A 91-year-old man in the Thrissur district of Kerala was arrested on Friday on charges of murdering his 87-year-old wife. The Sub Inspector (SI), Sudeesh SL of Vellikulangara police station in Thrissur district, told TNM that the man named Cheriyakutty was arrested after he allegedly confessed to the crime when he was interrogated.
“Cheriyakutty and his wife Kochuthresia had been having fights regularly between each other for many years now, because of which their children moved out of the house and started living separately,” says Sudeesh. They have seven children, out of whom two are settled abroad.
Sudeesh says that recently, the couple was involved in an argument over which room their children should occupy when they come home to stay.
“On August 26 night, following one such argument, Cheriyakutty went to the bedroom and locked the door. His wife, Kochuthresia started knocking on the door asking him to open it,” says Sudeesh.
When Cheriyakutty refused to open the door, an enraged Kochuthresia started to bang on the door with her walking stick which allegedly angered her husband.
“When he opened the door, his wife tried to hit him with the stick. He held the stick and pushed her away, following which her head hit against an almirah. This resulted in her head bleeding,” Sudeesh tells TNM.
Further, Cheriyakutty is reported to have continued to hit her with the stick. The bleeding and the subsequent attack led to the death of the woman, says the SI.
Sudeesh claims that when the 91-year-old man realised that his wife was dead, he first cleaned the blood on the floor with a bedsheet and then he used the same bedsheet to wrap his wife's body, which he allegedly threw from the second floor of his house. He is then said to have set the body on fire.
The incident came to light when one of their sons, who was not able to contact the mother, came to the house to check on her. Cheriyakutty allegedly told his son that the mother took an autorickshaw and went to stay with her daughter.
A case was filed at the Vellikulangara police station about Kochuthresia missing.
“Following the information we got, we had alerted all the autorickshaw stands in Thrissur and all the auto drivers reported that they had no clue about the woman,” says Sudeesh.
While searching the house of the couple, Sudeesh said that the entire house was clean and they did not find anything suspicious until they happened to come across the woman’s walking stick without which she does not go anywhere. “We continued our search in the house and found dried bloodstains under the almirah area. When we questioned Cheriyakutty about it, he said he did not know anything about it,” says Sudeesh. He also went on to say that the moment the police found the walking stick and bloodstains, it was clear that something had happened inside the house.
“On searching the premises of the house, we were able to discover the bones of the woman. After this, Cheriyakutty finally confessed to what happened,” says Sudeesh.