JOIN USThe Magadi Road police on Monday arrested a 50-year-old woman for poisoning a homemaker to death and stealing Rs seven lakh worth of valuables from her house recently.
The police recovered Rs 7.5 lakh in cash, 200 gram of silver and 50 gram of gold ornaments from the accused.
According to the police, the accused, Vijayalakshmi, a resident of Handigudisilu in KP Agrahara, confessed to have fed Manimegalai, 47, a soft drink laced with cyanide on March 13.
The victim, also a resident of KP Agrahara, was the wife of a private company employee, Subramani, and the couple has a college-going son, Ilangovan, 20, the police said.
Having met each other in KP Agrahara, Manimegalai had shared with Vijayalakshmi that her family was planning to relocate to another area. She had also told Vijayalakshmi that Rs 7.5 lakh in cash was kept ready at home for this purpose, said the police.
Vijayalakshmi then requested Manimegalai to lend her some money, claiming to be in a spot of financial difficulty. Manimegalai agreed to lend her the money and asked her to come to the house on March 13, said the police.
Plotting her murder, Vijayalakshmi bought cyanide. She picked up a soft drink bottle and went to Manimegalai’s house when her husband and son were away. After talking to her for a while, she asked Manimegalai for some water to drink. When she was inside Vijayalakshmi put the cyanide in another glass. When Manimegalai came back she poured the soft drink into the two glasses. Handing the glass with the poison to Manimegalai, Vijayalakshmi drank the other glass of soft drink with her, said the police.
Once Manimegalai fell dead, Vijayalakshmi raided the almirah and made away with the cash and ornaments, said the police.
In order to mask the cause of death, Vijayalakshmi set fire to the bed on which Manimegalai’s body lay. When Manimegalai’s son returned home from college, he found the front door open ajar, rushing inside he saw his mother on the burning bed. He raised an alarm and called his father, said the police.
A case was registered and the police started an investigation. Some neighbours told the police of a middle-aged woman with short hair who left Manimegalai’s house that afternoon. Soon the police tracked down Vijayalakshmi who confessed during the interrogation.
To confirm the cause of death, the police have sent the white powder – suspected to be cyanide – found at the crime scene to the Forensic Science Laboratory for examination.