A woman has been murdered, the killer has committed suicide and a hunt is on for the victim’s head.
It all began on Monday last week when an abandoned suitcase was found in Dam Street, Pettah with the body of a headless woman. The identification of the victim at the time was impossible since the suitcase did not have any personal belongings or an identification.
However, a day after the gruesome find in Pettah, a bag belonging to the woman was found at Hanwella. It contained an identity card from a youth camp which also contained an address in Kuruwita. It did not take much time for investigators to trace the address and relatives of the dead woman.
Her name as revealed was Thilini Yasodhara Jayasundera, 30, single, average wall artist and involved in social work. Her father had died years ago. She lived with her mother who is a person with special needs, a brother, a local politician and an elderly female relative. In pictures captured by security cameras in the Hanwella town, she is seen accompanied by a man. That brought the police to a modest guest house close to the town.
It was later learnt that the woman along with her male companion had booked into the guest house on the evening of February 28, the day before her body was found in Pettah.
The images of the male dragging the suitcase at Dam Street, Pettah, matched the images of those captured by the Hanwella security cameras. The police entered the guest house.
Entries on the visitors’ registration book gave details the investigators needed. Before long, a police team was heading for a location at Badalkumbura on the border of Moneragala.
It was the home of Police Sub Inspector S. M. Premasiri who was the man last seen with the victim according to the images from the security cameras. He was the main suspect and was at home when the police were closing in but escaped into a wooded area behind his home.
It was long into the night.The police did not risk going after the man and waited until day break. A search of the woods the following morning ended abruptly as the police found the semi-naked and lifeless body of the SI dangling from a tree.
They also found a vial of poison at the scene.It is still not known whether the suspect had swallowed any lethal substance before deciding to hang himself. In a suicide note, he apologises to his wife and two children for the shame, all that has happened and urges them to be brave and face the future despite whatever obstacles that would come their way. He tells the family to go ahead with the preparations that were underway for his mother’s alms-giving.
The pair had maintained a deep intimate love affair for years. Apparently, the victim was not aware her lover of 52 years was married with two children aged 18 and 10. Investigators believe that the SI was driven to commit the crime as she may have pressurised him to marry her. If that was to be the case, then the victim was not aware that her lover was married and a secret that he was able to protect to the end.
Some investigators said that the victim may have been smothered to death prior to being decapitated or even strangled since there were no signs of any blood stains at the scene of the crime which indicates that there was no struggle. It would have been a simple task for the suspect since he was a well-built man. Investigators also believe that the woman was killed on the same night the pair had checked in to the guest house.The suspect had purchased the suitcase the previous morning along with a sharp instrument that had been used to sever the victim’s head.
A woman employee at the guest house recalls seeing the man leave the premises alone along with a suitcase. She had assumed that the female companion would have left earlier.
The man is later spotted on security cameras loading the suitcase with the grisly cargo on to a parked Colombo-bound private passenger bus. The rest is now known. The tragic incident has provided a field day for spin doctors to come up with their own stories.
Some say that the victim was aware that the SI was married and had even visited his home and met with the family. There is another story that says the suspect had an older sister who also hanged herself close to the same spot where he took his life, following an illicit love affair.