Googled ‘How to Kill old Lady’, Then Did It

A woman murdered her mother-in-law in cold blood for instigating her husband by persistently complaining against her. The woman, Lalitha, set her mother-in-law, Jayanti Kanaka Mahalakshmi (66), afire in their flat in F Block, Varshini Apartments, at Appannapalem in Visakhapatnam, taking a cue from YouTube videos on How to kill old lady? Police arrested Lalitha.

Mahalakshmi was found in flames under suspicious circumstances on November 7. The police found that her daughter-in-law set the old woman afire by dousing her in petrol.

According to the police, Lalitha bore grudge against her mother-in-law for fomenting her husband through manipulation. Having decided to eliminate her mother-in-law, Lalitha searched for videos with keywords ‘how to kill old lady’s repeatedly on YouTube.

On November 6, she bought some petrol and secretly stored it at home. The next day, after her husband left home and her mother went into the bathroom at 8 am, she executed her plan. Lalitha thought of finishing her off before her mother came out of the bathroom.

She told her son and daughter to play hide and seek with their grandmother and blindfolded her. She asked the kids to go into another room. Then she gagged her and tied her tightly to a chair. Soon she doused her in petrol and lit the matchstick. To avoid her screams from being heard by her neighbours, she increased the volume of the television.

In the flames, the knots tied to the chair for burnt and the old woman ran into the puja room. The flames spread to her granddaughter who was present in the room and she suffered burn injuries to her limbs.

Lalitha tried to make her kids believe that the electric wires connected to the TV led to the fire. On listening to the screaming, Lalitha’s mother came out of the bathroom only to find Mahalakshmi dead and collapsed on the floor.

In information, police reached the flat and grew suspicious after she cited two different reasons for the flames. She told her neighbours that short circuit caused the flames and briefed the police that the diya in the puja room led to the fire. Further, she tried to prevent an AC technician, fixing an AC in the opposite flat, from entering into her house and saving the old woman. The police checked her phone and found that she repeatedly watched videos about how to kill an old lady.