Raghunandan Yandamuri | |
---|---|
![]() Mugshot of Yandamuri on 12 May 2023 | |
Born | Raghunandan Yandamuri 21 February 1986 Andhra Pradesh, India |
Other names | Raghu Yandamuri Raghunadan Yandamuri [1] |
Citizenship | Indian |
Criminal status | Incarcerated on death row |
Motive | Ransom Robbery |
Conviction(s) | 2014 First-degree murder (two counts) Kidnapping (one count) |
Criminal charge | 2012 First-degree murder (two counts) Kidnapping (one count) |
Penalty | Death (20 November 2014) |
Details | |
Victims | Satyavathi Venna, 61 Saanvi Venna, 10-months-old |
Date | 22 October 2012 |
Country | United States |
State(s) | Pennsylvania |
Weapons | |
Date apprehended | 26 October 2012 |
Imprisoned at | SCI Somerset (2024) |
Raghunandan Yandamuri (born 21 February 1986) [1] is an Indian citizen, murderer, and kidnapper, who is currently awaiting execution on death row in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at SCI Somerset, as of 2024. [1] On 20 November 2014, he was sentenced to death for the 22 October 2012 murder of 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and the kidnapping-murder of her 10-month-old granddaughter, Saanvi Venna, at an Upper Merion Township apartment in Montgomery County. [2] [3] [4] He was previously scheduled for execution by lethal injection on 23 February 2018, at age 32, but it was halted due to the 2015 moratorium of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. [4] [5]
Not much is known about Yandamuri's personal life. He is a citizen of India and a native to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He's also known to hold an advanced degree in electrical and computer science engineering. [5] [3]
Two days prior to the murders and kidnapping, Yandamuri attended a next-door birthday party along with his wife, at the Marquis Apartments in King of Prussia. One of the murder victims, 10-month-old Saanvi Venna, along with her parents, Chenchu and Venkata Venna were also present at the party. At some point during the party, the mother of Saanvi, Chenchu, was reported to have spoken about the gold jewellery that Saanvi was wearing and her being babysitted by her grandparents. Yandamuri was also reported to have held Saanvi during the party. [3] Prior to the crime, Yandamuri had lost $15,000 at a casino, which is possibly a motive behind the crime. [6]
On 22 October 2012, Yandamuri returned to the Vennas’ apartment suite at Marquis, while wearing a black hoodie. Yandamuri proceeded to knock on the Vennas’ door, leading to 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna, Saanvi's grandmother, answering. Yandamuri then brandished a four-inch knife, in an attempt to abduct Saanvi. [3] Satyavathi attempted to back away, into the kitchen where she would later die, as Yandamuri continued to brandish his knife and follow her. Yandamuri then picked up Saanvi, as he was still brandishing his knife towards Satyavathi. An altercation soon ensued, where Yandamuri allegedly fell down while holding Saanvi, causing him to slit Satyavathi's throat and fall down atop of Saanvi. [7] This was later proven false, as Satyavathi's autopsy results show that she had died from three deep "chopping wounds" to her neck area, with some of them striking bone, [3] as well as three stab wounds to her chest. She had also lost fingers in the altercation, as she had tried to guard her neck. After the altercation, Saanvi began to cry, due to Yandamuri falling atop of her. To muffle Saanvi's cries, Yandamuri placed a handkerchief in her mouth and later fastened a towel around the handkerchief to secure it. This later caused Saanvi to die from suffocation. [8] [7] [3] Yandamuri then proceeded to rummage through suitcases, finding Saanvi's jewellery in a blue suitcase. After this, Yandamuri placed Saanvi inside of the suitcase, half-zipped, then left the suitcase inside the men's sauna of the apartment's gym. Yandamuri then went to his own apartment to take a shower, returning afterwards to discard the suitcase in a dumpster. Yandamuri also discarded some of the jewellery into the Schuylkill River and kept the remainder in a bag, concealed behind a vending machine inside of his office building. A ransom note for $50,000 was also left at the scene by Yandamuri, intended for Saanvi's parents. [9] [3] The note, with many spelling errors stated:
shiva[,] [ sic ; Venkata Venna] your daughter has been kidnapped[.] if [sic] you report this to cops[,] your daughter will be cut into pieces and found dead[.] if [sic] you inform this to anyone[,] you will find your daughter body parts [sic] thrown into your apartments[.] our [sic] prople [sic] are monitoring all your moves all the time[,] your emails & phones are being traced[.]
if [sic] you want your daughter alive and safe , [sic] follow our instructions carefully. we [sic] want $50,000.00 by end of the day[.] your [sic] wife[,] lata [Chenchu Venna] have [sic] to bring money to the location alone. if [sic] we see you or your wife accompanied with (or) informed to anyone (cop/human), you will find your daughter dead. This is very serious. Its [sic] up to you to decide, you want your fyr [sic] old daughter Smonths [sic] of your income.
By 8PM today, lata [Chenchu Venna] alone should get $50,000.00 cash and come to baha fresh at acme store complex. [sic] once [sic] our person receives money from her at baha fresh, we will call you and tell the address where to pick your baby home. Any cunning act from anyone of you [sic] will lead to your daughter's death.
Be prepared by 8PM today with cash. we [sic] dont want any excuses. Remember that your baby is starving since morning[.] [10]
The investigation into Yandamuri started when detectives from the Upper Merion police were alerted to the murder of Satyavathi, the disappearance of Saanvi from an apartment suite, and the ransom note left behind by Yandamuri. As days elapsed without any hint of a perpetrator, suspicions curved towards Yandamuri, a neighbour of the Vennas, who had shown an odd interest in the Saanvi, days prior to her vanishing. [11] [3] The interrogation of Yandamuri was a pivotal moment in the investigation, as detectives revealed the truth behind the crime. After he was brought in for questioning, Yandamuri was originally defiant towards disclosing his actions, but as the evidence mounted against him, his attitude switched from defiance to desperation. Throughout hours of continuous interrogation, detectives were able to obtain proclamations from Yandamuri, exposing the details of the crime he had committed, leading to his arrest four days after the crime. [12] [3]
Yandamuri's trial began on 25 September 2014 and was highly publicized and controversial, due to the nature of his crime and his Indian citizenship. [13] The jury selection took several weeks due to the high-profile nature of his case. [14] The prosecution presented many pieces of physical evidence, connecting Yandamuri to the crime scene. It contained fingerprints, DNA samples and surveillance footage. Witnesses further testified that they saw Yandamuri near the victims’ apartment suite on the day of the crime. Yandamuri's defence crew provided a vigorous defence, arguing that their client had been coerced into confessing his role, by the detectives. They likewise produced questions about the dependability of the material evidence, suggesting that it may have been tampered with. [14] [15] During the whole of his trial, Yandamuri maintained innocence, claiming that he had been framed for the murders. Nevertheless, his account was weakened by the overwhelming amount of evidence bestowed by the prosecutor, abandoning little doubt in the minds of the jury about his guilt. [16] [8] At the end of his trial, Yandamuri was found guilty on all counts and officially sentenced to death on 20 November 2014, after he decided to give up on finding more arguments. [3]
As of 2024, Yandamuri is incarcerated on death row at SCI Somerset. He was previously incarcerated at SCI Greene and SCI Phoenix, until he was finally moved to SCI Somerset, where he currently resides. [17] [1] [5]
On 8 January 2018, Yandamuri's execution warrant was signed. [18] He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on 23 February 2018, at age 32, but it was halted due to the 2015 moratorium of the death penalty in Pennsylvania. [4] [5]
Theodore Robert Bundy was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown.
Ira Samuel Einhorn, known as "The Unicorn Killer", was an American environmental activist and convicted murderer. His moniker, "the Unicorn", was derived from his surname; Einhorn means "unicorn" in German. As an environmental activist, Einhorn was a speaker at the first Earth Day event in Philadelphia in 1970. On September 9, 1977, Einhorn's ex-girlfriend Holly Maddux disappeared following a trip to collect her belongings from the apartment she and Einhorn had shared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eighteen months later, police found her partially decomposed body in a trunk in Einhorn's closet.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was a German-born carpenter who was convicted of the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping became known as "The Crime of the Century". Both Hauptmann and his wife, Anna Hauptmann, proclaimed his innocence to his death, when he was executed in 1936 by electric chair at the Trenton State Prison. Anna later sued the State of New Jersey, various former police officers, the Hearst newspapers that had published pre-trial articles insisting on Hauptmann's guilt, and former prosecutor David T. Wilentz.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
The 1982 Wilkes-Barre shootings was a spree shooting which occurred in the United States on September 25, 1982, carried out by George Emil Banks, a former Camp Hill prison guard. Banks fatally shot 13 people in Wilkes-Barre and Jenkins Township, Pennsylvania. The victims included seven children – five being his own – their mothers, some of their relatives, and one bystander.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Japan. In practice, it is applied only for aggravated murder, but the current Penal Code and several laws list 14 capital crimes, including conspiracy to commit civil war; conspiracy with a foreign power to provoke war against Japan; murder; obstruction of the operation of railroads, ships, or airplanes resulting in the death of the victim; poisoning of the water supply resulting in the death of the victim; intentional flooding; use of a bomb; and arson of a dwelling; all resulting in the death of the victim. Executions are carried out by long drop hanging, and take place at one of the seven execution chambers located in major cities across the country.
Harvey Miguel Robinson is an American serial killer currently imprisoned on death row in Pennsylvania. He was 18 when he committed his violent spree, killing three and injuring two.
Ada Chard Williams was a baby farmer who was convicted of strangling to death 21-month-old Selina Ellen Jones in Barnes in London in September 1899.
A number of war crimes trials were held during the Soviet occupation of Estonia (1944–1991). The best-known trial was brought in 1961, by the Soviet authorities against local collaborators who had participated in the Holocaust during the German occupation (1941–1944). The accused were charged with murdering up to 5,000 German and Czechoslovakian Jews and Romani people near the Kalevi-Liiva concentration camp in 1942–1943. The public trial by the Supreme Court of the Estonian SSR was held in the auditorium of the Navy Officers Club in Tallinn and attended by a mass audience. All three defendants were convicted and sentenced to death, one in absentia. The two defendants present for the trial were executed shortly after. The third defendant, Ain-Ervin Mere, was not available for execution.
The State Correctional Institution – Greene is a maximum security prison, classified as a Supermax, located in Franklin Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania, near Waynesburg, off Interstate 79 and Pennsylvania Route 21. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections operates the prison, which houses most of Pennsylvania's capital case inmates.
Jennifer Lee Daugherty was an American woman who was torture-murdered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania as an act of revenge in February 2010. Daugherty, who was mentally disabled, was tortured and murdered before being wrapped in Christmas decorations, put inside a garbage can, and dumped in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School.
On July 23, 2007, Linda Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky invaded the residence of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut. Though initially planning only to rob the house, Hayes and Komisarjevsky murdered Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, 17-year-old Hayley Petit and 11-year-old Michaela Petit. Their father, Dr. William Petit, escaped with severe injuries.
State Correctional Institution – Somerset is a medium-security, all-male correctional facility located outside Somerset, Pennsylvania, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and about five miles off the Somerset Interchange of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
On Death Row is a television mini-series written and directed by Werner Herzog about capital punishment in the United States. The series grew out of the same project which produced Herzog's documentary film Into the Abyss. The series first aired in the United Kingdom on March 22, 2012, on Channel 4.
Willie Jerome "Fly" Manning is on death row at Mississippi State Penitentiary, USA, with two death sentences for a conviction of double murder. He was previously also convicted and sentenced to death for an unrelated double murder, but the State Supreme Court overturned this verdict and ordered a new trial. The charges against him for the Jimmerson-Jordan murders were then dropped, and the Death Penalty Information Center listed him as a 2015 death row exoneree for this case.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Pennsylvania. Despite remaining a legal penalty, there have been no executions in Pennsylvania since 1999, and only three since 1976. In February 2015, Governor Tom Wolf announced a formal moratorium on executions that is still in effect as of 2023, with incumbent Governor Josh Shapiro continuing Wolf's moratorium. However, capital crimes are still prosecuted and death warrants are still issued.
John David Battaglia Jr. was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the state of Texas for filicide. He was convicted of killing his two young daughters in May 2001 in an act of "ultimate revenge" against his estranged ex-wife, Mary Jeane Pearle, who had separated from him after his numerous instances of assault and violence. Battaglia was executed for the murders on February 1, 2018.
The State Correctional Institution – Phoenix is a state prison in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with a Collegeville postal address, in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Operated by Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, it was named after the phoenix bird.
Franklin DeWayne Alix was an American rapist, robber, kidnapper, and serial killer who committed at least three murders, two attempted murders, nine robberies, two rapes, and four kidnappings during a crime spree in the late 1990s. Most of his crimes occurred at apartment complexes in Houston, Texas. Alix was sentenced to death for one of the murders and executed in 2010.
Capital punishment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is legal; however, the nation has not carried out any executions since 2003. Even in the absence of carrying out executions, courts continue to hand down death sentences in the country. In March 2024, the government lifted the moratorium in an attempt to combat militant violence in the country.