In a shocking incident, a 59-year-old widow, R. Surya, was found murdered in her house in St. Xavier Lane under Keeraithurai police limits and over 25 sovereigns of gold was missing from the house on Wednesday afternoon.
The police said that the woman was alone in her house as her two sons and the wife of one of them had gone out.
When her son and his wife returned home around 2 p.m. they found the front door locked. The couple opened the lock with a spare key and were shocked to find Surya lying dead in a pool of blood on the first floor. There were multiple injuries on her body.
The police were shocked as the broad daylight crime occurred without drawing the attention of neighbours in a thickly-populated lane. At least five houses are closely located in the about 40-foot-long by-lane.
The family members had told the police that the woman did not have the habit of climbing up the stairs for the first floor and wondered why she had gone there.
Meanwhile, a man in the neighbourhood said that a couple of youths had visited some of the houses in the lane around noon on the pretext of disconnecting electricity supply for non-payment of user charge.
In one of the houses, the inmates told them that they had paid the bill and in another house the family members told them that there was still time for payment of electricity charge.
The police suspect that the murderers could have convinced the deceased to open the door and also climb up the narrow staircase.
The body was taken to Government Rajaji Hospital for post-mortem.
