MIND OF A MONSTER

NOTE: This story is based on the author’s fiction. It doesn’t apply to any historical references or real-life incidents. This is a sequel to my previous story, The Evil Monster.

July 15, 2016

BOOLUVAMPATTI, COIMBATORE

Four to five small children were playing in the small place called Siruvani River, and one of them saw something floating in that river. When he looked closer to see what it was, it was a 16- or 18-year-old girl’s dead body floating without any dress.

Immediately, the boys panicked and informed the police. But the police were not shocked because Tamil Nadu was modernising at that time. A lot of pubs, nightclubs, and sex workers were getting popular at that time. At that time, it was common for sex workers to get into trouble.

Even though the police took lots of measures, they couldn’t stop it completely. Inspector Ashwin came to the crime scene and followed all the usual procedures. When he was investigating this case, Ashwin thought that it was a normal case.

However, on August 15, 2016, Ashwin got another call. In that call, someone said that another female body was found in the Siruvani River. When he went there and saw her, he came to know that it was 31-year-old Monika.

When Ashwin was looking at it in the same Siruvani river, he saw 17-year-old Vaishnavi’s body. Shocked by this, Ashwin went to the other side of the Siruvani river, where he got the body of another girl, Varshini, who was 16 years old, and all three bodies were found naked like the old one.

Now Ashwin thought that it was not a normal case like he thought and felt that definitely a serial killer must be behind this. On August 16, 2016, a special task force was formed under Dinesh Kumar, IPS, and they are going to investigate only this case.

So far, Ashwin knows only three things about this case. First, all who were killed were sex workers; second, most of the girls were between 16 and 18 years of age; and third, the killer is disposing of the body in the Siruvani river. Other than this, Ashwin didn’t get any significant clues.

Now months began to pass, and at the end of 2017, Dinesh Kumar found the bodies of nine girls like this. Since the killer was disposing of the decomposed body in and near the Siruvani River, the media gave him the name as Siruvani River Killer." In this case, there were a lot of problems and challenges for Dinesh (the head of the new investigation team).

First, all the victims who were murdered in this case were mostly found in a decomposed stage or a few days after being murdered. Because of this, the forensic team couldn’t surely find out whether there was another person’s DNA in the victim’s body. The biggest problem in this case is that since all the victims who died are sex workers, they would have been in contact with a lot of random people, and most of those who go to the prostitutes will have criminal backgrounds.

Hence, Dinesh couldn’t definitely predict the suspects. If the suspect list is small, then finding the criminal will be easy. But in this case, the suspect list is getting big, and Dinesh’s team didn’t see any improvement.

ONE YEAR LATER

2017

"Now it’s been a year. 26 sex workers were found dead or went missing. But we didn’t have any improvement in this case," said Dinesh. He kept the crime files aside at the table while talking with his subordinates.

At this time, 18-year-old Pradhiksha was eating in a hotel with her boyfriend, Ashwath. She is also a prostitute, and now her boyfriend received a call, and he went to talk on that call. When he returned after talking, Pradhiksha was not there.

Immediately, Ashwath searched everywhere and came outside to see. There he saw Pradhiksha getting into another pickup truck, and he tried to stop it. But the truck went there faster, and he started following them in his car.

When Ashwath was following, suddenly the pickup truck faded away from his eyesight. Immediately, he started searching for the pickup truck in that area. Like he thought, in a remote area, Ashwath noticed a pickup truck, and he immediately informed Dinesh.

Dinesh also came there immediately, and when he and his team went and saw it, they came to know that the truck belonged to a 29-year-old truck painter named Akhil. Now, Dinesh has started investigating him. But Akhil said that he doesn’t know Priyanka.

Dinesh searched his house with the help of his team. But there was no evidence of Priyanka being there, and there was no evidence for them to suspect him. Since there was no evidence for Dinesh to suspect him, he released him, and after that, he and his team planned an undercover operation.

In that case, a lot of female police officers dressed as prostitutes and stood in different places. When they were standing, if someone misbehaved or attacked them, if they investigated them, Dinesh thought that they could definitely find the killer, and in that undercover investigation, the police got three important suspects.

First, Muhammad Nausath turned himself in as a suspect for sexually attacking two prostitutes with a gun. When the police checked his background, they found that there were a lot of criminal cases against him, and he has two handguns. Hence, Dinesh took him into custody for investigation.

But in the investigation, he said, "Sir. I did this because I was high on drugs. Other than that, I didn’t do these murders. I have nothing to do with this."

Also, when Dinesh checked the time of the murder, at that time Nausath was in another place, and he had a proper alibi for that, so Dinesh released him. Next, truck painter Akhil, who was taken as a suspect by Dinesh, was again turned into a suspect in the undercover operation.

Since he was turned into a suspect again, Akhil was angry. He came forward and asked to take a polygraph test, and I said, "Not to disturb him again." Dinesh took the polygraph test, and he passed it.

I think most of the readers reading this story may know about this polygraph test. It’s a lie detector test. With that, we can know whether a person is telling the truth or not, and it can be found with their pulse rate and BP.

Now Dinesh has released Akhil. Next, he kept a 30-year-old taxi driver as their prime suspect. Because of his personality and activities, he believed that the taxi driver must be the Siruvani River killer. But Dinesh didn’t have any reason to arrest him. To arrest him somehow, Dinesh put unpaid parking tickets and other traffic cases on him.

After arresting him, if no murders happened while he was in jail, Dinesh thought that he must be the killer. But murders happened while he was in jail. Without choice, Dinesh and the police released him too. At the end of 2017, in Coimbatore alone, over 42 girls were found dead or missing.

Without any clues, Dinesh didn’t know what to do. At this time, the most threatening serial killer, Adhithya, wrote a letter to Dinesh, in which he said that he would help him and asked him to come and meet him.

Immediately, Dinesh also went there to meet him, and when he went there, Adhithya said, "Mostly the killer’s house will be next to the place where he disposes of the body. Not only that, the killer will come to the place again where he disposes of the body and will have sex with the dead bodies."

As Dinesh looked at him cautiously, Adhithya asked him to cool down and said, "Sir. I meant that he might be suffering from necrophilia."

Dinesh was shocked to hear what Adhithya said. He increased police surveillance near the Siruvani River area. Now it’s been two years since the case started, and murders were reduced after March 2020; in fact, after that, murders were stopped.

But Dinesh couldn’t even get near the killer.

He thought, Why were the murders stopped? Why did the killer stop murdering? Is he dead, or did he change his killing style? Or else did he go to other states or countries?" Like this, Dinesh got confused.

Now he and his team have a plan to find the killer for the last time. Dinesh filtered all the suspects they had till now and thought of creating an A level suspect profile.

In this Adhithya said that near the Siruvani river, whose houses were on their suspect list and who all were added to the suspect list more than two or three times or who had a huge criminal background, they were all added to the A suspect list. After that, they collected the DNA samples from the people on that suspect list and sent them to create a DNA profile.

But the DNA profiles didn’t match the DNA found on the victim’s body. However, Dinesh matched it with the DNA found in the victim’s body. Now he's had a major breakthrough. With the first four victims he found initially, he created a DNA profile from the DNA found in Priyanka, Monika, Vaishnavi, and Varshini, and it 100% matched with one of the DNAs from the A suspect list.

It’s none other than Akhil, who got caught by the police three times. Dinesh and his team couldn’t believe that he was the killer.

"He was smart enough to cheat the polygraph test." Dinesh said he took Akhil into custody, and he also behaved normally in police custody.

No one can describe him as a psycho killer. Because his reaction and speaking were perfect, like a normal person. Now Dinesh has started investigating Akhil’s history.

On February 18, 1988, he was born in Town Hall, Coimbatore. He also had a troubled childhood. In his childhood days, his parents were continuously fighting, and his mother was very modern at that time. Akhil, who grew up in such a situation in his adolescent stage, started feeling rage and hatred towards his mother. Since his mother forbidden him from travelling in the town buses, which he loved a lot.

Even though he controlled his anger and rage, Akhil instead developed an interest in sex and decided to take revenge against girls for the abuse and betrayal that he suffered from his mother. Days began to pass, and in his teenage years, he began to go crazy on sex and looked at the photos of town buses frequently.

Akhil went to prostitutes often. Likewise, his marriage was also not successful. In 2012, he married his girlfriend, Anjana. But at the time he joined the Indian Army and went on an undercover mission, his wife was in an illegal relationship with his friend, and he came to know about it and divorced her in 2013.

But the interest Akhil had in sex didn’t decrease, and he often went to prostitutes. In 2016, his serial killings started. But in 2018, he met his second wife, Harshini.

After dating for three years, they married in 2021, and his serial killing was fully stopped. After Akhil’s second marriage, he started living normally and happily.

When Dinesh investigated Harshini at her house, she said, "I couldn’t believe that he is a psycho killer. He is a sweet and kind person. He will care for me a lot, and I can’t believe that he has this kind of dark side."

Now Dinesh took Akhil into custody and started investigating, and he accepted the crime.

"I will tell you everything I did and also about the whereabouts of the rest of the body. But before that, you should accept a deal!" As Akhil said this, Dinesh accepted it.

"I should get a life sentence instead of a death sentence." Dinesh accepted his deal. After that, Akhil started telling how he committed this murder.

Akhil didn’t plan to kidnap the girls. Using the small loopholes cleverly, he kidnapped them easily and murdered them. First, Akhil chose the victims carefully. He will choose the vulnerable and easy-to-kill victims. Mostly, they will be between 16 and 18 years old.

Now Akhil will go to the prostitutes, and before hiring them, he will show my son’s photo, and with that, Akhil will show that he is safe, show them that he’s a family man, and make the victims believe him. Even when the serial killings were happening in that area, and even though there were lots of murders happening, girls thought that Akhil was safe and accepted to go with him. After hiring the victims, Akhil will bring them to his house, and for those who refuse to go inside the house, he will take them to a remote area in his pickup truck.

In his house or behind his pickup truck, there will be a shed. Inside that, Akhil will start having sex with them, and after everything is over, he will go behind the victims and catch them without leaving them to escape and strangle them to death. Before the victims get alerted about my attack and respond back, Akhil will kill them. When the victim tries to attack me, he will easily tackle it.

Since the victims Akhil chose were 16–18-yyear-old young girls, controlling them was very easy for him. Now he won’t leave the victims after they die. Akhil will pour battery acid on their dead bodies, pluck their fingernails and hair, and burn them. He will do this, enjoy it, and become high.

After doing these horrible things, Akhil won’t dispose of the dead bodies soon. He will keep the bodies under the shadow of the hills.

"I don’t like necrophilia that much, sir. But it’s very easy to have sex with the dead bodies. Since they won’t resist it, there is no need to pay them." Akhil said at present to Dinesh

Upon hearing this, Dinesh and his police team were shocked.

Akhil continued to tell them: "When I had sex with the dead bodies, the bodies would have decomposed, and there would be a lot of worms in them. Sometimes, seeing that, I will become moody. After that, I will dispose of the body in the Siruvani River or in the surrounding area, sir. And when I dispose of the dead bodies, to confuse the police, I will leave the cigarette buds, chewing gum, and written notes of others with the dead body and contaminate the crime scene."

Only 49 murders were proved in court by Dinesh.

When Dinesh asked him about that, Akhil said without any regret: "I lost count. It will be more than 70 or 80."

On October 20, 2021, the Madras High Court gave him ten years for every murder, for a total of 490 years of life imprisonment for 49 murders, and for hiding the evidence from the police, one year was given for one murder. Additionally, 49 years of life imprisonment without parole were given to him.

While hearing the judgement, Dinesh and his team recalled what Akhil said at last in their investigation when they asked the reasons for murdering vulnerable women.

"They are all prostitutes. So they should die, and they are like an object to me." Akhil said further: "Other than that, I have no feeling for it." After seeing this statement, the judge gave him another punishment.

The judge said: "The victim’s family members can say what they think about Akhil in public at this court, and he must hear what they say."

In that moment, a lot of family members were heartbroken and scolded Akhil to the core. But he didn’t even feel for it. But in that case, Varshini’s father said at the time, "Everyone here hates you. But I don’t. What God says is to forgive everyone, and I will also forgive you. At least here, after changing into a good human being."

The next second after he said this, Akhil, who had done a lot of horrible murders, for the first time realised his mistake and started crying in the court.

EPILOGUE

Most of the psycho killers you see in my stories were raised in horrible childhood situations like him. In adolescence, boys won’t have the clarity to not see girls in a bad way. Parents from the boy’s childhood should raise them by telling them what is good and what is bad, and they are responsible for noticing what the children are doing. Why I am saying this means that even the most terrifying Akhil, after his second wife Harshini showed love towards him, stopped the murder. When a victim’s father said that he forgave him, he realised his mistake and started crying. So if we show true kindness and love to all the living beings in the world, think about how beautiful the world will be. Spread love to everyone.

Readers. What do you think about this story? What are your thoughts about Akhil’s change? Comment on your opinions without forgetting.