iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
An Indian American man from Roseville who was convicted in October 2019, for killing his family of three children and his wife, was given three years of consecutive life sentences without parole.
On September 13 of this year, Shankar Nagappa Hangud, 55, pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of deliberately aiding his wife in committing suicide in their apartment in California, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office reported.
Investigators said Shankar did it as he could not provide for them financially.
Hangud was arrested on Oct. 14, 2019, after turning himself in at the Mount Shasta Police Department with the body of his adult son still in his vehicle parked outside. Hangud killed his 20-year-old son the day before in rural Siskiyou County, police reported.
Roseville police said his wife and daughter died on Oct. 7, then his younger son the next day. Their bodies were later found in Hangud’s Roseville apartment.
His two youngest children were in their teens. The victims were identified as Jyothi Shankar, 46; Varun Shankar, 20; Gauri Hangud, 16; and Nischal Hangud, 13.
Police said at the time they believed Shankar killed his family during a week-long crime spree, murdering his wife and daughters over the course of three days.
Shankar was arrested shortly after the killings. He initially pleaded not guilty to the murders in 2019, but last month changed his plea, entering guilty pleas to three counts of first-degree murder for his three children and one count of deliberately aiding his wife in dying by suicide, The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported.
Prosecutors said Shankar claimed to be in despair after losing his IT job and dealing with a marriage that was falling apart.
“The deaths of these young victims touched this community very deeply, and although there are no family members left to see justice served, many in our community remember the victims from school or from their neighborhood,” Placer County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Tellman said in a statement.
“It’s hard to reconcile with the facts that this tragedy could happen because someone couldn’t get employed. But it’s an old-world, patriarchal thought pattern where if he can’t be a provider, he doesn’t want his family to have anything. So he kills his family,” Tellman said.
Outside of a speeding ticket in 2016, police said Hangud did not have a criminal history and there had been no prior calls for service at his residence.