Friday, November 30, 2012
Montgomery County District Court released the 23 minute video containing the confession of alleged murderer Raghunandan Yandamuri.
Montgomery County District Court has released the footage of Raghunandan Yandamuri alleged confession to the murders of 10-month-old Saanvi Venna and her 61-year-old grandmother Satyavathi Venna in October. According to NBC10, Yandamuri claimed both murders were accidental. In the video, he claims that he slit the grandmother's throat accidentally and stuffed a handkerchief in Saanvi's mouth and Wrapped a towel around her head to stop her from crying. Authorities have said the murders were part of a botched ransom scheme in which Yandamuri planned to demand $50,000 from Saanvi's parents for her safe return. Several copies of a ransom note were found at the murder scene. The Montgomery County District Attorney's office is reportedly …
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Losses preceded alleged ransom scheme
- POLICE & FIRE
-
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The man accused of killing a 10-month-old girl and her grandmother in an Upper Merion apartment tower in October had reportedly lost $15,000 gambling at casinos in the week before the crime. The Associated Press reports that 26-year-old Raghunandan Yandamuri told authorities about his gambling losses in a videotaped statement he made following his arrest. The statement was played at his preliminary hearing on Wednesday morning. Authorities have said the murders of Saanvi Venna and her 61-year-old grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, were part of a botched ransom scheme in which Yandamuri planned to demand $50,000 from Saanvi's parents for her safe return. Several copies of a ransom note were found at the murder scene. The Montgomery County …
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Raghunandan Yandamuri remains held without bail at the Montgomery County jail.
- POLICE & FIRE
-
Thursday, November 22, 2012
The man accused of killing an infant girl and her grandmother in an Upper Merion apartment last month may face the death penalty. Phillyburbs.com reports that the Montgomery County district attorney's office is considering seeking a death sentence for Raghunandan Yandamuri, who allegedly killed 10-month-old Saanvi Venna and her 61-year-old grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, on Oct. 22 in a botched ransom plot. Yandamuri remains held without bail at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Lower Providence. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 28. Yandamuri has reportedly been assigned as a "mitigation counsel," whose job it would be to defend him against the death penalty. Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kevin …
Friday, November 16, 2012
The body of the victim, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine, was only positively identified earlier this year.
- NEWS
-
Friday, November 16, 2012
Late on the morning of November 18, 1968, 44 years ago this Sunday, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper patrolling the Pennsylvania Turnpike near the Downingtown interchange came upon a man in a seated position along the side of the roadway. The trooper stopped to check on the man's well being. The man, who carried no identification, was dead. He had been stabbed once through the heart. A tattoo on his arm of a helmeted bulldog with the letters "USMC" below it strongly suggested that he'd once been in the Marine Corps, but authorities had no other clues to his identity. He was interred as a John Doe, and four decades passed. On the Doe Network, Pennsylvania Missing Persons [editor's note: links include coroner's photographs that may …
Friday, October 26, 2012
The 10-month-old had been missing since Monday. A family friend has been charged in the murders of the child and her grandmother, who reportedly attacked the would-be kidnapper as he tried to take her granddaughter.
The body of Saanvi Venna, the 10-month-old girl who disappeared from the Marquis Apartments in King of Prussia on Monday following the murder of her grandmother, was found at about 4:30 a.m. Friday in a sauna room inside the apartment complex, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman said. Raghunandan Yandamuri, 26, described by Ferman as a friend of the Venna family, has been charged in the murders of Saanvi and Satyavathi Venna. Ferman said Yandamuri told authorities that he intended to kidnap the child and hold her for $50,000 ransom. See this article's photo section to see a copy of the ransom note. "He believed the family was of sufficient means to pay that ransom," Ferman said. As he was leaving the scene of the elder Venna's …
Satyavathi Venna died from multiple 'incisive stab wounds.'
- POLICE & FIRE
-
Friday, October 26, 2012
The death of Satyavathi Venna, grandmother to missing 10-month-old Saanvi Venna, has officially been ruled a homicide. PhillyBurbs.com reported that the elder Venna died from multiple "incisive wounds" to the neck and chest, possibly caused by the cutting edge of a knife, according to Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Walter I. Hofman. The autopsy was reportedly performed Tuesday. Hofman told CBS Philadelphia that the coroner's office spent Tuesday and Wednesday performing investigative work at the murder scene in the Marquis Apartments in King of Prussia. The coroner's ruling emerged as the reward for information leading to Saanvi Venna's recovery was raised from $30,000 to $50,000. The family's relatives in the Guntur district of India …
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The brothers, ages 15 and 17, are charged with first-degree murder. They may be tried as adults.
Two teenage brothers lured 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale into their house, strangled her and then dumped her body in a recycling bin, authorities said Tuesday afternoon. The Clayton, Gloucester County, girl had been missing since about 12:30 p.m. Saturday, when she left home on her white BMX Odyssey bicycle. After a relentless two-day search, her body was found in the bin outside a Clayton home late Monday night. Authorities on Tuesday arrested the brothers—ages 15 and 17—who live about five blocks from Pasquale's home. During a news conference in Clayton on Tuesday afternoon, Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton declined to release their identities because of their ages. They each are charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to …
10-month-old Saanvi Venna's family had just moved to King of Prussia in June of this year. Authorities seek to identity anyone with a motive to harm the family.
Local authorities on Tuesday were working with the FBI to identify any suspects of motives in Monday's suspected abduction of 10-month-old Saanvi Venna from her home in a King of Prussia apartment tower on Monday. Authorities said Saanvi's 61-year-old grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, was found murdered in the home when Upper Merion Township Police arrived at the scene early Monday afternoon. Satyavathi Venna, who was visiting from India, had been staying with her son, Venkata Konda Siva Venna (Saanvi's father) and her daughter-in-law, Chenchu Latha Punuru, Saanvi's mother. The elder Venna was scheduled to return to India in January. Her body was being autopsied on Tuesday, authorities said. The family had been living in the apartment since …
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Andre Dula is charged with first degree and third degree murder in the killing of William Benjamin “Ben” Butler on July 17.
Andre Dula, the suspect in the North Hills shooting of William Benjamin "Ben" Butler, attended a preliminary hearing today at which the victim's brother told the court that Dula had chased after the victim with a gun. Dula is charged with first degree murder, third degree murder and related charges. Assistant District Attorney, John Walko, called two witnesses during the hearing, both of whom were at the scene on July 17: Kevin Butler, the brother of victim William Benjamin “Ben” Butler, and Chappell Washington-Freer, a friend of William Butler. Kevin Butler was a backseat passenger in the vehicle that William Butler was in on July 17. He testified that they were out looking for Dula and when they spotted him walking near the North Hills …
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Montco DA announces the arrest of 10 members of the Norristown-based "Gangsta Killer Bloods."
On Wednesday morning, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman announced the arrest of 10 alleged members of the "Gangsta Killer Bloods," including the alleged leader of the gang, 23-year-old Augustus Anthony Simmons, of Brooklyn, NY. The arrests cap off six months of work by a Montgomery County investigative grand jury, who traced the alleged criminal enterprise back to Simmons' arrival in Norristown in July of 2010. "When Simmons came in last summer, his goal was to organize criminals on the streets behind him," said Ferman. "He came down with the purpose of establishing and solidifying a Blood set in Montgomery County." A large scale investigation was launched on Dec. 15 2010, after a pair of fire-bombings on Stanbridge Street. …
40.116063
-75.34366
Montgomery County Courthouse
493 Swede St, Norristown, PA
/articles/urban-terrorists-crippled-by-grand-jury
1266307
/locations/6424339
bob19740
5:15 pm on Thursday, April 4, 2013
He might have killed the grandmother so she wont identify him. I think he may also be heavily influenced by the Tollywood movies he watched regularly. I dont think he understood the reality, nor has he watched even a single episode of law and order. Had he done that, he might have been at large still more ›