Indian-origin techie takes corpse to US cops, allegedly confesses to killing 4 relatives

Police suspect that Shankar Nagappa Hangud killed four victims within a span of a week in California.
Indian-origin techie takes corpse to US cops, allegedly confesses to killing 4 relatives
Indian-origin techie takes corpse to US cops, allegedly confesses to killing 4 relatives
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A 53-year-old Indian-origin IT professional was arrested on Monday after he walked into a police station in northern California along with a dead body in his car and allegedly confessed to have killed three other people at his apartment, US media reports stated.

Driving a red Mazda6, Shankar arrived at the police station in Mount Shasta with a corpse in his car. He allegedly told officers that he had killed three other people in his apartment in the Placer County city of Roseville, over 350 kms away, prompting police officials to investigate the incident.

While the Roseville Police is yet to reveal the identities of the victims, it confirmed that the four victims were two adults and two juveniles and were related to Shankar. “It appears the victims were killed by this suspect over a few days’ time span, we’re still working to put that timeline together. We can confirm the victim he had in his vehicle in Mt. Shasta was an adult male of East Indian descent,” said the Roseville Police on Facebook.

Placer County District Attorney Ronald Scott Owens filed a criminal complaint against Shankar Nagappa Hangud suggesting that the four victims were allegedly killed over the span of a week. While two victims were allegedly killed on October 7, the third victim is believed to have died a day later. All three were found dead at Shankar's apartment in Roseville, 350 km away from the police station where he turned himself in. The complaint identifies the victims by their initials - JS, GH, NH and VH. A report by KCRA states that the police is working with the Indian Consulate to contact the victims' kin before revealing their identities.  

According to the complaint, the fourth victim, another relative, was allegedly killed on October 13 in Siskiyou County which is where Mount Shasta is located. Shankar turned himself into the police a day later at the Mount Shasta police department. He is in custody at the South Placer Jail after he was brought back from Mount Shasta on Monday. The 53-year-old faces four charges of murder. 

“There are crime scenes that have been processed, the suspect has been interviewed, but there’s a lot of stones that have been unturned that these detectives still need to look into before making a real determination about what the motivation was, what led the suspect to do the things that he did,” Roseville police captain Josh Simon said at a press conference reported by Oxygen.com.

At an arraignment on Wednesday, Shankar told the judge that he understood the charges against him but did not want an attorney, reported KCRA. However, at the judge's insistence, Shankar later agreed to be represented by a public defender.  

Shankar was a data specialist and he worked for many companies in the Sacramento area. He previously worked at a company named Social Interest Solutions in Sacramento in the role of ETL Architect and Manager, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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