US kidnapper kills baby and granny
Parents' nicknames in ransom note led police to the suspect after baby's body found
A man who planned to hold his friends' baby girl hostage for $50,000 instead killed her and her grandmother, according to police in the United States.
Raghunandan "Raghu" Yandamuri, 26, knew the infant's parents both had good jobs as software engineers, and made out a ransom note threatening to kill the girl if they did not leave the money at a supermarket near their home in a suburb of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, police said in an affidavit filed Friday.
"It's up to you to decide, do you want your one-year-old or five months of your income?" the lengthy, typed note said.
The plot unravelled when he dropped the baby as he juggled her and a kitchen knife and struggled with her grandmother, who had been babysitting 10-month-old Saanvi Venna when Yandamuri struck last Monday, the affidavit said.
The grandmother, 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna, had answered the front door to find Yandamuri armed with a kitchen knife. She was fatally stabbed.
The suspect told police he put a handkerchief in the baby's mouth to quiet her, then wrapped a towel around her head and put her in a suitcase when he left the sixth-floor apartment.