Booking photo for Saritha Ramaraju.Ramaraju was charged with murder, child endangerment, torture, and aggravated mayhem. (Santa Ana Police Department)
New York: A 48-year-old Indian-origin woman, Saritha Ramaraju, has been charged with the brutal murder of her 11-year-old son, allegedly slitting his throat after a three-day vacation to Disneyland during a custody visit.
Ramaraju faces one felony count of murder and an additional felony enhancement for personal use of a weapon, a knife. If convicted on all charges, she could receive a maximum sentence of 26 years to life, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in California on Friday.
Ramaraju, who had moved out of California following her 2018 divorce from the boy’s father, had been staying with her son at a Santa Ana motel for a court-ordered custody visit. She purchased three-day Disneyland passes for the trip.
On March 19, the day she was scheduled to check out of the motel and return the boy to his father, she called 911 at 9:12 a.m., reporting that she had killed her son and ingested pills in an apparent suicide attempt.
When Santa Ana police arrived, they found the boy dead on the motel bed, surrounded by Disneyland souvenirs. Authorities believe he had been dead for several hours before Ramaraju made the emergency call. A large kitchen knife, purchased the day before, was recovered from the motel room.
Following her hospitalization for ingesting an unknown substance, Ramaraju was released on Thursday and taken into custody on suspicion of fatally stabbing her son.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer condemned the crime, saying, “The life of a child should not hang in the balance between two parents whose anger for each other outweighs their love for their child. The safest place for a child should be in their parents’ arms. Instead of wrapping her arms around her son in love, she slit his throat and, in the cruelest twist of fate, removed him from the very world she brought him into.”
While the authorities did not release the child’s name, NBC Los Angeles identified him as Yatin Ramaraju.
The report further revealed that Saritha Ramaraju had been in a custody battle with her ex-husband, Prakash Raju, since last year. She accused him of making medical and school decisions without her input and claimed he had substance abuse issues.
According to court papers, Prakash Raju, originally from Bengaluru, India, was granted custody of their son following their divorce in January 2018, while Saritha Ramaraju had visitation rights.
Legal filings from November indicate that Ramaraju, who had been living in Fairfax, Virginia, wanted her son to reside with her. She alleged that her ex-husband had a “history of substance abuse issues” and claimed he “gets very aggressive under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and smoke.” She further alleged he had “severe control issues” and that their son was “very scared to talk to mother as he’ll get into trouble with dad.”
In response, Prakash Raju denied all allegations, describing them as “completely false and untrue,” according to court documents.
With PTI inputs
