A tragedy which threatens to get worse for Indian American couple in Texas.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Pallavi Dhawan, the Texas mom who’s been in police custody since January under charges of killing her 10 year-old son, has claimed that the reason she initially kept quiet about her son’s death and failed to inform police is because she was keeping the boy’s body ready for a Hindu religious ceremony.
According to an affidavit filed by Dhawan’s attorney, David Finn, Dhawan went to go wake up her son, Arnav, for school on the morning of January 29. The Frisco County mother then noticed that her son was not moving, and after initially thinking he was faking sleepiness to get out of school, realized that he was actually dead.
Dhawan, 38, then went into a state of shock, according to court documents, and attempted to revive the boy via CPR and other procedures. When none of that worked, and she realized he truly was dead, she called his school to say he would not be coming that day, and then set about making preliminary preparations for his death ceremony.
Dhawan gave Arnav’s body a bath, dressed him in his favorite clothes, put his favorite toy next to him, tucked him into bed with his favorite blanket and pillow, and then kept the body on ice with cubes that were in the her freezer. Her husband, Sumeet, was out of town on a business trip, but Dhawan did not want to call police to say that the boy was dead because she believed it was the father’s responsibility to officially declare the boy dead (it’s unclear if this is also a religious requirement, or something she believed was US law).
On the day that Sumeet returned from his trip, Dhawan left him alone in the house in order to delay telling him about Arnav’s death. When she returned, she found that Sumeet had already discovered the boy’s body, had called law enforcement, and Dhawan was promptly arrested on the spot.
Now, Dhawan is saying that she did not kill Arnav, and that his death was the result of medical complications from diseases he suffered. Records show that the boy suffered from a brain cyst and a condition called microcephaly, which is when the circumference of a person’s head is smaller than it should be.
The Collin County Medical Examiner’s office ruled last month that the boy died from natural causes, as well. Initial autopsy work had also revealed that no fluid was found in the boy’s lungs to indicate drowning, nor was there any evidence of blunt force trauma.
Sumeet has stuck behind his wife through the whole proceedings, saying that he has no reason to believe she would kill the boy. Dhawan is saying just as much, despite filing a confession immediately after her arrest in February, which her lawyer now calls “fiction.”
Dhawan is facing a charge of first-degree murder, but with autopsy work saying that the boy died naturally, and not from drowning, beating, or smothering, the question still lingers in the eye of the court as to why Dhawan failed to disclose the boy’s death if she herself was not the cause of it.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com