On Thursday, USA, The Montgomery County Court Maryland, found a software engineer from Andhra
Pradesh, 28-year-old Raghunandan Yandamuri, was convicted by a US court in connection with the
gruesome murder of 10-month-old girl Saanvi Venna and her grandmother Satyavathi 61.
Raghunandan, a native of Visakhapatnam, killed the infant and her grandmother two years ago, during an
attempt to kidnap the baby for ransom in Pennsylvania on October 22, 2012.
He slashed Satyavathi’s neck and stuffed a handkerchief into Saanvi’s mouth and put her in a suitcase.
CCTV footage revealed there were no “white men” involved as he had claimed. DNA evidence also
linked him to the crime. His mother, Padmavathi, broke down when she heard the verdict.
Raghunandan had gone to the US on an H-1B visa to study his MS in 2007. Police found that he was a
gambler and had a $20,000 debt. He knew the child’s family in the US.
Raghunandan’s mother Padmavati, told the judges that her husband was a police officer killed in a Maoist
attack, when Raghu was 10.
The death traumatised Raghu, who stopped sleeping and attempted suicide a year later by drinking
kerosene. She begged the court He was put on medication that helped him, but he stopped taking them at
some point. “Please save my son somehow,”