Raghunandan Yandamuri, an Indian American techie from Vizag, will be executed on Feb. 23 for killing a 61-year-old woman and her 10-month-old granddaughter. Yandamuri was arrested in 2012.
Yandamuri is the first Indian American to face a death penalty. However, he is likely to get a reprieve due to a moratorium on the death penalty in 2015 by the governor of Pennsylvania Tom Wolf, Times of India reported.
A native of Andhra Pradesh, India, Yandamuri came to the US on an H-1B visa to work as a software engineer. In October 2012, he murdered 10-month-old Saanvi and her 61-year-old grandmother Satyavathi Venna at their apartment. Yandamuri was known to the parents of the child and lived in the same apartment complex.
Police investigations revealed that he kidnapped the child to extort money from her parents to repay his debts owed due to gambling. After his arrest from a local casino, he told Police that he killed Satyavathi because she has resisted him while he was trying to kidnap Saanvi.
Following his conviction, Yandamuri asked that death penalty be imposed on him. Later, he appealed his punishment but lost his appeal in April 2017.
Yandamuri is currently lodged at the Greene State Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
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Raghunandan Yandamuri sentenced to death by lethal injection (November 21, 2014)
Murderer Raghunandan Yandamuri appealed to judge for the death penalty, but jury still to decide his fate (October 14, 2014)
Raghunandan Yandamuri found guilty in the murders of Saanvi Venna, Satyavathi Venna (October 9, 2014)
Raghunandan Yandamuri tells jurors in Pennsylvania police coerced him to confess to murdering 10-month-old infant Saanvi Venna and her grandmother (October 7, 2014)
Indian American facing charges of murdering elderly woman, her grand-daughter, requests delay in trial (April 15, 2014)
1 Comment
Fry him…no mercy…