The killing of an Andhra student in the US State of Missouri took a new turn on Tuesday after the discovery of the body of an Indian man in a lake near the spot she was found shot dead, with the authorities now treating the incident as a "murder-suicide".
The body of Soumya Tummala, a 22-year-old electrical engineering student at Southern Illinois University, was spotted by passersby inside a car near the Sunfish Lake boat ramp in Spanish Lake area at about 8.30 am on Sunday.
Detectives searching the area for clues found the body of Vikram Kumar Tummala, 27, in the lake three hours later with bullet wounds. His wallet was found by investigators in the car where Soumya's body was found slouched.
The Ford Taurus car was registered in Vikram's name.
The police in St Louis County are trying to determine the exact nature of the relationship between the two.
Officials are at present characterising the relationship between the two as "cousins".
"At this time we do not have a suspect in custody or a person of interest," Lt Gary Berra of the St Louis County Police Department, Missouri told PTI making the point that authorities are treating it as a "murder-suicide".
"At this time there are only two persons involved. There is no third party," Lt Berra said. The medical examiner has apparently made the determination that the man died from a single gunshot wound to his mouth.
There are a number of factors that the police have based their determination on including the proximity of where the two bodies were found.
The County police official said that he had "no idea" if the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also involved in the ongoing inquiry.
Greg Conroy, the Director of Public Affairs at the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, which Soumya was attending as a graduate student maintained that the male "cousin" is not currently enrolled in the university.
Out of a total student population of about 13,500, the international student population in the university numbered 359 as of January 2008, including 167 from India, he said.
Local media reports said Soumya and Vikram lived at different addresses in Maryville, Illinois.
"What we're trying to find out now is why these two
individuals from Maryville, Illinois, were up in such a remote area of St Louis County," police spokesman Rick Eckhard said.
Soumya's murder is the fourth incident of a student from Andhra Pradesh being killed under mysterious circumstances in the US in the last 10 months.
A Srinivas, a post-graduate medical student from Karimnagar was killed in March. A Kirankumar and K Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead at Louisiana University in December 2007.
Source : NDTV
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