San Francisco: A 53-year-old Indian-origin IT professional has been arrested after he dramatically walked into a Northern California police station along with a dead body in his car and confessed to have killed three others at his apartment, over 350 kilometres away, according to US media reports here Tuesday.
Roseville Police Department Captain Joshua Simon said all the four victims in the grizzly incident are related to the suspect, Shankar Nagappa Hangud. The police official declined to name the four victims, but said they were all members of the suspect’s family, two adults and two juveniles.
Shankar Nagappa Hangud, driving a red Mazda6, arrived at the police station in the city of Mount Shasta shortly after noon and told officers that he had killed people at his apartment in the Placer County city of Roseville, police said.
Simon said that Hangud, a Roseville resident, was in custody at the South Placer Jail and would face four charges of murder.
Hangud was a data specialist and had worked for several companies in the Sacramento area, according to his LinkedIn profile. Hangud, who is being held without bail, refused any interviews, ‘The Sacramento Bee’ newspaper reported.
“This incident has touched the lives of many in the area,” Simon told reporters at a news conference Tuesday, adding that such a killing had not occurred in the Placer County city of 1,30,000 in his recent memory.
“It’s a very sad, sad situation. The suspect himself drove to the Mount Shasta Police Department with one of the victims in his car and made a confession to them to start off this investigation,” Simon added.
Mt Shasta Police chief Parish Cross said he and another officer went outside to the car to verify what Hangud had said was true. “These are things that just don’t happen every day and when they do it is upsetting,” said Cross.
Hangud told police the address where to find the three other bodies and Roseville officers checked his apartment near Sacramento and discovered the additional victims, according to authorities.
“It appears that the victims were killed by this suspect over a few days time span,” Simon informed. “We’re still working to put that timeline together.”
Police said they were not ready to disclose a motive for Hangud’s alleged acts; however, tax records showed that Hangud faced a federal tax lien of USD 178,603 from the Internal Revenue Service this year.
Hangud’s most recent employment was with a company called Social Interest Solutions, which provides IT services for state public assistance programmes. He worked there till December 2018.
AFP