The house of Cadell Jeanson Raja, where the mass family killings occurred in April 2017
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A luxuriously large house nestled in a leafy cul-de-sac in the upscale Bains Compound neighbourhood near the official residences of cabinet ministers in the capital became the horrific scene of a mass family killing in April 2017. 

On Monday, a district court in Thiruvananthapuram will likely attempt to reach closure in the appalling killings which shocked the public conscience and left the police and society grappling for answers.

The court will likely pass its verdict on Cadell Jeansen Raja, the sole accused in the “one-by-one execution-style killings” of his father, Professor Raja Thankam, his mother, Dr Raja Thankam, a cardiologist, sister Caroll, a medical graduate from a university in China, and his congenitally blind aunt, Lalitha Gene.

The prosecution case was that Mr Raja, currently the sole surviving heir to the family’s immense fortune, including a vast plantation in Tamil Nadu, had summoned his victims to his upstairs room under different pretexts and fatally axed them from behind. The murders took place over three days, commencing April 5, 2017.

Emergency responders found the partially burned bodies of the victims after neighbours reported a fire on April 8. A week later, the police arrested Mr Raja, who decamped to Chennai and recorded minor burn injuries on his hand.

The police recovered a “Stanley’s Carpenter Axe”, which Mr Raja had allegedly purchased online. They found a cache of violent video games in his room, crammed with computers and rigged with gaming devices.

Investigators told the court that the killings mimicked those in the video game ‘Zoombie Go Boom’, which they “recovered” from Mr Raja’s computer. Investigators also “recovered” a human dummy allegedly used by Mr Raja for “perfecting the video-game-inspired killing method”.

Legal wrangles over Mr Raja’s soundness of mind to face trial had delayed the case by eight years.

The police constituted a medical board, including psychiatrists, to verify Mr Raja’s claim that he lacked “mens rea”, a legal euphemism for lack of knowledge of wrongdoing and premeditation.

Mr Raja claimed that the killings occurred when he practised “astral projection”, a “pseudoscience” that promises practitioners “out of the body” experiences. The medical board testified that the killings had the markings of a preplanned felony.

Investigators portrayed Mr. Raja as a loner and socially inadequate video game enthusiast who spent long hours cooped up in his upstairs room.

The prosecution told the court that familial dysfunction, lingering animosity towards parents, and social isolation culminated in the killings. 

They said Mr Raja performed less academically than his highly educated parents expected and agonised over his mother’s decision to take up a foreign assignment and his sister’s resolve to go abroad for higher studies.

SP K. E. Baiju, DySP J. K. Dinil, Sub Inspectors Manikantan and Rajesh investigated the case. Special Prosecutor Dilip Sathyan argued on the State’s behalf. Additional Sessions Court VI judge K. Vishnu presided over the trial.