indica News Bureau-
An Indian-American man from Roseville, California, has been accused of killing four members of his family before driving with the corpse of one to the police station in Mount Shasta, Monday, Oct 14, and turning himself in.
Shankar Nagappa Hangud, 53, told the police that he had killed the man in his car and three others whose bodies lay in his apartment.
Roseville police investigated the address given by Hangud—an apartment complex in Roseville—and found the three bodies.
Hangud was arrested and transported back to Placer County, Calif, where he is being held without bail on four counts of murder. A hearing for arraignment is scheduled Oct 25, the website heavy.com reported.
Investigators believe the four victims were killed over a six-day period. According to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday, Oct 16 in the Superior Court of California, Placer County, two of the victims were killed Oct 7 while the third is believed to have died Oct 8.
The fourth victim, with whom Hangud drove to the police, is believed to have been killed Sunday, Oct 13, in Siskiyou county, where Mount Shasta is located.
None of the victims’ names has been released as the next of kin have not been notified, Captain Josh Simon of the Roseville police department told reporters at a press conference Tuesday morning. But the victims are two adults and two juveniles. The victim in the car driven by Hangud was identified as an adult male of ‘East Indian’ descent.
Police were trying to put together the sequence of events and the timeline to determine where Hangud traveled after leaving his apartment with the fourth victim and whether any more crimes were committed on the way to Mount Shasta.
Capt Simon said Hangud and the victim found in his red Mazda were believed to have left Roseville over a week ago and were driving around through various towns en route to Mount Shasta. Police have asked local communities to call them if they had spotted the victim or the suspect over the past week.
Capt Simon did not state the manner of death of each of the victims, or the weapons used. No firearms were found at the Roseville apartment, he said.
The Dry Creek School District in Placer County sent a notification to parents of Silverado Middle School students, saying, “Pending confirmation from authorities, we believe one of the victims may have been one of our treasured Silverado Middle School students.” The note was posted in the comments section of the Roseville police department report of the incident on Facebook.
Capt Simon said the motive for the killings is yet to be determined. Hangud has been interviewed extensively by police and appears to have acted alone. “Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened in our community,” the police captain said.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Hangud is an enterprise data architect whose last job was with Social Interest Solutions in Sacramento. His profile still lists him as working for the company, but The Sacramento Bee said he had left the job last year.
Hangud’s profile showed an uneven record of employment, with some jobs lasting just a few months. He earned his MBA from the University of Phoenix in Arizona. Hangud lived for a while in Milpitas, Calif, and for four years in Dallas, Texas.
The Sacramento Bee also reported that Hangud owes more than $178,000 to the Internal Revenue Service and had a tax lien placed on his apartment. A tax lien means when the apartment is sold, the IRS gets paid first and the taxpayer and the mortgage holder get what’s left.
Hangud does not have a previous criminal record and had just one charge in the past 40 years, for speeding in December 2016. On that occasion, he failed to show up in court and was fined $366 in absentia.
