Triple-killer father who strangled his wife and two young kids jailed

Chilling moment triple-killer father who strangled his wife and two young kids with a dressing gown cord while drunk holds a knife to his own throat before he’s Tasered by police – as he’s jailed for life

• Saju Chelavalel was ordered to serve a minimum term of 40 years for the killings
• Mistakenly believed NHS nurse Anju Asok was being unfaithful, a court heard 
• The father of two then murdered his own children and had to be tasered by cops

A father who strangled his wife and their two young children before being Tasered by police has been jailed for life.

Saju Chelavalel was ordered to serve a minimum term of 40 years after a judge was told the 52-year-old killed NHS nurse Anju Asok while he was drunk last December, in the mistaken belief that she had been unfaithful to him.

Northampton Crown Court was told Chelavalel had more than four hours ‘to reflect on whether to kill his children’ before using a dressing gown cord to kill six-year-old son Jeeva Saju and their daughter Janvi Saju, aged four.

Saju Chelavalel must serve at least 40 years for his brutal crimes that he carried out while drunk

Saju Chelavalel threatening police officers with a knife following the murders of his wife and their two young children

Chelavalel, originally from Kerala in India, sobbed in the dock with his head bowed on Monday as an audio recording was played to the court on which his wife could be heard coughing and his children could be heard talking.

The court was told the recording also captured the sound of a blender being used to make a ‘toxic’ mixture of chocolate and pills intended to send the children to sleep.

Body worn video footage released by Northamptonshire Police after the hearing showed the killer urging police to shoot him at his home in Kettering, where he also left instructions for his own and his family’s bodies to be cremated in India.

Chelavalel, originally from Kerala in India, sobbed in the dock with his head bowed on Monday as an audio recording was played to the court on which his wife could be heard coughing and his children could be heard talking.

The judge said both child victims would have been ‘terrified and deeply traumatised’ after hearing their mother’s murder

The footage, filmed after officers broke the glass in a patio door to gain access to the ground-floor flat in Petherton Court, shows them issuing repeated warnings for Chelavalel to drop a knife before his arrest.

Ms Asok, aged 35, worked as a nurse at Kettering General Hospital.

Her body was found on the floor of a bedroom at the flat, while the children’s bodies were found next to each other on a double bed in a different room.

Opening the facts of the case, prosecutor James Newton-Price KC said that the killer was arrested following a 999 call at 11.12am on December 15, after a neighbour saw him apparently unable to speak.

After officers smashed a window to gain access to the property, Mr Newton-Price said, Chelavalel was seen to be holding a knife to his own throat.

The barrister told the court: ‘He responded (to the officers) with words to the effect of: ‘I am going to kill myself”. He said: ‘You shoot me, you shoot me’.’

Chelavalel was tasered and handcuffed before police then discovered the dead bodies of his family.

A letter written by Chelavalel in English was found at the scene, in which he made unsupported accusations about his wife being unfaithful and claimed to have cryptocurrency investments and £5,000 in other funds.

The letter stated: ‘Please use this amount to transfer our corpses to India.’

The court heard that no evidence whatsoever of any affair was found on Ms Asok’s phone, but that searches for women on dating sites were made by Chelavalel on December 3 and 12.

Part of the audio recording made by Chelavalel was played to the court, with Mr Newton-Price telling Mr Justice Pepperall: ‘The word ‘mummy’ can be heard and the defendant whispering.’

He said of coughing sounds heard on the recording: ‘We suspect that that may be the moment of strangulation (of Ms Asok) but we can’t say that with absolute certainty.’

During police interviews, Chelavalel claimed he could not remember killing his children, but said he had lost control of himself when his wife made an offensive comment about his mother.

Offering mitigation, defence KC George Carter-Stephenson said the circumstances of the case were tragic in the extreme for relatives of the victims.

He said of Chelavalel: ‘They are also tragic for this particular defendant. Whatever sentence the court imposes on him today he has to live with the knowledge of what he did on that particular night.’

Addressing Chelavalel’s claims that his wife was unfaithful to him, Mr Carter-Stephenson said: ‘Although there is no evidence of it, it is something that he had believed.

‘That belief was obviously wrong. But he continues to hold that view.’

Chelavalel’s possession of a knife during his arrest was part of his intent to end his own life, the defence KC argued.

The audio recording was made because it ‘was simply left on’ from a period when the children were heard singing, Mr Carter-Stephenson added.

A forensic officer at the scene in Kettering last December (Matthew Cooper/PA)

All three of his victims were found at a property in Petherton Court, Kettering, on December 15 last year

Passing sentence, High Court judge Mr Justice Pepperall told Chelavalel his actions had been brutal and ‘extraordinarily selfish’.

The judge said both child victims would have been ‘terrified and deeply traumatised’ after hearing their mother’s murder.

Both children could have been brought up by other relatives, the judge told Chelavalel, who he said had killed his wife in a ‘fit of rage’ after a minor argument.

The judge said: ‘Fuelled by alcohol, wallowing in self-pity, engulfed in your resentment at your wife’s perceived infidelity, you instead chose to snuff out their young and precious lives.’

Speaking to the media outside Northampton Crown Court, Detective Inspector Simon Barnes said the murdered children had attended Kettering Park Infant Academy.

He said: ‘The staff at the school described the children as kind, caring, gentle, playful, polite and smiley. 

‘They are much missed. How do you explain to children as young as four that the friends they were playing with only days before are no longer with us? 

‘You shouldn’t have to. No one should. 

‘As an adult, detective and father, I cannot comprehend how Saju Chelavalel could do this and don’t think I ever will. 

‘There is no amount of time behind bars that will ever be enough for what he did. 

‘His primary role as a husband and a father was to protect his family from harm.’ 

Source: Read Full Article