- Monday, April 29, 2024
Saju Chelavalel was arrested in December after his wife and children were found strangled to death at their family flat
By: Chandrashekar Bhat
A KETTERING man who “squeezed the life out” of his wife and two children has been jailed for life with a minimum of 40 years in custody.
Saju Chelavalel, originally from the south Indian state of Kerala, strangled Anju Asok, 35 to death with a dressing gown cord before killing their children Jeeva, 6, and Janvi, 4.
The killings took place at their family flat at Petherton Court on the intervening night of December 14 and 15.
Chelavalel, 52, never revealed why he killed them although he claimed he had lost control while drunk believing his wife, an NHS nurse, had been unfaithful to him.
But the prosecution told Northampton Crown Court that the man’s belief was unfounded.
Following reports that a woman and two children had suffered serious injuries at the flat, police officers broke the door on December 15 and found Chelavalel holding a knife to his throat and shouting “You shoot me”.
He was tasered before his arrest. Asok was declared dead at the scene and the children died in hospital later.
Northamptonshire Police said the forensic post-mortem examinations of the bodies concluded that all three died of asphyxiation.
Chelavalel’s letter found at the home accused Asok of having an affair and said the corpses should be taken to India using funds from his investment in cryptocurrency and other financial instruments.
An audio, recorded during the crime and played at the court, revealed that the children screamed “mummy” when their mother was being killed.
In April, Chelavalel admitted to three counts of murder.
Justice Pepperall told Chelavalel: “While you were squeezing the life out of your wife, your children can be heard crying in the background for their mummy.”
“It is clear that they heard what was going on and knew that she was being hurt by you,” the judge told the defendant.
Detective inspector Simon Barnes said Asok’s colleagues and friends described her “as very hard-working, conscientious, friendly and kind” who “barely missed a shift.”
Kettering Park Infant Academy which Jeeva and Janvi attended said the school missed the siblings who were “caring, gentle, playful, polite and smiley.”
Barnes said the nurse and her children “leave behind them a devastated family in India, who are struggling to come to terms with what has happened.”
During the sentencing hearing on Monday (3), the family’s spokesperson told the court that “the life of Anju’s parents and siblings back in India will never be the same without her.”
“She came to this country with a lot of expectations and dreams. She was not expecting a tragic death from her husband, whom she trusted”, the spokesperson said.
