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Thread: Raghunandan Yandamuri - Pennsylvania Death Row

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    Raghunandan Yandamuri - Pennsylvania Death Row


    Satyavathi Venna



    Saanvi Venna




    DA seeks death penalty against alleged killer of Upper Merion 10-month-old

    By JENNY DeHUFF
    The Reporter

    Prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty against Upper Merion’s Raghunandan Yandamuri over an alleged kidnapping that left two dead in October.

    District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman filed the paperwork Tuesday morning before Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill in the murders of 10-month-old Saanvi Venna and her grandmother, 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna.

    According to the notice of intent, the Commonwealth is seeking the death penalty against Yandamuri in connection with the first- and second-degree murders with which he is charged. Prosecutors allege Yandamuri went to the victims’ house with the intention of kidnapping the little girl and holding her for ransom. He told investigators he panicked after the grandmother opened the door Oct. 22 and a struggle ensued.

    “We only seek the death penalty in limited cases, reserving it for the worst of the worst,” said First Assistant District Attorney Kevin R. Steele.

    “In this case, we carefully evaluated the evidence before deciding to file the notice of our intention to seek the death penalty. In the two murders of Saanvi and Satyavathi, there is evidence of a number of aggravating factors including murder, while the victim was being held for ransom, killing in perpetration of a felony, multiple murders, murder of a child under (age) 12 and murder of a witness.”

    Yandamuri, 26, was arrested and charged on Oct. 26, 2012 and appeared for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Justice James Gallagher in Bridgeport. During that hearing, a 23-minute videotaped confession was played in court, showing Yandamuri reenacting the events of that day, wherein he claims he accidentally slit Satyavathi Venna’s throat with a butcher knife.

    “I know this is not a small mistake. I had a good job, a good life. I really feel sorry for what I did,” Yandamuri can be heard saying on the tape. He reportedly knew the victims’ family as neighbors in the Marquis Apartments on West Dekalb Pike in King of Prussia. Like him, the mother and father of Saanvi were young technology professionals from India.

    http://www.thereporteronline.com/art...n-10-month-old

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    Not guilty plea in King of Prussia kidnap-murder case

    Raghunandan Yandamuri pleaded not guilty Friday to first-degree murder and 11 other charges in a bizarre kidnap-and-ransom case that turned deadly in a King of Prussia apartment complex last October.

    The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty against Yandamuri, 27, in the deaths of 10-month-old Saanvi Venna and her grandmother.

    Yandamuri allegedly stormed into the apartment where 61-year-old Satayvathi Venna was babysitting her granddaughter Saanvi on Oct. 22. Authorities said his plan was to kidnap the child and try to get ransom from the Venna family to pay debts. Instead, Yandamuri, who knew the Venna family, allegedly killed the grandmother when she tried to protect Saanvi. Satayvathi Venna was visiting from India.

    Authorities said Yandamuri then took the baby, finding her body four days later in an unused basement sauna in another building at the same apartment complex.

    Judge Steven T. O'Neill accepted the 13 not-guilty pleas from Yandamuri's court-appointed lawyer, Stephen G. Heckman, as the defendant sat quietly next to his attorney. O'Neill said the defense could have all the time it needed to prepare for the trial since it was a death-penalty case, but expected the proceeding could begin in the fall.

    Yandamuri is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...rder_case.html
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    Trial delayed in botched ransom kidnapping in Montco

    Attorneys for an Upper Merion man charged with double murder and kidnapping were granted a continuance in the start of the capital murder trial Tuesday, citing a probe into the man’s mental health.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Raghunandan Yandamuri, 27, charged with fatally stabbing a grandmother and leaving an infant for dead in what they call a kidnapping for ransom gone horribly wrong. Yandamuri’s is one of the most high profile capital murder cases ever to be tried in recent Montgomery County history.

    “We asked for a continuance based on our need to do more investigative work, and also work concerning mitigating circumstances if there’s a first-degree murder conviction,” said defense attorney Steve Heckman.

    “We’re trying to get more information on his education and background from India, which takes quite a long time to amass that information. At this point, we’re preparing for both the trial phase and, if necessary, a penalty phase.”

    Following his arrest, Yandamuri is seen and heard in a 23-minute videotape made by police trying to describe what happened the afternoon of Oct. 22, 2012. He first denies any involvement in the killings, then allegedly backpedals and explains the stabbing of the grandmother as an accident. Defense attorneys have asked a judge to quash the tape at trial.

    Originally scheduled to go before a judge Sept. 9, that trial date is now postponed, pending information from India regarding Yandamuri’s past mental health. He waived his rights to a speedy trial and has no prior record in India or the U.S.

    “Virtually all his family is in India,” said Heckman.

    “An investigator is checking into his background, but having someone to go over and meet with the family has been highly valuable to us. There’s a vast amount of discovery still needing to be done. Assuming he’s convicted of first-degree murder, we would be looking at aspects of the case that would warrant life imprisonment over death.”

    In March, Yandamuri pleaded not guilty to first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, robbery and abuse of a corpse.

    First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele has filed two motions seeking the death penalty, one for each victim.

    “We relayed to the court that we are prepared to proceed at trial,” he said.

    “We continue to pursue this as first-degree murder cases and as capital offenses. The commonwealth remains ready to proceed to trial.”

    Ten-month-old Saanvi Venna and her grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, were home at the King of Prussia Marquis Apartments last year when Yandamuri allegedly made his way there armed with a butcher knife and 10 copies of a garbled ransom note.

    “Shiva, your daughter has been kidnapped,” the note reads.

    “If you report this to cops, your daughter will be cut into pieces and found dead… If you want your daughter alive and safe, follow our instructions carefully. We want $50,000 by end of the day…”

    Prosecutors allege Yandamuri was desperate for money to repay a litany of gambling debts and targeted his victims because he knew they had money.

    Police found the grandmother dead in the kitchen of the apartment and later found the granddaughter’s body stashed in a men’s sauna attached to the gymnasium at the Marquis Apartments.
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    Montco man says willing to die if convicted of murders

    An Upper Merion man accused of last October’s murders of a 61-year-old grandmother and her infant granddaughter says he will be willing to die if convicted of those crimes.

    Raghunandan Yandamuri, 27, formerly of the Marquis Apartments complex, said he was prepared to “voluntarily take the death penalty” if convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of 10-month-old Saanvi and her paternal grandmother, Satyavathi Venna.

    The claims were made in several pretrial motions that Yandamuri filed this month on his own behalf with the Montgomery County Court.

    One of the motions is to withdraw a motion filed by his defense team to bar the prosecution from seeking the death penalty.

    In another of the motions, Yandamuri asks the prosecution not to introduce impact testimony by the victims’ family during the sentencing phase of his trial because he “intends to take death penalty without any hearing for sentence.”

    Yandamuri, in yet another motion, asks the court to allow him to represent himself.

    Yandamuri, who has been held in jail without bail since his arrest Oct. 26, 2012, is charged with first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping and related offenses in the suffocation death of Saanvi and the stabbing death of her grandmother during a kidnapping for ransom that went awry.

    The court appointed Stephen G. Heckman to serve as Yandamuri’s trial counsel and Henry S. Hilles to serve as his death penalty counsel.

    In the petition to serve as his own lawyer, Yandamuri said he has a “conflict” with his lawyers over trial strategy. The conflicts were not specified.

    In a recent interview with reporters from a TV station in India, Yandamuri alleged that two others were behind the robbery and deaths, according to SearchIndia.com. He admitted to writing the ransom note but only because the other two threatened his wife and unborn child, SearchIndia reported.

    In the interview, Yandamuri maintained that the videotaped confession he gave to authorities in which he even acted out what occurred was coerced by police and detectives, SearchIndia reported.

    Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill, who will preside at the trial, is scheduled to hold a status conference Tuesday.

    The charges against Yandamuri stem from an incident that began at 1:15 p.m. Oct. 22, 2012, when Upper Merion police were dispatched to the Marquis Apartments complex in response to a 911 call reporting both a killing and a missing child.

    When they arrived, they found the lifeless body of the grandmother in the kitchen.

    The grandmother, a native of India who had arrived in the United States in June 2012 for a six-month visit, was babysitting Saanvi while her parents were at work.

    Police could not find the baby but they did find a ransom note asking the parents, both software engineers, for $50,000 in cash.

    Authorities, including township police, county detectives and the FBI, held out hope through the week that the child would be found alive.

    Yandamuri, who lived in the same apartment complex as the Venna family and was a close family friend of the baby’s parents, was brought to the police station for questioning on Oct. 25. After initially denying any involvement in the incident, Yandamuri allegedly admitted he was responsible for the death of the grandmother and the baby, according to the criminal complaint.

    After allegedly killing the grandmother, Yandamuri stuffed a handkerchief in Saanvi’s mouth to stop her from crying, covered her face with a towel to keep the handkerchief in place and then removed the baby from the apartment in a suitcase he found there, the criminal complaint claims Yandamuri told authorities.

    Authorities found the baby’s body in the suitcase hidden in an unused sauna in another building at the apartment complex at about 4 a.m. Oct. 26, 2012.

    Authorities believe that Yandamuri’s alleged past and current significant gambling debts were a major motive behind the kidnapping-for-ransom scam, according to court documents.

    http://www.theintell.com/news/crime/...9406fe86d.html
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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    I don't believe it....that he agrees to voluntarily take the DP for his crimes. Too many DR inmates have said the same thing and then when the execution date gets closer they backtrack and start appealing. If he is convicted and actually willingly accepts his fate, if he is sentenced to death, only when they strap him down and administer the fatal dose will I believe him.

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    Suspect in Pa. slaying of baby, grandma testifies

    A suburban Philadelphia man accused of killing a baby and her grandmother in a botched ransom kidnapping says he was coerced into a confession during a 17-hour detention and interrogation.

    The Philadelphia Inquirer reports (http://bit.ly/1atoAfu) that Raghunandan Yandamuri (rag-oo-NAHN'-dahn yahn-duh-MOHR'-ee) made the statement during Thursday testimony at a pretrial hearing.

    The 27-year-old Yandamuri has denied in earlier court filings that he killed the two, and his lawyers asked Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill to bar his confession from trial.

    Authorities allege Yandamuri kidnapped the baby from her family's King of Prussia apartment and killed her grandmother who tried to protect the child. The girl's body was found several days later.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the October 2012 crime and deny coercion. The hearing will continue Jan. 13.

    http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/art...es-5110765.php
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    Montco judge rebukes accused killer of baby, grandmother

    With the victims' family members sitting nearby, the man accused of killing a baby and her grandmother in 2012 received a scolding from a judge Friday for interrupting his attorney and trying to control the proceedings.

    "You are not, at this stage, your own lawyer," Judge Steven T. O'Neill said to Raghunandan Yandamuri.

    The father of the baby - the son of the grandmother - sat quietly between 2 relatives during the proceeding.

    O'Neill's comments came near the end of a hearing in which prosecutors and defense attorneys argued a defense motion to have Yandamuri's confession and other evidence barred from his trial.

    Yandamuri could receive the death penalty if a jury convicts him of first-degree murder in the October 2012 killings of 10-month-old Saanvi Venna and her grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, 61, at a King of Prussia apartment complex. His trial is tentatively set for May.

    The killings occurred at the Marquis complex in King of Prussia during what police said was a botched plan to kidnap Saanvi and ask her parents, Venkata Konda Siva Venna and Chenchu Latha Punuru, for ransom.

    Since his arrest, the 27-year-old Indian citizen has been extremely vocal about his case, including contending that he was deprived of his rights by police during questioning.

    He had asked to dismiss his court-appointed attorneys, Stephen G. Heckman and Henry S. Hilles III, and be allowed to represent himself. He later changed his mind.

    Yandamuri also has disavowed his confession, saying he was coerced during 17 hours of questioning at the Upper Merion Township Police Department.

    On Friday, Heckman orally recapped the arguments he had filed, saying that no physical force was used to elicit Yandamuri's statements, but that authorities employed "psychological coercion and subterfuge."

    Montgomery County Deputy District Attorney Samantha Cauffman argued that county Detective Paul Bradbury's version of how he conducted the questioning was far more credible than Yandamuri's. Additionally, the defendant's controlling behavior so far in court suggests that he was smart enough and vocal enough to have held his own against police, she said.

    When she was done, Yandamuri asked Heckman to read aloud several points he had written down while Cauffman spoke. After Heckman read some - and was interrupted again by Yandamuri - O'Neill made his remarks.

    The judge said that he wanted to give Yandamuri every opportunity to have input in his case, but that he needed to talk with his attorneys prior to sessions.

    "I'm sorry, your honor," Yandamuri said.

    O'Neill said he would rule on the suppression motion and address a change-of-venue motion within the next several weeks.

    (Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer)
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    Alleged Upper Merion baby killer's attorneys file motion to continue trial

    The attorneys of the man accused of killing an elderly woman, kidnapping and later killing her granddaughter filed a motion with the court on Tuesday to push back the death-penalty trial against Raghunandan Yandamuri which is scheduled for May.

    Attorneys Stephen Heckman and Henry Hillis cite reasons of not being able to get people they deem to be critical witnesses in the country by the time the trial is set to begin.

    “In January, 2014, the first real trial date was set for May, 2014, and in furtherance of trying to prepare for that date the defense sought to have testify various defendant family members including, but not limited to, defendant’s mother and brother,” the motion reads.

    According to the motion, Yandamuri’s family members are essentially for the defense to “show the defendant’s character.”

    Heckman and Hillis write that his family members have pursued the immigration process from India, but have not yet been approved to come to the country for the trial.

    The second point made in the motion expresses the need for Heckman and Hillis to adjust trial strategy for after rulings made on Thursday on previous pre-trial motions.

    In January Heckman and Hillis made arguments in court trying to stop prosecutors from using a video of Yandamuri making an alleged confession to detectives.

    On Thursday, Judge Steven O’Neill is scheduled to rule on this motion among others.

    The Times Herald previously reported Judge O’Neill tentatively scheduled Yandamuri’s trial to begin on May 5.

    “With trial tentatively scheduled less than three weeks thereafter there is insufficient time for the defense to strategically prepare an appropriate strategy.”

    The motion also states the attorneys need to see a “full and complete” list of witnesses the prosecutors plan to have testify at trial and the need to get reports back from defense experts to be better prepared for trial.

    “This is a death penalty case and the defense is required to be as fully prepared as possible to defend our client, which is not possible at the present time based on the need for crucial mitigation witnesses and the need to receive additional expert information, a list of witnesses and other requested discovery,” the motion states at the end.

    Yandamuri is accused of kidnapping a 10-month old baby and killing her grandmother in the process. Yandamuri allegedly gave investigators a confession after several hours of speaking with police at the Upper Merion police station on Oct. 2012.

    http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/art...mode=fullstory
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    Alleged Upper Merion baby killer will represent himself at trial

    A suburban Philadelphia man accused of killing a baby and her grandmother in a botched ransom kidnapping has fired his trial lawyer and plans to represent himself.

    KYW-AM (http://bit.ly/1nSeDmX) said Friday that a Montgomery County judge approved the request made by 27-year-old defendant Raghunandan Yandamuri (rag-oo-NAHN'-dahn yahn-duh-MOHR'-ee) of Upper Merion.

    Prosecutors say he kidnapped 10-month-old Saanvi Venna from her family's King of Prussia apartment in October 2012 and killed the baby's grandmother who tried to protect the child. The girl's body was found several days later.

    Yandamuri is facing the death penalty if he's convicted of first-degree murder.

    Prosecutors say they are ready to proceed with the trial, scheduled to begin in early September.

    http://www.wfmj.com/story/25540042/p...e-murder-trial
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    Alleged Upper Merion baby killer asks for court appointed forensic pathologist, DNA tests

    Representing himself for the first time in Montgomery County court Monday, Raghunandan Yandamuri asked the court to appoint a forensic pathologist and a computer animation specialist to reconstruct the crime scene to call to the stand as witnesses for the defense and a pre-trial hearing.

    Yandamuri, 28, explained in court that he wanted an outside pair of eyes to look at the evidence and try to align the evidence with his version of events.

    Judge O’Neill was concerned that granting the motion would delay the trial which is scheduled to begin on Sept. 9 of this year. The trial has already been delayed several times. Yandamuri said that once a forensic pathologist and an expert to reconstruct the crime scene are appointed, the work should only take about 20 days. O’Neill ultimately took the motion under advisement and did not issue a ruling on Monday.

    Yandamuri also asked to have three beer bottles found at the scene of the murder tested against his DNA. Yandamuri had previously claimed that two men he named as Matt and Josh were responsible for the killings, and forced him to steal jewelry from Satyavathi Venna’s body. He has never given last names for the two men he claims are responsible for the killing.

    He did not comment to reporters as he was being led out of the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies on Monday.

    Yandamuri is accused of the Oct. 22, 2012 killing of 61 year-old Satyavathi Venna and her 10 month-old granddaughter, Saanvi in an alleged botched kidnapping. Prosecutors allege Yandamuri attempted to kidnap Saanvi and in the process, killed her grandmother in a struggle. The district attorney’s office contends he intended to hold the child for ransom to pay back gambling debts.

    A ransom note was left at the scene of the murder, addressing the parents of Saanvi Venna by nicknames only used by a small group of people. Investigators went through the list and found Yandamuri’s name on it. Investigators found Yandamuri at the Valley Forge Casino on Oct. 25. He went with investigators voluntarily. Yandamuri allegedly later confessed to the killings on tape in the early morning hours of Oct. 26, 2012. In April Judge O’Neill ruled the commonwealth would be allowed to present the alleged confession as evidence to jurors during the trial.

    Yandamuri will be representing himself at trial; however, his former attorney Stephen Heckman is staying on the trial as Yandamuri’s court appointed stand-by counsel. Heckman is allowed to advise him and answer questions but will not be participating in the trial by means of jury selection, presenting arguments and evidence and questioning witnesses. If Yandamuri is convicted — for which he would face the death penalty — he will be represented by Henry Hilles during the penalty phase. First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele and Deputy District Attorney Samantha Cauffman are prosecuting the case.

    http://www.timesherald.com/general-n...gist-dna-tests
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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