Money Can Kill

Los Angeles, 7 Oct 2008
On Monday, the police forced the front door of the Rajarams. Neighbors alerted the officials because they had noticed that no one was picking the newspaper no more and no activity seemed to be done neither inside nor outside their house. Friends called the police and what they had found inside was a terrible picture of a grotesque murder. All the six family members were dead all around the house. Karthik Rajaram’s body, 45, was found in a gated community in the Porter Ranch area of the San Francisco Valley.

Rajaram killed his family because of a financial crisis. He slain his wife together with his three sons and his mother-in-law in their beds while they were asleep. Deputy Chief Michel Moore told the reports outside the house that inside was an "absolute devastation." The police found two suicide letters and a will. Rajaram was working for a major accounting firm and was the part-owner of a financial holding company.

Moore said that "the source of it appears to be a financial state, a crisis if you will, that this man became embroiled in that has unfolded over the past weeks." The man had written in one of the letters that he had two choices: to kill himself or to kill both himself and his family. It seems that the second choice was the right one for him.

The police was announced after Rajaram’s wife didn’t show up to work. Indra Ramasesham, 69, the wife’s mother, was found dead in her bed on the first floor. Krishna Rajaram, 19, one of their sons, was found upstairs, also dead in his bed. Subasri Rajaram, 39, the man’s wife, was also found slain inside her bed.

After further investigations, it seems that Karthik had bought the weapon on September 16. He shot his family several times, according to police reports. The murders took place on midnight Saturday and Monday morning.