Praveen Mandanapu pleaded with deputy sheriffs to help him die so he could join his wife, after he allegedly admitted to strangling her and then cutting off her limbs, a criminal investigator testified.
Mandanapu, a native of India and resident of Broadlands, is charged with first-degree murder in the June 12 slaying of his wife, Divya Mandanapu. Her head and torso were found in a suitcase in a South Riding Dumpster two days later.
Family and Domestic Relations District Court Judge Avelina Jacob ruled last week there was probable cause to believe Mandanapu committed the crime. A grand jury will deliberate on Jan. 10 and if an indictment is handed down, a trial date will be set on Jan. 11.
His attorney, James Connell of Fairfax City, said he will argue that his client’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated. “The investigator made an offer: ‘If you tell us what we want to hear, we will let you die,” Connell said. “If statements are made in response to a threat or promise, they aren’t voluntary.”
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney James Fisher said that argument is standard in any case challenging a confession. “Obviously, I disagree. There are many, many cases supporting our position. The other thing is, he will challenge whether his client actually waived his rights.”
Michael Devine, who also serves as co-counsel for the defendant, said there are hundreds of legal cases supporting their position on voluntary confessions, including the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Jackson v. Denno.
AT A PRELIMINARY court hearing last week, criminal investigator Gregory Locke testified Mandanapu maintained his innocence when he was first arrested, but later made a confession. He and investigator Jamie Koontz described some of the incidents before the defendant allegedly admitted guilt.
Koontz said the suitcase was found at the Dumpster on Monday, June 14, and Divya Mandanapu's remains was taken to the medical examiner’s office in Fairfax. An autopsy on the following day revealed gashes to her nearly severed neck, he said.
Authorities learned on June 16 that Mandanapu had been transported to the Winchester Medical Center after a suicide attempt in his car. He had swallowed an orange juice mixture of 100 sleeping pills and DEET insecticide and had tried to consume fire crackers, Locke said. The investigator ordered the defendant’s phone and television disconnected so he would not learn about the discovery of his wife’s body. He also asked the nurse to remove a braided piece of jewelry. “I was concerned if he wanted to make an attempt on his life, it was a means for him to do so,” he said.
After conferring with two doctors, Locke waited to arrest Mandanapu until after his release from the hospital the next day. One doctor said the defendant’s speech was slurred. Locke testified he did not want to question the defendant if his medications could interfere with the interview.
Locke said he read the Miranda rights three times, but he never had Mandanapu sign a waiver of the rights. After the hearing, Fisher said a written waiver is not necessary.
IN CROSS EXAMINATION, Connell inquired whether the defendant had asked repeatedly for the investigators to give him a means of killing himself the day before the alleged confession. The lawyer asked whether another investigator, Mike Grau, had promised help if he gave them the location of the limbs. He read a statement from a cassette-tape recording of Grau’s question, “Do you still want to die a horrible death? I can still convey that to the judge.”
Connell inquired whether Locke was “bothered” when Mandanapu failed to answer his question about whether any threats or promises were used during the interrogation. Locke nodded, saying he decided to ask the question again when he returned on June 18.
Locke said he learned that Mandanapu was anxious to talk to him about the body parts upon his arrival. The defendant allegedly said he had taken his wife’s legs and arms in two separate, white trash bags and thrown them in a Dumpster at Shenandoah Crossing in Fairfax. He threw the meat cleaver into another Dumpster at the same housing complex. He said he selected the site, because he had lived there for three years. He picked the South Riding Dumpster, because he happened to be driving past it.
By the time the defendant described the location of his wife’s limbs, the Dumpsters’ contents had been taken to a landfill.
Mandanapu’s recorded statement, according to his lawyer, included, “You promised me there would be justice now. I don’t want to live. I want to go to my wife, please.”
He said the trouble began on the morning of June 12. Everything was fine between the couple until he went to the grocery store. When he returned, she confronted him, which was out of character for her. “She came to his room, crying and upset,” Locke said. Divya Mandanapu packed her bags, carried them to the top of the stairs, tripped on one of the bags and fell down to the landing. Mandanapu told the investigator, “He saw this as an as opportunity.”
The husband thought she would put him in jail on abuse charges. “She was trying to put something on him,” Locke said, recalling Mandanapu’s complaint.
THE DEFENDANT choked her for a “couple of minutes,” Locke said. “I asked him if she struggled and whether she screamed. Mandanapu’s answer was, 'Yes.'”
“He stated he couldn’t stand to look at her like that,” Locke said. So the defendant allegedly took her to the garage and put her body in a blue bag and into the suitcase. “He put her in the suitcase intact.”
Mandanapu left the body in the garage overnight. Eventually he used a meat cleaver to cut off her arms and legs, because he was not strong enough to carry her to a Dumpster, Locke testified.
The couple got along well until they moved to Broadlands, according to what the defendant told the investigator. “He and his wife argued considerably about money,” Lock testified. Mandanapu complained that Divya Mandanapu’s family was blackmailing him for money. Outside the hearing, Connell said his client never tried to obtain dowry money from his wife’s relatives, the Kappera family. He likened his client’s complaint to a reverse dowry situation.
Locke said the tape recording was transcribed and he corrected the transcript. He said it was difficult to hear because of Mandanapu’s accent, crying, and screaming plus the composition of the jail walls.
After the hearing, Commonwealth’s Attorney James Plowman said it was fortunate someone stumbled across the suitcase before the Dumpster was emptied and its contents taken to the landfill. “It’s a tragedy.”