Daily NEWS Srilanka

During the past few weeks the neighbourhood of Kerawalapitiya, Wattala had got onto the roads on behalf of a person who suddenly had gone missing. It was on behalf of a good-hearted person named 'Walter'  who had served at the port. 65 year old Hettithantharige Walter had retired after being engaged in the difficult task of manoeuvreing the crane in port and had all of a sudden disappeared from his home. The reason for the agitation of the neighbourhood was his wife and daughter spreading the bogus information that Walter had gone abroad.

The home at No. 128/1, down Samagi Mawatha, Kerawalapitiya, Wattala belonged to Walter and it

It was after that a sub-inspector visited Walter's home and made inquiries. Walter's wife had told the 'going abroad' story to him too; but when questioning his wife and daughter, a suspicion had emerged in relation to their behaviour. Subsequently the OIC too had gone to the house and asked for Walter's national identity card. At that point what the daughter had said was that when father was going to Australia she too had gone with him to the airport to drop him and on that occasion he had taken all documents away with him and that there were no related documents or identity card at home.

The police who managed to secure Walter's identity card No. through Kerawalapitiya Grama Sevaka then proceeded to inquire from Immigration and Emigration authorities whether Walter had left for abroad when it was possible to confirm that he had not left the island. Based on these findings that something queer is behind all this, investigations were hastened.

News that police were on Walter's track reached ears of neighbours and police had taken steps to search for facts relating to Walter's wife, her daughter and the person who was supposed to have married her daughter who frequented the house. In the process, the neighbourhood carried on a protest with banners in their hands demanding the murder investigations be hastened.

When police approached the house, they found it closed. On court orders the house was opened and the police found the pet dog which Walter used to care for, inside the house. The police made a check inside the house; but were unable to get at any document of importance. In any case, some blood stains found near a wall outside created an element of suspicion. In the meantime the wife and daughter who had already fled the scene were arrested in Modera, Mattakkuliya area and the husband of the daughter from Enderamulla day-before-yesterday (08). On information provided by them police were able to retrieve all pertinent information that Walter was murdered and that he was buried close to the house. As such, police were able to unearth Walter's corpse wrapped in a sarong which had been buried under earth which was covered by a kennel which was made to stand on top of that place.

Walter's daughter who was taken into custody had confessed that her father Walter had continuously opposed her third marriage and that there was a problem of getting down to the house her Tamil husband whom she had got married to and because everybody depended on father's finances and means it was not possible to go against his decision in the end had come to the decision of murdering her father by using her husband for the crime.

According to information of relatives, Walter's daughter Depna Dilrukshi (24) was an adopted child of Walter and his wife Regina who had no offspring 24 years before this. Though Walter had looked after her providing maximum comfort and affection, she turned out to be a daughter who frequently displayed an irrespective attitude towards the father, it was understood. She was a daughter who used to ask money from the father and would squander it and by the time she had reached 24 years of age she had got connected to three marriages. Both her previous two marriages had gone on the rocks and she had thrown the blame on the father for it, it is learned.

She had in fact instructed and motivated the youth of her second marriage by writing a letter to him to murder her father and having been disgusted with her he had later come to this house and pasted the letter concerned on the wall and gone away. She had once more developed a love affair with a Tamil person who was a supervisor of a tea factory in Kelaniya, and that was behind her father's back and had got legally engaged to this 32 year old person by the name of Weerappan Antony Vino Pragash living in Tricomalee. But as neither of them had a house to live, they were unable to live together as a couple. What she has had in mind was to get round her father at a later stage and to bring the husband to the Wattala house. However the father had incessantly opposed the move and Walter had further mentioned that a cent of the provident fund monies of close upon 80 lakhs which he had received after his retirement from service would not be given for expenses if that marriage was entered into. However though Dilrukshi was able to secure the sanction of her mother according to her hopes, Walter on the other hand had criticised both of them. On the basis of all this she had premeditated to put an end to Walter's life.

Having arranged for a time when Walter would be at home during evening hours last April 23rd, Dilrukshi's husband Weerappan Pragash had come home and had plugged rags of cloth into Walter's mouth while he was sleeping so that his shouting would not be heard by outsiders and had then stabbed him thus committing this murder, it was revealed at the interrogation. The assailant had further expressed that the victim was repeatedly stabbed in the chest and neck and in the process when Walter had rolled over on bed and tried to escape, the mattress to had got pierced. Later the three of them had got together and put his dead body into a travelling bag in the house and had washed away blood stains with water, lying here and there, it was told. Whatever it is, the corpse had not been removed outside from home that day.

Walter's son-in-law in fact had spent that night in this house and had reported to his place of work on both the following 2 days, 24th and 25th. When the dead body had been inside the travelling bag for these 2 days, Walter's wife and daughter had spent their time in the house as if nothing awful had taken place. But as stinking odours were spreading about, Walter's son-in-law had on 25th night proceeded to dig a pit at the back of the house and had buried the body after wrapping it up with a sarong, it is understood. Subsequently the kennel of the pet dog in the house was fixed over the spot so that it would prevent possible suspicion about any foul-play. While the dead body had been buried behind the house, Walter's wife and daughter had even attended a funeral house and when asked about Walter, it was said that he had gone to a funeral house.

After this murder it was revealed that the knife used by Pragash in the killing had been tossed over to Kelani River from  Modera Bridge, it was revealed at police investigations. Walter's wife, daughter and son-in-law are under police custody and court proceedings are expected to take place against all three of them.