The Body in the Trunk

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome back to Crimes from the East. I'm your host, Pia. And with me is Alex. Hello. Hello, Alex. How are you? I know we're gonna take a little break in a couple of weeks, so I thought let's just put our backs into it and get a couple episodes recorded so we can release on time before our little winter break. Good idea, good idea, 'cause I'm about to go into hibernation mode for real. It is getting so cold here where I live. Already. Northern America, yes. Very cold outside, it's raining and it's gray. Just perfect weather for podcasting. (laughing) There's nothing interesting going on outside. I don't feel like doing anything else. Are you getting into the spooky spirit? My daughter sure is. I bet what she gonna be for Halloween this year. Gonna be a little kitty. Oh, nice. Gonna be a little kitty cat. I used to dress up. I mean, not too many Halloween. Maybe a couple years. My husband and I dressed up. He was a pirate. I was a nurse. Which thingy for a couple of years? I like the witch thing. I like it 'cause I feel it. Yeah. You know, I feel it in my bones. I like that. I'll fall back to the traditional, the classic Halloween look maybe this year as well. I forgot totally to mention so far that you have an amazing Instagram account where you put out these mouthwatering dishes. You know how there's just like all kinds of different things that people are calling butter now? What do you mean, like apple butter or maple butter? And there's no actual butter in these things. Are they legally allowed to call it butter? I don't think so. There's much butter and I was looking at a recipe for pumpkin butter 'cause I'm gonna get into that whole situation. You opening a butter shoppy? I should, hey. And then I'm gonna make some pumpkin bread and just, you know, really pumpkin out. Like my kid says, it's pumpkin season. Cute. Are you going pumpkin picking? So we go to Whole Foods every weekend. That's our big outing, okay? There's a whole rack of pumpkins outside and she goes eight shit when she sees that. She'll be like, it's pumpkin season. It's so cute. Amazing. Oh, you know what happened? You know what happened? I finished my game. I finished Assassin's Creed Odyssey. How was it? It didn't end well. Oh no. I totally screwed up. So my assassin character made some very, very bad choices. Her psychopath brother ended up killing her mother. Oh, shoot. That was the worst possible ending. Is it like a multiple ending option? Yes, there are very critical points in the game where based on what option you choose, the ending is different. Okay. I guess I made all the wrong choices. (laughing) Sounds bad. So you're supposed to have like a happy family dinner ending if you make all the right choices and on my dinner table, I didn't have. (laughing) No, the psychopath brother and long last mother. So, well, that was a bummer. That sounds way more interesting than the happy family dinner. (laughing) So that, to say, I want the drama. Oh, my poor assassin. Well, whatever. Yeah. I need to get out of this rut. So I'm probably gonna start playing animal crossing or something because that's a really fun game. And I haven't played it since February. And there's a new update coming out soon. I heard about that. It's so frickin' wholesome that game. Yeah. Your heart will burst. That's what we need. From how sweet it is. That's what I'm gonna do next couple of weeks. Oh, the weird thing about, well, not weird, but weird for me thing about the Assassin's Creed game is that they give you more than like a dozen chances to sleep around in the game, okay? Men, women, whatever. It's ancient Greece. Amazing. I guess. They were Lucy Goosey. That's fun. And I was like, wait, what's going on? What kind of game is this? And then, I mean, they don't really show you anything. The screen goes black before anything happens. But it was so interesting. I was like, I would never do this in real life. But, come on. Cassandra, you've done a lot of killing throughout the day. You deserve this. Go ahead. Who makes assassins Creed again? Is it Rocket or Rock? You be soft. Do you be soft? Okay. I guess that's how the Greeks lived. Back there. I like that they pulled that element. Let's make sure we give the people some sex. I brought that up because today's case is very much along those same lines. Well, not the case, but the victim. It's a very, very salacious, my segue. Do you want to just get into the case? Yeah. Let's do it. I'm ready. Let me start with what I'm calling the episode. I'm calling it the body and the trunk. And I don't mean the trunk of a car. I know in America, trunk means trunk of a car. In India, are we boot people? No. India, we call it a dickie. Oh, yeah. The dickie. The dickie. It's definitely a British influence. We got dickies. Yep. That's the British. That's the colonial influence. Put it in the dickie. Anyway, so I'm not talking about the trunk of a car. I mean a trunk as in a metal box, which people traveled with big chunks like metal boxes. And that's what I mean by the body and the trunk. I thought maybe it was going to be a tree trunk, but no. I did just like side-barring for half a second watch. The new Netflix horror series called Midnight Mass. How is it? Very, very Christian, but in a like fun way because all the Christians are crazy. Oh, boy. But there is a trunk involved. There is a trunk. Yep, a big one. Hmm. OK, I got to watch this now. And there's a very attractive Indian man in this movie. You kidding me? Rahul Kohli. Midnight Mass. Let me look. Rahul Kohli. And he was in "Blime Manor" as well. I think he's Indian. Maybe he's Pakistani. He's British. I mean, he's British. I guess he's Indian, yeah. And he just has-- He's an Indian British. Beautiful facial hair. It's just luscious. He looks good in a beard. Yep. You know, a really hot Indian actor. Well, again, I don't know if he's actually Indian. He may be American Indian or whatever. Is the Desi guy from the show "Majitions"? Have you watched that? No. That show is freaking good. If you like magic witchy stuff, you have to watch it. Yeah, my sister recommended it to me in it. I really-- The magicians. It's called The Magicians. And there's such a hot Desi guy in it. And he just almost never closes the buttons on his shirt. Ever, it's always open. OK. Mr. Arjan Gupta. He had-- oh, yeah, interesting. He could get it. So that was hot Indian dude corner. Yeah, we should have like hot Desi guy corner. I could get quite into that. So today's case is quite old. It's a vintage case. It's from the '50s. And right at the top, let me start with the sources for the case. My prime source for today is a blog called Maddie's Ramblings. He has written a really fantastic article on this case, compiling information from many other sources. And the prime source for Maddie's blog is from a crime magazine write-up by Mada Bhushi Rangadurai, a guy who actually saw the victim in this case at their local YMCA back in the day. He talked to several witnesses to gather information. And he eventually ended up making a popular limited TV series on this case. Wow. OK. He's basically the reason why we know about this case. Otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to find any newspaper articles or websites which mention this case. A big shout out to one of my favorite and probably the best Indian true crime podcast called Kuni. Because they have a brilliant episode on this case, as well. I highly recommend everyone to go listen to not only just this episode, but the entire repertoire of Kuni. It's hosted by two female lawyers in India-- Nice. Sneha and Aditi, and they do it so well. They are the best Indian true crime podcast, in my opinion. For now. So you're an American podcast, Alex. Oh, yeah. They seem to be kind of Indian. Well, yeah, sure. One and a half between the two of us. I'm happy with the big number 2 if I'm behind Kuni. But we'll get there someday, maybe. Who knows? Who knows? So you strapped in for a little flashback trip to the '50s? Here's my strapped in sound effect. Click. Click. Click. Yeah, I like click. Click. Click. Click. We hark on back to Chennai city, the capital of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. Back then, though, Chennai was known as Madras. And that is the name I will be using all through the episode as well. Keep it vintage. So in August of 1952, the Hindu, which is a newspaper, carried a headline in bold letters in their Chennai version. And it read city businessmen missing. All caps. Whoa. All caps. A well-known local businessman from Madras, MC Kahnan Chetty, proprietor of gem and company, had lodged a complaint with the law college police station that his business associate and employee, Alavandar, had been missing for a few days. And so that was the man who was missing. Mr. Alavandar Chetty. OK. It's amusing that a simple man going missing is like the big news of Madras. But from what I'm reading, Chennai was a simple city. People kept it easy going. They didn't have too many big scandals and stuff going wrong. So even a man going missing was headlines back then. They must have been so thirsty for drama. Right. Are these two men related? No. But they are from the same community, which is why they were probably friends. Because that is-- well, I don't want to say the norm everywhere. But it is common in India, people from the same community kind of stick together for better or worse. So they were from the Chetty community. OK. And we're good friends. Alavandar Chetty-- you know what? Maybe we should shorten his name. Because I can't keep saying Alavandar. Alavandar. I'm going to start coughing. How about we call him Al. How's Al? Yep. You can call him Al. Betty, when he calls me-- I can call him Al. You can call him whatever. Alavandar Chetty, aka Al, was a 42-year-old man who lived in Georgetown, Madras, with his wife and two young sons. He was an extrovert, a flamboyant man who was always dressed immaculately with a bow tie or a tie. And he kind of wanted it look good. He wasn't scrappy in any way. He had style. He had served in the British Indian Army during World War II. And after an early retirement, he sought to start his own small business. He went into the plastic business. Small plastic odds and ends, toys, boxes, cups, and all kinds of cutlery were just coming out. These are things that you and I will probably avoid right now because of the pollution effect. But back then, people sought them out because they were kind of a novelty. They wanted plastic because they were sick and tired of metal, I guess. I mean, it's shiny, it's light. It's cheap, cheap. Comes in different colors. So he was a plastic man. Alavandar, or Al, he wasn't a wealthy man and couldn't really afford to buy or rent his own store. So he sought the help of his old friend, MC Kahnan Chetty. MC Kahnan Chetty owned a well-established pen shop in Madras called Gem and Co. And he gave Alavandar a small section in his storefront to display and sell his plastic goods out of. What a pal, what a pal. It's a pen shop, like a stationary shop for pens. Not a stationary shop, specifically a pen shop. Like fancy pens. OK, gotcha. And this is the 1950s. This store had been operating since 1920. Whoa, OK. They would import all kinds of fancy fountain pens, ballpoint pens, and the inks and the cartridges and everything. They imported them from UK, Australia, et cetera, and sold them in India. Because I mean, today we have staples. We have Amazon. We have Walmart and all these kind of stores where you can just go and buy whatever you want. But back then, everything had its own shop. Shop, yeah. And so they were the go-to people when you wanted a pen. And also pens were like this predecessor to a computer. So this was like an old school Apple store. 30 years from now, if someone's listening, we used pens to write with our hands. On paper made out of trees. Trees were things that used to be able to grow on this planet. We used to live on earth. And it was actually a very well-known store. It did well. It was perfect for Alavandar to get a storefront there. And his business, his plastics business, was doing moderately well. But Al soon added another side hustle to this business. He started to sell fine sari's-- OK. Plastics and sari's, like, what is the target demolition? What's going on? It's not like he was selling jewelry, anything like that of the natural progression is to now also sell sari's. But he was stylish. So-- Yeah. Anyway, the catch was that he was selling these expensive sari's on credit. So women could buy these luxuries by paying just a small deposit. And then they had to pay up the rest of the amount over coming weeks when they could afford it. This lay-away style retail model was not common in India, definitely not in consumer markets. In fact, I remember seeing signs in so many Indian stores that said, "Aj nakad kal udhar" means "pay today and borrow tomorrow, aka, never." [LAUGHTER] I like it. Indian businessmen were like, uh-uh, no, thanks. Pay today, you want something, pay today. So this type of credit buying offer proved quite popular at Jim and Cole. And Al's sari business took off. Al, of course, wasn't in it for the money whatsoever, or the entrepreneurship. Nope, this guy was a play-ah. He was in it for the women. Sari's were a sure shot means of meeting women. And his credit system was nothing more than a honeypot trap to entice women to purchase stuff that they couldn't afford. After all, with his gregarious personality, he was a great salesman. So even if you can't really afford it, you would talk you into it. And be like, hey, listen, take it home for free. Pay me next week, pay me next month, whatever. Buy me dinner. Women fell for it. But when the women couldn't pay up for the fine sari's, he would coax them into paying with kind through sexual favors. Now from what I've read, it looks like it wasn't so much steel-cold blackmail as it was an aggressive advance that he made on them. Add to that the fact that this dude was an opium addict. And that kind of explains his frivolous lifestyle a little bit. He claimed that opium acted as an afrodigiac for him. And he took a hit before every romantic trist. You can't imagine that opium is actually good for that kind of energy. How do you do opium? Is it you smoke it? You eat it? I think you smoke it. There are probably different delivery methods. But from what I've understand, it's like a, it's a couch drug. Yeah, it knocks you out. Oh, now I remember where I saw this whole opium thing. There was some Johnny Depp movie, kind of like Jack the Ripper or something. From hell. Yeah, in that Johnny Depp's kind of hanging around in these Chinese opium dens in London. And he's just laying around all day hallucinating. Yeah, that wouldn't help. No, you want an upper, you want some energy, I would think. Oh, wait. And also, sidebar, I must say that coursing anyone into any kind of sexual assault. Relations is ethically wrong, but in India, it is actually legally considered rape. Oh yeah, we talked about this before. I forget which case it was. Sinide Mulhan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this guy was legally committing rapes by coursing them. This is one of my favorite laws in India, 'cause it takes a very aggressive stance on the consent issue, which I'd rather be walking back on a too aggressive stance on consent than trying to get towards one. It's already pervasive in society, where the boys will be boys attitude is what the norm is. They believe that, they believe that the women should be the ones protecting themselves and hiding themselves and whatnot. So at least when it comes to the legal framework, there's no gray matter, it's black and white. You need it, you need it in not only in India, but the rest of the world where women are treated differently or treated worse, often men. Al was a lover, his whole life revolved around women and taking them to bed. I couldn't find a good picture of him, but articles mentioned that he was just a normal looking, you know, average looking fellow. He wasn't much to look at. He had bragged to his friends that he had slept with over 400 women. - Wow, four. - That's just such a ridiculous number. Here's my question. Was he sleeping with women just so he could do opium or was he doing opium just so he could sleep with you? Yeah, and like, is any of this true? 'Cause it all just sounds quite unbelievable. Right, the world is weird. But you never know, you might have been a student of the Kamasutra. Right. Addressed in modest, but neat clothes and doused in heavy perfume, this man was apparently irresistible to the women of Madras. He must have had the Casanova touch, I guess. And, you know what, the face hardly matters, honestly. It's how he wooed the women and made them feel about themselves that enticed them to. - That's excellent, yeah. - So. He would target out of state students who were living in hostels and stuff. Working women who were more independent and also bored trophy wives who yearned for a little attention and affection. - Okay. - So he knew exactly whom. - To target. - To, yeah, center on. In a misguided bid to enhance his sexual prowess and believing it to protect him from STDs, Al even underwent circumcision as an adult. - Oh wow, okay. - A little extreme, but seems like this guy was legit dedicated to the cause, as you say, Alex. - For real. (laughs) - Medically, circumcision does not help with either of those things at all. - For a snack? - Traditionally, Hindu men are not circumcised. So this was very unusual indeed. - And doing it as an adult is kind of, it's a commitment. - It is a commitment. - Where did he get this information from, too? (laughs) - I don't know who's telling him all this nonsense. - Opium is good for it. - So circumcision's good for it. No, it's not. He was probably on Facebook. He was probably in those shitty Facebook groups. - Some vintage fake news. - Out to be, (speaks in foreign language) (sighs) - So we're gonna take a little leap and progress the story a little bit before I come back. - Okay. - On August 29th, 1952, the coal-powered steam train called the Indo-Celon Express was chugging along its normal route from Madras to Tanushkori. The train which has been running from 1914 till today, by the way, so. - That's crazy. - More than 100 euros, old. - That's so cool. Tanushkori is the ultimate landmass tip of the Indian subcontinent. There used to be a boat service that took passengers from there to Colombo Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka, which was erstwhile Sri Lanka, that's why the train's called Indo-Celon Express. And why people made this journey is because there is an ancient temple called the Rameshwaram temple on an island right off of Tanushkori. There's a temple there. There is an ancient story, but well, you know the Ramayana, right? As per the Ramayana, India and Sri Lanka were connected by land. It's underwater, but you can walk on it. And that's how Rama took his army to defeat Ravana in Sri Lanka. - Right. This is the one with Hanuman gets involved, right? - Yes. - Mahboi. - Hanuman and the Vanarsenao, the army of monkeys. - Isn't he also like the god of bachelors, Hanuman? - He is, he sure is. Brahmachari, he's a Brahmachari. Thousands, if not millions of pilgrims, take this journey every year. On that day in 1952, passengers on the Indo-Selon Express were growing increasingly alarmed and disturbed at the stench that was emanating from a green steel trunk stashed under a seat in the third-class compartment of the train. The trunk was unclaimed and nobody wanted to touch it because of the pools of blood that had formed around it. - Oh my god, that's a nightmare. - Just a few hours short of reaching its final destination, the offensive trunk was offloaded by policemen at the Manamadurai train station. With much anticipation, the steelies sarcophagus was opened and to the utter shock of the audience, the trunk contained the decapitated remains of a male nude and wearing only green socks on its feet. - Oh, green trunk, green socks. - Strange. - The discovery of this headless body caused quite a sensation in Madras. The body was sent to the urskine hospital or Urskine. - I don't know if I'm saying that wrong. - But that's where they sent the body. Where the resident radiologist performed a preliminary autopsy. I don't know if he was qualified, but I guess he was the only one around. So he's like, "I guess I'll do this now." - Yeah. - He noted that the male John Doe had been found with no clothing except green socks. There was a thick thread tied around the waist and that the male was circumcised. The radiologist incorrectly estimated the age of the corpse to be around 26 years of age and he concluded along with the police that the victim was definitely of the Muslim faith because of the circumcision and get this because of the green socks. - Okay, yeah. - I don't like this from radiologists. I'm so confused. - Makes sense, right? - Yeah, yeah. The Muslims only wear green socks. We all know this, thanks to life. - Yeah, green socks, Muslim. - But I'm sure you know that green is a very significant color for Muslims. - Right. - It represents paradise, nature, and abundance. It was the favorite color of the Prophet Muhammad and a lot of the flags of Muslim countries will feature green prominently like the Pakistan flag. Have you seen the Pakistan flag? It's a beautiful green with a crescent moon on it. - Yeah. - But using the color of the socks as an indicator of religion, it sounds like a bit of a reach, no? Like, I'm Hindu. - Doesn't mean I wear orange unmentionals. - But you should. So that if you're ever found, if your body is ever discovered, decapitated, they'll know. Indian, orange, Chinese, Indian, green, Chinese. - Okay. - Why would the jeans, Chinese color be white, right? - White, yeah. - Who does? - But this white. - Okay, so let's come back to the headlines to the newspaper. - Al-Abandar had been missing for days and nobody knew where this man had gone. He was last seen leaving the store, the German co-store in a rickshaw to visit a friend in the seaside town of Royapuram in Madras. And now since a prominent businessman, Kahnan Chetty had lodged the missing person's case and Inspector Ramannath Ayer was sent to the store to make further inquiries. He was directed by the staff of the store to the home of a young woman called Devaki, who lived with her husband Prabhakaraman in Royapuram. So that's where the staff said, "Alovandar had gone." - In late 1951, Devaki, then 22 years old, had come to buy a pen from German co. And over the course of selling her a pen, Al-Abandar had charmed the pretty young woman and soon they were entangled in a passionate affair. The thing is to Al, the women didn't really mean too much. Nothing more than a conquest and a challenge. His thrill was in the hunt and the victory over the woman. He didn't exactly care for or deeply love any of the women really. - Yeah. - And after a few months of the hot and cold relationship, Devaki must have grown tired of playing the mistress. And she ended things on her terms and went on to marry Prabhakar Menon in June of 1952. So I think they're a fair lasted like six months, maybe eight months, and then she's like, "See ya, dude, you don't really care about me. You were just using me, so eff off. I'm getting married." - Good for her, good for her. - She married Prabhakar Menon who was the editor of a local paper called Freedom. Now her husband had needed some help for add sponsors in his paper, so Devaki took him to Gem and Co. To see if Alejandra wanted to place an ad. - That's a bold move. - That is when Prabhakar noticed that the two seemed to be a little too familiar with each other. And he started to suspect that they had had an affair. - Yeah. - Oh, meeting is a very weird feel. Like Devaki probably wanted to rub her new marriage in Al's face, as if to say, "You can't get this no more. You didn't put a ring on it." There's no way she actually went there to help her husband. It's juvenile, it's immature. But she was 22, so it sounds about right. What do you think? - Totally. I mean, she sort of leveled up. I mean, the editor of a local paper versus a salesman, so. Yeah, I think she was feeling herself. - Look at me now, you freaking loser, whatever. So after that meeting, Alejandra had tried to get back with Devaki multiple times. He tried to blackmail her and coerce her for sex. - What the heck? - It's unclear if they continued on with the affair at all or for how long. There's no confession on that part. So we don't know. We can just speculate if they did continue on with the affair after Devaki got married or not. I don't know, I can't say. Devaki had tried to resist, this is what she says. Especially because now her husband was getting suspicious of her. They had started to fight often about this issue. She finally broke down and confessed about her past to Prabhakar. So she told her husband that, "Yes, I had a thing." It's a big revelation in India for a woman, especially in 1952, who have had a boyfriend, who have had relations before marriage. It was blasphemous. It was a sin, it wasn't allowed. So it's not a small feat that she confessed to her husband and told him about it, which shows that she wanted to come clean and kind of start her life a new one. She probably did want to get rid of Al and not really cheat on her husband and stuff. - Yeah, yeah. But this would be the final straw in this explosive triangle of illicit relationships. As Inspector Ramanatha went to check on the home of Devaki and Prabhakar, on August 28th, he found that the door had a huge padlock on it and neighbors said that the couple had left for Bombay all of a sudden. The inspector broke open the lock and he found fresh blood stains in the home. He put two and two together and sent out a bolo for the couple. - Bolo! - Here, I'm talking about, you know, be on the lookout for. - Okay. - So the inspector made further inquiries and he found a Rickshaw puller Arumugam, who said that he had taken Prabhakaramanin towards Roya Purim Beach, carrying a pumpkin-shaped object on his lap. - What do you think this pumpkin-shaped object is? It's not a pumpkin. This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. It's not Skellyton Jack. - And why would he take a pumpkin to a beach? - You know, for a traditional beach day with a pumpkin, pumpkin beach day. - Take your pumpkin to work day. Maybe he filled it with a punch. People should drink out of pumpkins. - I'll carry my chai in a pumpkin. - It needs to be a thing. - Seren dipitously on August 31st of a couple days later. A constable who happened to be strolling past the Roya Purim Beach soon after saw something bobbing in the water. His curiosity peaked and he went to pick up the mysterious object. Unfortunately for him. - There was a pumpkin. - No, wrapped in a brown shirt, he found a male head. - Oh, damn. This head was sent to the Madras Medical College Forensic Department for Analysis. A doctor C.B. Gopala Krishna, then the assistant professor of forensic medicine performed a postmortem on that head. Now doctor Gopala Krishna was renowned in the field and was trained in England under some famous pathologist called Sydney Spimp. The headless corpse that was found at Madurai was also brought to Madras and handed over to Dr. G. On the direction of inspector Ramanatha, who was now convinced that the body and head found was that of their missing man, Aalavandar Chetty. So Dr. G noted that the head had been neatly severed from the body found in the trunk with something like a chopper or a cleaver. - Meat cleaver. - Oh. - Narin and Narin. - The male head had ear piercings and the two front teeth overlapped, which were all features matched to the missing man, Aalavandar Chetty, confirmed by his poor grieving wife. So the cause of death were stab wounds to the lungs and the liver. Now the Madras police had their missing man. They knew where he was last seen and they knew that the couple he was seen with were on the run. So. Blood in their house. - There's no prizes for guessing what happened. A team was promptly sent to Bombay and they traced the couple to the home of some relatives. They found David Kee recovering from an abortion or a pregnancy termination. It isn't mentioned anywhere if this was something that she voluntarily did or if it was a medical miscarriage. We don't know. So yeah, I mean, I don't feel it's fair to speculate further than that, but that's what was happening. And her husband Prabhakara was contemplating life on a nearby beach when he was caught. In his front pocket was a pen from Jim and Cole with the initials of Aalavandar Chetty. - Why would you keep that? - Maybe it was like a trophy. Have you killed someone you're like, now you belong to me, like I own you. - I think he was that kind of killer, but maybe. Some kind of power. He was just a really nice pen. He's like, mine now. Pen's our expensive bag that is not like a couple dollars like now. - It's a luxury item. - The couple were quickly arrested and taken back to Madras to face the music. And all of this had taken place in a matter of weeks. - Yeah. - So the murderers had been caught and arrested by September 13th. Some damn good police work, I think, commendable. - Seems like the South has its shit a little more together than the North of India. - Absolutely does. I agree 100%. At first, the couple claimed innocence and denied their involvement in the death of Aalavandar Chetty. No worries. The hot shot public prosecutor Govind Swaminathan had a huge stack of solid evidence in this case. It was expected to be an open and shut case. A prime witness in the case was Narayanan, the boy servant of Devaki and Prabhakara. He used to sleep on the floor outside of the couple's bedroom and had often heard them fighting about Devaki's affair. - Okay. - The night before all of this happened, Narayanan had heard Prabhakar say that he had to end it all with Aalavandar once and for all. On the 28th, Prabhakara had taken the day off from work and surprisingly had given Narayanan the day off, paying him extra money to go sightseeing the city, which he was very happy to get. - Yeah. - This is very odd. You would never pay a servant and be like, "Go, that's fun." - Absolutely not. So it was out of the ordinary and it stuck out. - Totally. - The neighbors and shopkeepers around the men in's home all recognized Aalavandar as someone who had visited the home often and they had seen him enter on August 28th as well. And this is very typical of Desi society, by the way. Everybody keeps an eye on who is going and coming at what time of day with whom prime gossip fodder. - I hate it. - It works really well when a crime is involved though. So it has its merits. - True. - So Dr. G, he made a plaster cast model of Aalavandar's body or at least his trunk. And he demonstrated in court how a smaller, sharper knife had entered the body causing the fatal wounds and then a traditional Malabar knife had been used to hack the head off. He also had gone the extra mile and matched the male body's fingerprints with Aalavandar's fingerprints, which were on record with the army. - Okay. - Dr. G also testified that there was opium found in Aal's stomach, which he had consumed on the day he disappeared. Now could it have been an anticipation of an encounter with Devaki because remember, he would only do opium before his escapades? The Madras police had scoured the men in's home in Royapuram and found blood evidence under furniture and appliances on the floor from a hasty cleanup job. They also found a bloody palm print on the wall, which was Prabhakar's print in Aalavandar's blood. - They really didn't take any time to clean up. - The bloody murder weapon, a Malabar knife, was found in a nearby park. As well as a blood stained sorry, which belonged to Devaki. The defense attorneys put forward a sort of plea deal, a theory that the murder was simply an act of self-defense. - Okay. - According to them, Aal had forcibly come over to their home and tried to rape Devaki. Prabhakara, who had been cutting vegetables in the kitchen, had rushed out to protect his wife, stabbing Aal accidentally in the ensuing struggle. Now, even if you choose to believe this version, what they did next is not justified and it only makes them look culpable of cold blooded murder. - Yeah. - Aal had left the store at noon and his body was loaded onto the Indo-Celon Express before it left Eggmore Station at 6.30 p.m. - Yeah, it's too fast. This was a planned body disposal. So Devaki had visited Jim and Cole on August 28, and she spoke to Aal. Perhaps to invite her old flame over just like old times. And over Eager Aal had showed up to the men in home, not knowing that he was walking right into a deadly trap. - Perverse honey pot. - I guess they did to him what he did to many others, kind of. - Yeah. In the 1950s, there was still a jury system in India. With the unquestionable mountain of evidence, the jury did come back with a guilty verdict for the couple, but not that of pre-meditated murder. They, along with the presiding judge on this case, Justice ASP Ayer, right from the start of the trial, were sympathetic to the men in's plight. So they found them guilty of culpable homicide, which is kind of like in the US, it's like manslaughter, I believe. - Okay. - Crime of passion, unplanned. It happened, you know, self-defense. Not a murder one or murder two or something like that, but manslaughter. So the judge who presided over the case was sympathetic to the men in's. He regarded Alevandar as a scum and a menace to society due to his indiscretions and lack of moral fiber. - Sounds very objective. - A little trivia, Justice Ayer's grandson was the chief medical examiner and coroner in LA County. - Oh, wow. - He worked on several high-profile cases, including the OJ Simpson-Nikol Brown murder trial. - Ooh, okay. Interesting. Tid bit. - In a move that left many unsatisfied. Justice Ayer only gave Prabhakar seven years of jail time and they were key three years of jail time. - Wow. - But they were both released from prison in just a few years, citing good behavior. - Mm-hmm. - Essentially they went scot-free for such a cruel and gruesome murder. All because the victim was kind of a piece of shit. What are your thoughts on this? - Oh, I mean. - Does a victim's personality play any part in how a criminal is sentenced? I don't think so, that's not fair. - And especially the sort of gruesomeness of it. And clearly, it wasn't like a quick and easy death. There was blood everywhere. Like, it just sounds really extreme. I don't know. - Yeah, and it was a trap. They invited him over. - Was there any like mention or explanation for the terminated pregnancy? - No, I didn't find that anywhere. I mean, this is 1950s, India. Things like that wouldn't really be discussed openly. - Talked about. - You know, we don't know who's child it is. There's no way she's gonna tell anyone. - I mean, I understand that culturally, the way he lived his life was seen as basically criminal. - Yeah. - And he was taking advantage of women, which is terrible. But, nah, I don't know. I don't know. The whole coercing women for sex thing makes him definitely a lot less sympathetic. No, everyone should go to jail. Snake jail. - They could have reported him to the police. He would have gone to jail. - It just seems like they were really sloppy and didn't think about it at all. And, I don't know, send him to snake jail. - Snake jail. - Now, the menons after they came out of jail relocated to their home state of Kerala and opened a T-shop, which later prospered into a successful hotel. In the worship room of the men in the home, right next to the idols of various gods and goddesses, took the picture of Justice Ayer. - Oh, wow. - Yeah. - I mean, he did do them quite the solid. Man, imagine getting served tea by someone who has with their hands beheaded a human being. - God, no. - Crazy, right? - Oh, now I'm gonna question every Starbucks barista. - You never know. - Did you kill anyone? - No, okay, you can make me my chai. - And so comes to an end, the tale of the grizzly murder of this crazy playboy, Alavandar. - Messed with the wrong lady. - He sure did, he sure did. Any other closing thoughts, Alex? - I wish we had more testimony from her. - A tidbit that I forgot to mention earlier. The prosecutors actually did offer Devaki immunity, complete immunity if she would testify against her husband, but she refused. She absolutely refused and she stood by her husband. - Yeah. - All through the trial and through sentencing. So, they were in it together. - She's definitely kind of a sh*tster though, 'cause she introduced the two men. She could have buried that secret. - Yeah, they just never went there. This would have never happened. - Yeah. - It sort of never happened. We don't know if Al was aggressively pursuing her anyway. We don't know that. We don't know if her going to the store was more of a protective move. Like if she was trying to threaten him and be like, "Listen, stop bugging, I have a husband. This is my husband, he'll kick your ass." You know, we don't know that. We don't know these things. - Two vintage. - Two vintage. - It's two vintage. That's the end of our case. - Are you ready for a Bollywood Gordner? - I just have the image of like a train going around, I don't know, a scenic part of the track and they're just being this big green bleeding trunk. There needs to be a movie about this, is there? - This would make such an amazing movie. - Right, such a good movie. Someone needs to make this movie. Is anyone listening? Any director, script writers. - You need this. - Get on it. - The body and the trunk. - What would that be in Hindi? - Buxi, me. Buxi, me. What do you call body? Body is button, but that's not the right word to use here. - Lash, lash. - Lash means corpse. - Okay. Buxi, me lash. I like it, sounds scary. I think, or maybe sexy, I can't tell. - I would 100% watch the movie if it was made. - Yeah. - For today's Bollywood Gordner, I picked some thrilling movies where the critical plot points take place on the train. - Perfect. - The first movie is one of my husband's favorite movies. Actually, I love it too. It's called Johnny Gaddar, which means Johnny the Trader. The movie is a loose adaptation of the 1963 French movie, Symphony Pour Un Massacre. - Okay. - How do you say that, Alex? - Symphony Pour Un Massacre. - Something like that. - So if anyone wants to watch the original French one, you can go watch this, or you can even watch Johnny Gaddar, which is a well-made Bollywood Masala-type movie. It's a taught thriller. It's kind of a who-done-it, where a group of drug hustling gangsters are killed off one by one because one of them has betrayed the rest and made off with a huge chunk of cash. - Okay. - The whole movie is shown in flashback. The lead actor, Neil Nathan Mukage, his character is trying to figure out who had put him in jail and who has all the money. So yeah, it's really fun to watch. The music in this movie is pretty catchy too. So if you enjoy thrillers and Bollywood Masala, definitely give Johnny Gaddar a chance. - Okay. - Going a level deeper into movie section. - Nice. - Watch the old school 1971 movie, Parvana, starring Amita Bachchan. Now, this Parvana movie is actually a huge plot point inside of Johnny Gaddar, which is why I'm mentioning it. But Parvana is actually an amazing psychological thriller movie, all by itself. So, you know, why don't you just go watch it? - Yeah. - Amita Bachchan's character is a stalker-ish creep who falls in love with a woman who doesn't love him back. So, this dude plots to get rid of her fiance somehow and marry her. And I don't wanna give too much away. So, I'm gonna stop there. Parvana was a rarity in its era because negative characters like this were never the lead character. And twisted tales like this just weren't made into big banner movies. So, this was a true gem of its time. This is one of my husband's favorite movies and he made me watch it. I really enjoyed it. - Okay. There was another Amita Bachchan vintage movie that I watched the summer with my mom. And there's a scene that takes place on a train where the cop has these two thieves in the train and the train gets stood up. And the whole movie has this very Western vibe. - Oh, is it Shole? - I think so. Yep, there's a train scene in there. There you go. I have finally contributed to Bollywood Corner. Bollywood Classic, these characters are also, well not negative, but they weren't heroes. They're kind of like anti-heroes, totally. And the like co-hero guy totally co-wers his girl into marrying him by threatening to suicide. - Suicide. - Suicide. - Until she's social-marry him. I like that. - That is actually a very funny scene. It's a really funny scene. Back in the day, like my dad would make us watch every year. Every year, we had to watch Shole one time and Mugalayasam one time. And there's a funny movie called Janebi Doyero. - Okay. - He made us watch that every year, we used to watch it. So yeah, this one, Shole is very close to my heart that way. - There's a train. - There is a train. - Oh yeah, what about the Chennai Express Pia? - Come on. I mean, it's okay, it's like, like, yeah. - It looked really bad, I don't know. - It's a stupid movie. It's a stupid movie. - That was it for Bollywood Corner. - Nice. - I'll post all of this as usual on our website, on Instagram, and you can go watch this stuff. You wanna tell our listeners to go do things again, Alex? - Yeah, go do the things. - Check us out on the social means. - @crinesfromtheeast. - Instagram.com. - Mm-hmm. - And Patreon. Also, coffee. Buy me a coffee. - Yeah, that's pretty much it. And we'll try to record another episode tomorrow, so we have something for you lined up, and then we'll take a break. So. - A little Masala news. - Yes, we'll do a Masala news episode. - Like some spoilers. - Yeah. - Dumb things that Indian politicians have said about COVID. - Oh, yes. I wanna hear that. - I found a ghost story in Bombay. And my favorite one. Oh, I found a story about a snake, just to, you know, harken back to our snake talk. - Mm-hmm. - And there was one more. Oh, this one's really on my alley, but bizarre foods that Indians eat. - Yeah, we should do a YouTube video about that and actually eat it, life. - Depends. I don't think you're gonna wanna eat some of this stuff. - I'm not gonna wanna eat it. - Okay, now I'm intrigued. - Oh, I'm intrigued. - Yeah, that sounds amazing. I'm really excited to record now. - Me too. - Oh, I forgot to mention I guessed it on another podcast. It's called The Turtle Stack and her episode is out now. She basically interviews people who are passionate about something at this current point of time and you just have to go talk there about whatever it is you want to. - Did you talk about aliens? - Yes, I did. - And whiffos. So the episode is called Pia and UFOs. You can go check it out. It's called The Turtle Stack. And I guess that's about it. I'm not gonna stretch it anymore. This rubber band just might snap. So join us again next week for another episode of True Crime, The Daisy Kind. With a little masala and spice. - Spice. Namaste. - Bye. - Bye.