Husband guilty of wife’s brutal throat-slashing murder

A jury has found a man guilty of brutally murdering his wife, with the double tragedy being that the victim’s son – who killed himself a year later – was not able to witness justice.

Thevagy Radhakrishan, 52, was murdered by her husband.

A jury has found a man guilty of brutally murdering his wife by slashing her throat from ear to ear, with the double tragedy being that the victim’s son – who killed himself a year after his mum’s death – was not there to witness justice on Thursday.

But in a powerful statement, the victim’s daughter told the court how the crime had “split” her broader family apart, and the killing had taken away not only her mother’s life “but also stripped her mother of her dignity”.

Sandraseghram Radhakrishnan, 64, was at the centre of a six-day trial in Brisbane Supreme Court where he pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife hours after they returned from a trip to India and Sri Lanka on July 1, 2019.

Thevagy Radhakrishan.

During the trial, Crown Prosecutor Clayton Wallis alleged that 52-year-old Thevagy Radhakrishnan was murdered by her husband in the home they shared in Springfield Lakes.

Mrs Radhakrishnan suffered a 12cm symmetrical wound to her throat which was up to 4cm deep, at an angle which was “not ergonomical to cut yourself”, and cut through her necklace.

The jury began deliberations on Thursday and returned a unanimous guilty verdict within a few hours the same day.

In sentencing, Crown Prosecutor Clayton Wallis described it as “an offence born out of panic or fear … and a cold-blooded act of premeditated murder”.

“There has been no remorse … it was particularly heinous in my submission with the nature and ferocity of the injury,” he said.

The victim’s daughter, Maya Radhakrishnan, wrote a statement for the court. While it was not read aloud in full, it was referred to during the sentencing.

“It reflects the travesty that the acts on July 1 were, and the effect that it has had through the remainder of the family unit,” Mr Wallis said.

“It has split people apart and Maya, the innocent party in this, lost both her mother and her father, and 12 months later lost her brother.”

Maya Radhakrishnan hugs Crown Prosecutor Clayton Wallis while leaving the Supreme Court of Queensland, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

Justice Elizabeth Wilson also referred to the victim impact statement and addressed the convicted killer.

“Your actions have had a significant and profound impact on your family,” she said.

“The day Maya found out about her mother’s death was the start of a nightmare she has had to live every day since.

“Her journey from how she was told of her mother’s death to now is harrowing, she has endured what most people would regard as the unendurable.

“She aptly concludes her victim impact statement by saying that you took away her mother’s life but also stripped her mother of her dignity.”

Justice Wilson sentenced Mr Radhakrishnan to the mandatory life imprisonment and he won’t be eligible for parole until July 1, 2039 when he is aged 79.

During the trial, the jury heard that at 10.03pm that day Mr Radhakrishnan called triple-zero and told the operator: “I don’t know what happened, just, she was bleeding everywhere.”

When the ambulance arrived shortly afterwards, they found Mrs Radhakrishnan’s body lifeless in the hall, in a pool of blood.

“Next to her head, centimetres away lay a bloody dried footprint,” Mr Wallis said.

Mr Wallis said paramedics saw further bloody footprints leading up to the kitchen.

“What was telling about the scene and why the scene was so important is that … the injury was … made by a sharp bladed instrument.

“Yet when the ambulance arrived nothing was found near the body.

“That’s because the Crown will say to you that [Mr Radhakrishnan], before the ambulance officers arrived, had moved it.”

Mr Wallis said toxicology tests later showed the victim had “toxic” or supratherapeutic levels of the sleeping drug temazepam in her system.

Defence barrister Kim Bryson argued that the jury needed to be satisfied that the prosecution had excluded the rational possibility that Mrs Radhakrishnan killed herself.

Ms Bryson told the jury that they needed to consider the facts carefully, as their first impression upon hearing from Mr Wallis that Mr Radhakrishnan’s “bloody footprints” led from his wife’s body to the kitchen may be that this evidence was “quite damning” of her client.

“But what you will get to hear is that the docking station for the home phone was in the kitchen area,” Ms Bryson said.