Sofia Sam and lover Arun Kamalasanan found guilty of husband’s cyanide murder
A WOMAN and her lover have been found guilty of killing her husband by drugging his avocado shake and pouring juice laced with cyanide down his throat in a cold-blooded poisoning plot.
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A WOMAN and her lover have been found guilty of killing her husband in a cold-blooded poisoning plot.
Sam Abraham’s death was thought to have been a tragic heart attack, until an autopsy later uncovered something far more sinister — he had died from cyanide poisoning.
He had been drugged with sleeping pills slipped into his avocado shake before he was poisoned with cyanide-laced orange juice poured down his throat as he slept at his family home in Epping in the early hours of October 14, 2015.
HOW MURDER WAS SOLVED WITH TICK OF A BOX
His wife Sofia Sam, 33, and her lover Arun Kamalasanan, 35, both denied killing the 33-year-old but a Supreme Court jury today found the pair guilty of murder.
A three-week trial heard a secretly taped confession Kamalasanan made to an undercover police officer who had befriended him.
He even drew a detailed sketch of his victim’s home, pointing out where he hid in order to carry out the murder.
Sam claimed she woke to find her husband of seven years dead in the bed she had shared with him and her son, Reyhan, 6.
Ten months after Mr Abraham’s death, Sam and Kamalasanan were arrested and charged with murder.
Their arrest came after an extensive undercover police operation where Sam and Kamalasanan were observed secretly meeting up in the weeks and months after Mr Abraham’s death.
He said he had always loved Ms Sam, ever since they met in an Indian college about 15 years ago.
But he claimed she had no knowledge of his murderous plan.
In police interviews, they both told similar stories about how he had always wanted their friendship to be more — but she didn’t.
They denied their relationship was romantic or sexual.
But secret diaries, shown in court, revealed the pair confessing their love for one another.
“I wish to sleep in your arms but I can’t do that, I want to be yours but you are not mine, you are the one for me but you don’t belong to me,” Ms Sam’s diary read.
Another entry read: “Why I am made with rock heart, why I am so cruel, why I am so cunning ... why you make me bad.”
Mr Kamalasanan’s electronic diary revealed he recorded coming to Australia from his native India to meet Ms Sam.
“Met my love for the first time in Melb after seven months. Yes I reached near her. A promise, to be there, wherever you go,” he wrote.
“It took a long time to gather the strength to let her know about my love and how much I love. Now she knows how much I love her.”
In another entry Mr Kamalasanan wrote: “I am sure that one day she will be mine, this life or next. I will wait for her.
“I am afraid ... how many more days I need to live in pain without her.”
Prosecutor Kerri Judd QC suggested Kamalasanan was trying to protect Sam by saying she had no involvement in the killing.
“Indeed at one point he says to (a) covert operative: ‘One more thing. Even if I’m going into under law I don’t want her to’,” Ms Judd told the jury.
Sitting metres away from each other in the dock of the Victorian Supreme Court, the pair did not even glance at each other as the guilty verdicts were handed down today.
Sam gave a whimper on hearing the verdict, and cried as she was handcuffed and led back to jail.
Kamalasanan showed no emotion.
They are each facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The pair will return to court for a pre-sentence plea hearing next month.
Justice Paul Coghlan will sentence the pair at a later date.