Goa police recreate crime scene along with CEO accused of killing son

The Goa Police on Friday took Suchana Seth, the founder of an artificial intelligence startup who allegedly smothered her four-year-old son at a resort, to the alleged crime scene to recreate the sequence of events, officials aware of the developments said.

Seth, who was arrested on Monday in the grisly case, denied killing her son but admitted to attempting to die by suicide by slashing her left wrist using a cutlery knife after the alleged crime, the officials quoted above said, adding that she signed a panchnama (a written recorded statement) at the end of the day.

“The accused showed police the knife with which she slashed her wrist. She also showed how she packed the child’s body in a bag. But she continues to deny that she killed her son,” a senior police officer said, seeking anonymity.

A second officer, who also did not wish to be named, said: “She made certain voluntary disclosures, which we have recorded. We are trying to verify the disclosures as some could have been made in a bid to mislead the investigation.”

Seth initially refused but ultimately visited Sol Banyan Grande resort in Candolim, a coastal village in north Goa, said the officials quoted above.

The 39-year-old allegedly smothered her four-year-old son with a pillow at the resort and then stashed his body in the trunk of a taxi she hired to escape from Goa to Bengaluru, before getting arrested en route, according to the police.

Clues from the resort suggest the killing was pre-planned, police added, basing their theory on empty cough syrup bottles found on the premises and the post-mortem report into the morbid crime.

The boy’s father, PR Venkat Raman, who was locked in hostile divorce and an acrimonious custody battle, returned to India from Indonesia on Wednesday and conducted his son’s last rites in Bengaluru. He is expected to arrive in Goa to join the probe on Saturday.

A five-sentence handwritten note in English, ostensibly scribbled by Seth and found by the police, suggested she “didn’t want her son to go with the father and offers insights into her state of mind”, another police officer had earlier said.

On Friday, police also said that an analysis of Seth’s phone records revealed she made and received calls from only two people – possibly a resort staff who may have helped her procure the cough syrup bottles and the taxi driver whom she had hired to escape to Bengaluru.