CCTV footage, bloodstains, clever cabbie: How cops nabbed CEO who killed son

The story of a Bengaluru start-up CEO who allegedly murdered her four-year-old son has left many shocked. Suchana Seth, CEO of The Mindful AI Lab, was arrested in Karnataka’s Chitradurga on Monday with her son’s body in a bag. The motive behind the killing remains unknown, but there are reports that Seth is estranged from her husband. She was brought to Goa on Tuesday and remanded in police custody for six days by a court in Mapusa town. But what happened? And how did the police catch Seth? Let’s take a closer look: Seth and her son checked into a rented service apartment at Candolim in north Goa on 6 January. As per Indian Express, Seth around 1 am on 7 January, suddenly told staff she was checking out. She asked them to arrange a taxi to take her to Bengaluru. “The staff suggested that she could take a flight to Bengaluru, which would be a cheaper option rather than hiring a taxi, which is an expensive proposition,” , Calangute police station Inspector Paresh Naik said.

But Seth insisted that she wanted a taxi.

The staff arranged for a taxi – after which she left. News18 reported that Seth told the driver to take her to Bengaluru as quickly as possible. Then, when the apartment staff went to clean the room in which Seth and her son stayed, they found blood stains on a towel. This occurred around 10 am, as per Indian Express. “The management of the apartment immediately informed the Calangute police, who then reached the spot,” Naik added. The staff also told the police Seth’ four-year-old son was not seen with her when she left the apartment and that she was also carrying an unusually heavy bag. As per News18, police then checked the CCTV footage of the hotel. They discovered that Seth and her son entered the hotel but that she checked out alone. The police then called Seth and asked her about the blood stains and her “missing” son. “The accused told us that the blood stains were due to her monthly periods. She also told us that her son was with her friend in Margao town (in South Goa) and provided the address,” the official said. Naik said he immediately took the help of Fatorda police (near Margao) and got to know the address given by her was fake. The inspector later spoke over phone to the taxi driver, who was on way to Bengaluru and had reached Chitradurga district in Karnataka, to take the accused to the nearest police station. As per Indian Express, the police spoke to the driver in Konkani to avoid raising Seth’s suspicion. The Hindu reported that the driver then  drove to the police station at Ayamangala. The police in Chitradurga then checked Seth’s bag in which they found the body of her son, Naik added. “The taxi driver had charged Rs 30,000 for the trip to Bengaluru. He told the police that when he picked up her luggage, he felt that the suitcase was unusually heavy, but didn’t think much of it,” a police officer told Indian Express. A team of the Calangute police then rushed to Chitradurga and obtained a transit remand of the accused, who was being brought to Goa. The postmortem of the body would be conducted in Chitradurga, Naik said. Police have informed about the incident to the accused’s husband, Venkat Raman, who is currently in Jakarta, he said. What do we know about Seth’s motive? As per India Today, Seth was separated from her husband and their divorce was nearly finalised. As per The Print, the couple married in 2010 and separated in 2020. She was said to be displeased with a court order allowing her husband to meet their son every Sunday.

She allegedly killed the four-year-old to stop them meeting.

“Prima facie, during our initial inquiry, the lady mentioned that she had a troubled relationship with her husband, and their divorce process was nearly finalised. There was also a court order causing distress to her. Interrogation is ongoing, and we are required to present her before the court. The motive is yet to be confirmed; this is what she conveyed to our investigators. We need to review the court order before making further statements,” Nidhin Valson, North Goa’s Superintendent of Police told India Today. The Print quoted police sources as saying that the boy was “smothered to death” – as evinced by marks on his neck. But questions about the murder abound. “The child was found with a head injury, the throat was also slashed. If the heinous act had been done in the room, there would have been a lot more blood in the room,” a police official told News18. As per Moneycontrol, the final picture on Seth’s Instagram is the picture of her four-year-old son playing near an aquarium. Posted in October 2023, it featured hashtags such as “What Will Happen”, “Finding Losing” and “Wish”. According to Seth’s LinkedIn page, she was among the top ‘100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021’. Her profile describes her as an AI ethics expert and data scientist with over 12 years of experience in mentoring data science teams. It says she was a Mozilla Fellow at Data & Society, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Centre at Harvard University, and a researchh fellow at the Raman Research Institute. It also says she holds patents in natural language processing. Seth has a Masters in Physics from the University of Calcutta and a Post Graduate Diploma in Sanskrit from the Ramakrishna Mission Institute Of Culture. With inputs from agencies