- Rani Padmini and her mother were stabbed 26 times and found dead in their bungalow in 1986
- Their driver and two new household employees disappeared after the murders and were suspects
- Driver Jebaraj had a criminal history and was arrested along with the cook and watchman
For four days, a young actress and her mother lay dead inside their bungalow while life continued just beyond its walls.
Newspapers landed at the door and remained unopened. The house stood silent. No one outside suspected that 22-year-old Rani Padmini and her 46-year-old mother, Indirakumari, had been stabbed 26 times between them. Their decomposing bodies had been left one over the other inside a bathroom.
Then came the detail that turned a gruesome double murder into a chilling story of betrayal.
There was no sign that a stranger had forced his way inside. The actress's imported Nissan was missing, the bedroom had been ransacked, and three men employed by the family had vanished. One of them had been hired just 11 days earlier. The other two had entered the household barely 48 hours before the killings.
Police would soon allege that the predators had not broken into Rani Padmini's home.
They had been invited in.
The Silence Inside The Bungalow
On the afternoon of October 19, 1986, a real estate agent and his friend arrived at the bungalow on 18th Main Road in Anna Nagar West, Madras.
Padmini and her mother were negotiating to buy the property from a doctor based in T Nagar. The deal, reportedly worth Rs 15 lakh, was close to being finalised. The agent had come to help move it forward.
But no one answered the door.
The front entrance appeared to be bolted from within. The men walked around the property and reached the car shed, where they noticed that a rear door had been left open.
They entered through the kitchen.
The deeper they went, the more disturbing the scene became. The bedroom had been ransacked. Expensive saris were strewn across the room. Someone had rummaged through the steel bureau.
The two men did not continue searching. They rushed to the Tirumangalam police station.
A police team reached the bungalow within minutes. Inside a bathroom adjoining one of the bedrooms, officers found Padmini and her mother lying one on top of the other. Decomposition had already set in.
Investigators estimated that the women had been dead for four days.
The Newspapers Told A Story
There was no witness waiting to tell police when the women had last been alive. The house itself had to provide the timeline.
English and Tamil newspapers dated October 16 onwards had accumulated unopened on the front sit-out. Newspapers dated October 15 were found inside the bedroom, scattered among the saris.
It appeared that normal life inside the bungalow had abruptly stopped on October 15.
Then investigators checked the garage.
Padmini's expensive Nissan, an imported car she had purchased in Bombay, was gone. So was the man hired to drive it.
Other members of the household staff were also missing.
Fingerprint experts searched the bungalow, collecting prints from glass bottles in a room near the kitchen and from the bathroom. The bodies were in such an advanced state of decomposition that doctors had to conduct the post-mortem examination at the house itself before moving them to the General Hospital mortuary.
The extent of the violence soon became clear.
Padmini had been stabbed 12 times in the stomach, neck and chest. Her mother had suffered 14 stab wounds.
The attack had not been quick or impulsive. Both women had been repeatedly assaulted inside a home they believed was safe.
An Actress Still Waiting For Her Breakthrough
Rani Padmini was the only child of Chaudri and Indirakumari. Born in Anna Nagar, she entered the film industry with Sangharsham and went on to appear in movies including Parankimala, Sharam, Bandham and Kilikonchal.
She worked predominantly in Malayalam cinema but also appeared in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and a few Hindi films. She had become a recognisable face, though she had not yet achieved the stardom enjoyed by some of her contemporaries.
At the time, Padmini was living at Defence Officers' Colony in Nandambakkam. She and her mother had rented the Anna Nagar bungalow only a few months before the murders and were now planning to buy it.
That property deal would become central to the police theory of the crime.
Investigators learnt that Padmini and her mother had withdrawn money from a bank on the day they were killed. The prosecution would later allege that approximately Rs 5 lakh in cash, along with jewellery and other valuables, had been kept inside the house.
Someone familiar with the family's movements may have known about it.
The Driver Who Arrived 11 Days Earlier
Suspicion rapidly turned towards G Jebaraj, Padmini's missing driver.
He had joined the household on October 4 after responding to an advertisement published in a Tamil newspaper. By the time of the murders, he had worked for the family for barely 11 days.
But that was apparently enough time to learn their routines.
Jebaraj frequently drove Padmini and her mother to shopping centres and jewellery stores. He knew where they went, what they purchased and when they were likely to be at home.
A check of his background produced an even more alarming discovery.
According to police records, Jebaraj had a criminal history connected to automobile theft. He had reportedly been linked to more than 30 such cases and had walked out of Central Prison only a month before joining Padmini's household, after serving a one-year sentence.
Now he was missing, and so was her car.
Two other employees had also recently entered the house. Lakshmi Narasimhan, alias Kutty, had been hired as the watchman, while Ganeshan worked as the cook.
They had joined just two days before the murders.
A Slap, A Grudge And Rs 5 Lakh
The prosecution would later construct a disturbing account of how robbery allegedly turned into murder.
Jebaraj, investigators claimed, had developed a personal grudge against Indirakumari after she allegedly slapped him and ordered him not to return to work.
He was already believed to know about the money and valuables inside the bungalow. According to the prosecution, the humiliation gave him another reason to act.
Police alleged that Jebaraj decided to steal the cash and jewellery and kill both women to prevent them from identifying him. He allegedly brought Lakshmi Narasimhan and Ganeshan into the plan, promising that the stolen money and valuables would be divided among them.
Three knives were allegedly purchased. Jebaraj kept one and gave the other two to his supposed accomplices.
On the morning of October 15, police alleged, the men first attacked Indirakumari in the kitchen.
Her screams brought Padmini rushing towards her.
The actress was then allegedly overpowered and repeatedly stabbed. By the time the attack ended, both women were dead.
The killers allegedly searched the house, took the cash and valuables and fled. Jebaraj drove away in the Nissan, leaving behind a bolted front door and a scene that would remain undiscovered for another four days.
The Woman Who Led Police To The Driver
Finding Jebaraj was now the investigation's first priority, but he had disappeared.
Then a woman arrested within a day of the murders gave police an unexpected lead.
She reportedly told investigators that Jebaraj had taken her to Padmini's bungalow on the day after the killings. According to her statement, they remained inside the house for nearly six hours before he drove away in the Nissan.
If her account was accurate, Jebaraj had returned to the bungalow while the bodies of Padmini and her mother were still inside.
Investigators traced his parents to Arumbakkam and recovered Rs 1,100 from them. The search eventually led police to Jebaraj, who was arrested within a week of the murders.
Lakshmi Narasimhan and Ganeshan were arrested subsequently.
But another painful chapter was unfolding at the mortuary.
The bodies of Padmini and her mother remained unclaimed for 10 days because no relatives immediately came forward. Malayalam actor Mohan, representing the Malayala Chala Chitra Parishad, approached police and sought permission to cremate them on humanitarian grounds.
Eventually, Indirakumari's brother, a retired Indian Air Force squadron leader who travelled from Bangalore, arrived to receive the bodies. The mother and daughter were then cremated.
Three Death Sentences, Then A Dramatic Reversal
The case moved slowly through the courts.
In March 1989, nearly two-and-a-half years after the killings, a district sessions court convicted Jebaraj, Lakshmi Narasimhan and Ganeshan on multiple charges, including murder.
All three were sentenced to death.
It appeared to be the final reckoning in a case that had horrified Tamil Nadu and Kerala. But the verdict would not survive unchanged.
The three men challenged their convictions before the Madras High Court. In 1990, a Division Bench acquitted Lakshmi Narasimhan and Ganeshan. Jebaraj's conviction remained, but his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
While acquitting Lakshmi Narasimhan, the High Court questioned the reliability of his judicial confession. He had retracted it during the trial, and the court found the confession fraught with flaws.
The Tamil Nadu government challenged the acquittals before the Supreme Court.
By then, however, Ganeshan had disappeared. After walking free following the High Court verdict, he could no longer be traced.
The Supreme Court eventually restored Lakshmi Narasimhan's conviction for murder, but it did not revive the death penalty. He, too, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
A case that had begun with three men being sent to the gallows thus ended very differently: Jebaraj and Lakshmi Narasimhan received life sentences, while Ganeshan vanished after his acquittal by the High Court.
The Questions That Never Completely Disappeared
The official case centred on greed, revenge and three household employees who allegedly knew that a large amount of money was inside the bungalow.
But rumours of a larger conspiracy persisted.
There was speculation that the murders had another motive and that the three employees had been implicated to protect an influential person allegedly close to Padmini. Those claims added another layer of controversy, though the police investigation and the court proceedings remained focused on Jebaraj, Lakshmi Narasimhan and Ganeshan.
What remained beyond dispute was the brutality of what happened inside the Anna Nagar bungalow.
Rani Padmini was just 22. Her mother was 46. They had moved into a new house, were preparing to buy it and had hired people to help run it.
Within days, the driver was gone with the actress's car. The cook and watchman had disappeared. The bedroom had been pulled apart. Cash and valuables were allegedly missing.
Outside, four days' worth of newspapers marked the passage of time.
Inside, behind a bolted door, lay the horrifying price of letting the wrong people in.