Kiss of death: Wife accused of killing husband with cyanide mourned him with casket kisses
A WIFE accused of murdering her husband with cyanide wept over his casket and kissed his face in front of family who thought he had died of a heart attack.
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A WIFE accused of murdering her husband with cyanide wept over his casket and kissed his face in front of family who thought he had died of a heart attack.
And in a strange twist, relatives have told the Herald Sun that Sam Abraham had told his parents he thought he might die soon — just days before he was found dead at his Epping home last October.
Authorities and the Abrahams initially thought the 33-year-old had died in his sleep of natural causes.
Samuel Abraham Sr spoke from India of his shock at learning that his son had been poisoned.
“Sam was a good person, a good son. He was going to church, singing, praying,” Mr Abraham Sr said.
Mr Abraham’s death came three months after he was attacked by a man in a balaclava, in what police now say was an attempted murder.
Last month, Victoria Police charged Sam Abraham’s wife, Sofia Sam, with murder.
Her long-time friend, Arun Kamalasanan, of Port Melbourne, was also charged with murder, and a separate charge of attempted murder.
The charges followed a long covert investigation by homicide squad detectives, which has left police with about three months of telephone recordings to translate and transcribe.
Family photographs of the funeral service in India show Mrs Sam crying above her husband’s open casket while cradling the couple’s seven-year-old son.
Relatives and friends were told Mr Abraham died in his sleep of a heart attack somewhere between October 13 and 14 last year. The Herald Sun understands there was no sign of suspicious circumstances.
Mr Abraham Sr, speaking through an interpreter from his home near Punalur, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, told of a remark his son made shortly before he died.
He was leaving India at the end of holiday, going home to Australia, and said: “I might die soon”.
Mr Abraham said: “He used to say those things ... a passing comment, so we didn’t take it seriously.”
His son had been loved by his community, he said.
In Melbourne, friends remembered Mr Abraham as a good friend, a choir singer and an active member of Victoria’s Malayalee community.
Pradeep Chandra said he had been “heavily involved” in church activities.
“We all thought he died of a heart attack,” he said.
“He’s a lovely person, a nice gentleman.”
Mr Abraham’s death occurred three months after he was attacked at Lalor train station by a balaclava-clad man who had been hiding in the foot-well of his car.
Detectives will allege Mr Kamalasanan was that man.
Mrs Sam, 32, and Mr Kamalasanan, 34, had struck up a friendship while studying engineering in India and had remained in contact.
Mrs Sam’s LinkedIn account says she is a web consultant at YieldReport, which has offices in Melbourne’s CBD.
Mr Abraham had been working for a money exchange business.
The LinkedIn account of Mr Kamalasanan, who moved to Melbourne in recent years, says he studied an advanced diploma in engineering at RMIT last year.
SHE CALLED US EVERY WEEK
THE pictures tell a story: Sofia Sam and Sam Abraham posing happily with their son at their Melbourne home, and on holiday, visiting relatives in India.
And Sofia Sam weeping, front and centre of the church, staring sorrowfully at the casket containing the body of the man she professed to love.
The pair had met at a church choir in India and, after marrying, moved with their son to Australia three years ago. Now, following Sam’s death, Sofia was back in his home town, supported by member of her own family, for his cremation.
Dozens of family and friends had come to bid him farewell. Here was their chance, too, to show support for the woman they saw as a grieving, distraught widow, now a single mum to a boy, 7.
Afterwards, after returning home to Melbourne and moving with her son from the family’s home in Kirkland Court, Epping, to a unit, Sofia called her late husband’s parents back in India every week.
Mr Abraham’s elderly father, Samuel Abraham, told the Herald Sun the 32-year-old’s behaviour had been just what one would expect from a grieving young widow.
Mr Abraham Sr said he never would have thought his daughter-in-law capable of harming anyone: “We thought he died of a heart attack. We were told he died in his sleep.
“She called every week ... until she was arrested.”
Three months before his death, Mr Abraham was attacked at Lalor train station by a man in a balaclava.
Despite this, when the currency exchange store worker died, it was initially put down to a heart attack suffered in his sleep. But his parents had thought the diagnosis unusual.
While on holiday in India, just days before his death, the frequent churchgoer and choir singer had appeared healthy and energetic. Keen to help out at the local church, he was seen by his father bounding up the church steps with ease.
“We had some suspicion — but we never thought like this,” Mr Abraham said.
Revelations by the Herald Sun that Victoria Police detectives now believe that Mr Abraham was poisoned with cyanide have sent shockwaves through his home town.
He is remembered there as a loving father, and a man who gave his all to his church; a hardworking and quiet gentleman. Who could want to hurt him, and why?
Mrs Sam has herself been described as quiet and slight; indeed, the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court heard her small stature could make her vulnerable while she is in custody.
She is a mother, a churchgoer, an engineer — hardly the expected profile of an accused murderer.
Gossip and rumours have spread quickly through the Malayalam community.
Court proceedings, scheduled for next year, should shed light on a possible motive.
Closed-circuit TV footage and transcripts of phone conversations, translated from Malayalam, will form part of the brief of evidence.
Police hope to speak to people who knew Mr Abraham and the accused, and have not ruled out travelling to India to gather further evidence.
Mrs Sam and long-time friend Arun Kamalasanan, 34, are expected to reappear in court next year.