Raghunandan Yandamuri committed the murders during a botched kidnapping in Pennsylvania in 2012.
Raghunandan Yandamuri, an Indian technology professional working in Pennsylvania, was sentenced to death Tuesday for the 2012 murders of a baby girl and her grandmother during a botched kidnapping attempt.
Matt Rourke/Associated Press
Yandamuri, 28, suffocated the 10-month-old baby, Saanvi Venna, and stabbed her 61-year-old grandmother, Satyavathi Venna, during his attempt to kidnap the baby for ransom money to pay off gambling debts, according to reports.
Satyavathi Venna holds her granddaughter, Saanvi Venna, in an undated photo.
AP Photo/Upper Merion Township Police Department
Yandamuri, an Indian national from the state of Andhra Pradesh, worked for eBay in the suburbs of Philadelphia, according to prosecutors, the Times of India reported. He was friendly with the baby's parents who are Indian tech professionals and lived in the same apartment complex as Yandamuri.
Yandamuri decided to kidnap their baby for $50,000 to cover his gambling losses at a casino. "They both are working, so I thought maybe they have some money," he said in statement to police in 2012.
He said he panicked and fatally stabbed the baby's grandmother as she tried to resist his attempts to abduct the child. He told police he suffocated the baby by stuffing a handkerchief in her mouth and wrapping her head in a bath towel to stifle her cries. Her body was later discovered hidden inside an unused wooden sauna in the men's locker room of the apartment complex's gym.
He then took part in candlelight vigils for his victims and distributed lookout notices for the baby, the Hindu reported.
He told police, "My intention was not to kill anyone or not to harm anyone. I only tried to kidnap the baby."
During his trial, Yandamuri had said he would rather get the death penalty than sit through arguments.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
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