Serial killer held in Karnataka for hacking women to death over revenge
The accused has been identified as T Siddalingappa, a resident of Kudur in Ramanagara district.
Bengaluru: A 35-year-old man who allegedly murdered three women and disposed of their severed bodies in different parts of Karnataka has been arrested by the Mandya police, officials said, adding that the accused was preparing to kill another woman when he was nabbed.
The accused has been identified as T Siddalingappa, a resident of Kudur in Ramanagara district. A woman, identified as Chandrakala, who the accused claimed was his girlfriend, has also been arrested for aiding him in the murders, a senior police officer said.
After carrying out murders of the three women in Bengaluru and Mysuru earlier this year, the accused had targeted five more women to kill, a senior police officer said, adding that when the police arrested him on Thursday, he was preparing to murder another woman.
The investigation into the case began when the police discovered severed body parts of two women near a water canal in Mandya on June 8. One body was recovered in the Baby Lake canal near K Bettanahalli and the other was found at the CDS Canal near Arakere village. Though the bodies were found 25km from each other, there was a common link between them – only the bottom halves of both bodies were recovered, said the senior officer.
During his interrogation, the accused told the police that he got into a relationship with Chandrakala, who worked as a sex worker, a few years ago. As they grew closer, she narrated her ordeal of how she landed in prostitution, said Praveen Madhukar Pawar, inspector general of police (IGP), Southern Range, Mysuru.
The accused then decided to murder all the women who Chandrakala had claimed were involved in pushing her into sex trade.
“Initially, we were investigating one murder, but he told us that he had disposed of the second body found in Mandya. He also told us that a few months ago he had murdered another woman in Bengaluru and he was planning to murder five others as well,” said Pawar.
He murdered the first woman in Bengaluru in May, chopped the body into halves and disposed of them in different places. He killed the other two women with the help of Chandrakala in Mysuru on May 30 and June 3.
“In Mysuru, he had rented a house. With the help of Chandrakala, he invited both women, who were known to her, to the house on different days. He strangled them before chopping off their bodies. The accused duo then rode to Mandya on a motorcycle and dumped the body parts at two different places,” Pawar said.
Though the modus operandi of murder —chopping the body into halves — was similar in both murders in Mysuru, the Mandya police were not able to find any evidence to connect the two victims or identify them, said the IG.
