Crime does not pay

Ananda JAYASENA Senior SSP (Rtd)

January 23rd 1974 was a Friday. Around 9.30 a.m. I was at the Panadura Police Station, having finished the weekly instruction and discussion class for my subordinate officers. A telephone call was put through to my office, and the caller was one Waduge Thomas Fernando of 32, Sea Beach Road, Panadura, who passed the information of a dead body floating in the sea, about 50 yards away from the beach.

I called P.C. 2844 in the Minor Offence Branch, and sent him with a party of men to look into the matter. Around 1.15 p.m. P.C. Perera informed me that the dead body had been just washed ashore, and that the body was that of a female, who had cut injuries on her body.

Highly decomposed

May I.P. Crimes, T.N. Rajee, and I promptly visited the scene. The body was that of a full grown female, wit very long hair. She was dressed only in a home made brassiere, and there was a large gaping gash in the abdomen, and also there were cut injuries on the neck. The body was fully bloated and highly decomposed. It had also changed in colour, having floated in water for a long period of time. The Magistrate, Weeraratne, of Panadura was informed, and he ordered D.C. de Silva - J.P.U.M. to hold the inquest, and report the facts to Court.

De Silva view the body that same evening, and also visited scene, and ordered the J.M.O. Colombo to hold a post-mortem examination on the body of the deceased, instructing Police to take the dead body to the general morgue at Francis Road, Borella.

I contacted the J.M.O., Dr. W.D.L. Fernando, at his residence at Edmonton Road, Kirillapona, who informed me that he would personally hold the post-mortem on the following morning.

On the 24th Saturday morning, P.C. 2484 Perera, I.P. Rajee, and I came for the post-mortem examination to the general morgue. The J.M.O. who re-commenced the post-mortem at 9.00 a.m. finished at 11.55 a.m. He was of the opinion that death could have occurred about 6-7 days earlier, and that the deceased was a woman of about 24 years of age, and had been in the early stages of pregnancy. There had been a sharp cut across the abdomen, starting from the right side of the body to the left, and the intestines were protruding. Also, there were two sharp cuts on her throat, extending from right to left. Also, her lungs were filled with water. The assailant was most probably a left-hander. According to the J.M.O. she had also been sexually assaulted just before she died.

Finger prints

At the post-mortem examination, I got two sets of fingerprints of the deceased through the post-mortem labourer, as body could not be approached due to the stench. On our return to Panadura we visited the office of the Registrar of Finger Prints at Torrington Square, and met the Registrar of Finger Prints. He was Inspector Neil Ratnayake, a batch-mate of mine, who had undergone specialized training in finger prints in England. I told him about the case, and he promised to trace the prints, if there was a record available with them.

On return to the Police Station, we sent islandwide messages to all police stations, regarding the description of the dead body with cut injuries.

Eloped

After 4 days I.P. Neil Ratnayake contacted me, and informed me that the Finger Prints belonged to one Chelliah Parvathy, daughter of Kanapathi Chellaih of division 02, Paradise Estate, Kuruwita, and that she had been employed under Clare Daniel of No. 22, Farm Road, Mattakkuliya, from 1970, and this Mrs. Daniel had registered her with the Servants Registry in Colombo.

I.P. Rajee went to Matatakkuliya and recorded a statement in detail of Mrs. Daniel. According to her, this Parvathy was brought to Mattakkuliya by her father in 1970, and in December 1970 her father died, and she went to the funeral at Kuruwita, and returned after a week.

According to Daniel, sometime in 1972, she ran away with a barber named Sandanam, and a complaint to this effect was made to Modera Police by her, and the parties were summand to the Police Station. At the Police Station, Parvathi refused to comeback to Mrs. Daniel. And she being a major, the Police allowed her to go with Sandanma, having recorded both Sandanam’s and her statements.

Daniel being a meticulous lady, had all the references with dates of the complaint she had made to Modera Police, Inspector Rajee having recorded the statement of Daniel, had visited the shanty where the couple lived.

Statement

One Rasiah lived there at the time of the visit. Inspector Rajee had recorded the statement of Rasiah. Rasiah had stated that Sandanam had informed him that Parvathi was frightened to stay in the shanty alone, hence he had left her at Kuruwita at her mother’s place, and that he himself would be going to work in the estate. He had taken Rs. 2,500 from Rasiah, and had given the shanty to him. According to him, this had taken place at sometime in the end of January.

I contacted the OIC Modera Police, and got the certified Information Book extracts of the statements made by Mrs. Daniel, and later by Parvathi and Sandanam.

We made inquiries about Sandanam, but there was no information forthcoming. We again contacted Rasiah, who now lived in Sandanam’s shanty. He too did not know the present whereabouts of Sandanam.

Time went by. After about two months, OIC Modera sent me a letter through a person. I opened this letter, and the person who brought this letter was Rasiah.

According to him, he had gone to Ratnapura on the day before, and whilst coming back by bus, he had seen Sandanam working in a barber saloon at Eheliyagoda.

I summoned I.P. Rajee and sent him with P.C. 2482 Perera and Rasiah in a Police vehicle to Eheliyagoda to arrest Sandanam. I.P. Rajee had found him in a barber saloon, and had brought him to Panadura Police Station.

I.P. Rajee and I interrogated Sandanma during the night. He made a clean breast of his guilt. His story was as follows: He was from Lollupitiya Estate, but had not seen or met Parvathi at Paradise Estate in Kuruwita.

He first saw her at Mrs. Daniel’s at No. 22, Farm Road, and whenever she came to buy provisions from the boutique, he met her, and thereby developed a love affair, and finally eloped with her. On a complaint made by Mrs. Daniel, they were brought to Modera Police Station, and Parvathi refused to go back to Mrs. Daniel.

He made a statement at Modera Police, stating that he would marry Parvathi, and left with her. They built a shanty on Crow Island, near the large canal, and lived there. Time went by, he felt that his wife was friendly with a man from the adjoining house. He was a postal peon by profession.

Thovil ceremony

On the day of the incident he left the house at around 8.30 p.m. informing his wife that he was going to a thovil ceremony, at a friend’s house in Grandpass, and that he would return in the morning. But he returned at 11.00 p.m. He saw his wife and the postman sleeping on a mat. He took a barber’s razor and chased after the man, but he ran away. He was furious, and he did not know what he was doing, but he remembered cutting his wife with the razor. It was raining in torrents, and the time was about 12 midnight. He carried his wife, who was still groaning with pain, dumped the body in the canal, and saw it being carried away by the current, towards the sea. He hid the barber’s razor in the shrubs, washed the house, and went away.

I.P. Rajee and P.C. 2482 Perera took the accused, having recorded his statement, and recovered the barber’s razor hidden by him. We noticed that he was a left hander.

Filed pliant

I.P. Rajee filed pliant in the M.C. Panadura, under Section 296 Criminal Procedure Code against the accused, and after the conclusion of non-summary proceedings, the case was committed to the Supreme Court.

In May 1974 the case came up for trial at the Supreme Court Kalutara and the accused was indicted by the Attorney General under Section 296-CPC.

The Crown Counsel led the evidence of the J.M.O. Dr. W.D.L. Fernando, which took two hours exactly.

After this evidence, the defence counsel informed the judge he wanted to plead “guilty under grave and sudden provocation”. The Crown agreed to this plea, and the judge allowed the same. The judge sentenced the accused to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment. It was subsequently revealed that the accused served in prison for years and had one more week to finish his period in jail. He got involved in a brawl, and was stabbed to death by a fellow prisoner with a pointed iron implement.

(Name of the accused and the deceased are fictitious. Others are genuine.)