Suchana Seth
Doctor says post-mortem report shows Suchana Seth's son was apparently smothered to death with pillow or towel
A doctor, who conducted the post-mortem of the four-year-old child allegedly killed by his mother Suchana Seth, said apparently a towel or a pillow was used to strangulate the minor.
Citing the post-mortem report, Dr Kumar Naik, Hiriyur Taluk Hospital's administrative officer, was quoted as saying by India Today: "He (the child) was strangled to death or what we call smothering. Either a cloth or a pillow was used. The child died due to strangulation. It doesn't look like the child was strangulated using hands. It looks like a pillow or some other material was used."
"The rigor mortis had resolved in the child. Usually in India, rigor mortis resolves after 36 hours but in this child's case, there was no rigor mortis. So, it has been more than 36 hours since his death," he said was quoted as saying by the Indian news channel.
Suchana Seth, 39, who was the founder of artificial intelligence start-up Mindful AI Labs, was arrested by police from Karnataka.
Police reportedly arrested Seth from Karnataka’s Chitradurga district, nearly 400 km away from the Goa hotel, where the crime was allegedly committed, with the body of her four-year-old stuffed into one of her luggage.
According to reports, Seth is separated from her husband and their divorce procedure is currently in the final stage.
“She has said that she was not on good terms with her husband and there is a divorce proceeding which is at the final stages. She said there was a recent court order concerning the custody of the child which she was not happy with,” North Goa superintendent of police Nidhin Valsan told Hindustan Times, citing the initial round of questioning of the woman.
Valsan said her husband, who was in Indonesia, had been told to come to Goa to record his statement in connection with his son’s murder.
What allegedly happened in Goa?
According to reports, Seth flew from Bengaluru to Goa with her son on January 6.
She checked into the Sol Banyan Grande hotel in Candolim.
Her hotel was reserved till January 10.
Valsan told Hindustan Times the child may have died on January 7.
The officer said Suchana Seth called the front desk past midnight and called them to book her a cab that could take her home to Bengaluru.
The woman was suggested by hotel staff to take a flight instead of going by cab, to which the woman denied and insisted that she wanted to go by cab.
“But she insisted she wanted to go by taxi. The hotel arranged an Innova taxi and she left the hotel at about 1am on January 8 (night intervening Sunday and Monday),” Valsan told the newspaper.
Her son was not with her when she departed from the hotel.
The cleaning staff of the hotel raised an alarm on the following morning when blood stains were spotted in the room.
Following the development, police reportedly phoned Seth to enquire about her son’s whereabouts.
A police officer told Hindustan Times: "She initially told the police she had left her son with a friend at Margao in south Goa. But the address that she gave was on verification found to be fake. We called the cab driver and told him to drive to the nearest police station. She was arrested at the Aimangala police station of Karnataka Police in Chitradurga district."
The child's body was found in a luggage bag.
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