Raghunandan Yandamuri sentenced to death by lethal injection

“I feel sorry for them,” killer says of his victims.

By The American Bazaar Staff

WASHINGTON, DC: The brutal murderer of a 10-month-old baby girl and her grandmother, Raghunandan Yandamuri, was sentenced to death by lethal injection, by a Montgomery County Court judge, on Thursday.

Yandamuri, a Indian national, was convicted in October of two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of Satyavathi Venna,61, and the kidnapping and killing of her 10-month-old granddaughter Saanvi Venna, who lived in the same building as him. The horrific crime happened in 2012 in Upper Merion, in the King of Prussia area, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Investigators say Yandamuri was a neighbor and friend of the Venna family and carried out a kidnapping of the baby to try and get $50,000 ransom to pay off a gambling debt. Prosecutors call this a just verdict by jurors. The victims’ family did not attend the sentencing after sitting through most of the trial, reported Fox.

“If he had expressed remorse we would have had a better chance of saving his life but that wasn’t his strategy and here we are,” said Defense Attorney Henry Hilles.

His attorney said he was disappointed but not surprised by the jury’s decision to sentence Raghunandan Yandamuri to death.

“We hope that it can bring a little closure for the Venna family. It’s been a difficult two years for them. They lost their mother and their 10-month-old daughter. It was heart wrenching to hear what they’ve gone through,” said Prosecutor Kevin Steele.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that to the end, Yandamuri wouldn’t say he committed the murders.

When given a chance to speak, Yandamuri remained unemotional, defiant, and at odds with his court-appointed attorneys, just as he was during his trial.

He offered a rambling and sometimes nonsensical allocution that included an apology to the victims for their deaths, but not at his hands.

“I feel sorry for them,” said the 28-year-old former software programmer, squeezing a folded piece of yellow legal paper between his fingers, reported the Inquirer.

He apologized to the legal community as well for causing any inconvenience. And he tried to submit a lengthy post-conviction filing against his attorneys’ advice.

When Judge Steven T. O’Neill admonished Yandamuri for “one of the most brutal, heinous, cold-blooded crimes that could ever be imagined,” the defendant focused on his legal pad, jotting down notes.