumar, 29, of Kattupakkam, also a priest and an accomplice in the murder, was in custody shortly after Prabhu’s arrest. “It was clearly a premeditated crime,” the officer said. “Prabhu planned and carried out the murder.”


Gold taken recovered, cops arrest associate of killer priest

The officer said, “Prabhu instructed Manoj Kumar to tie him up and leave him in the bathroom in his house — Prabhu later claimed that two men had attacked him and his wife — and asked him to take take away Gnanapriya’s mangalsutra, his gold chain and cash.”

Officers recovered 15 sovereigns of the gold jewellery Manoj Kumar had taken from the couple’s house. “Manoj, who knew Prabhu from childhood had hidden,” the officer said.

The couple’s neighbour and landlady Vijayalakshmi found Prabhu tied up in a common toilet on the first floor; she later discovered the blood-spattered body of Gnanapriya.

The police had marked Prabhu as the main suspect from almost the beginning. “The crime scene did not make sense,” another officer said. “If two robbers had attacked Prabhu and killed his wife, why didn’t he shout for help? Neighbours in the building heard nothing. Prabhu later claimed that a spirit had temporarily possessed him, causing him to black out. He also said he was prone to epileptic seizures and may have had one.”

“We did not let Prabhu know that he was our primary suspect,” he said. “He could not explain how blood from his wife stained his clothes if they were attacked separately.”

Investigators pieced together events. Gnanapriya had on Wednesday again blamed Prabhu for the couple not having a child. A furious Prabhu, tired of what he perceived as his wife’s insults, had already decided to kill her.

Around 12.30am he hit her repeatedly on the head with a hammer. After binding her hands and feet, Prabhu called Manoj, who helped in dressing up the crime scene.