Solving crimes | How a brother’s suspicion scuppered a wife’s ‘perfect’ bitter gourd poison plot

The body had remained in water for nearly three days and was in a highly decomposed state. The first postmortem examination concluded that the death was due to drowning. The body was handed over to the family, funeral rites were completed, and the case was close to being treated as an accidental death.

But Prakash Babu’s brother was unconvinced. “He told me very clearly, ‘My brother would never die like this. Something is wrong here,’” recalled the then Circle Inspector Manjunath E O, who was the investigating officer (IO) of the case, while speaking to The Indian Express.

That suspicion became the starting point of an investigation that would later expose an extramarital affair, a carefully planned murder, and an attempt to destroy evidence.

A drowning case

When Prakash Babu’s body was recovered from the canal waters near Tarikere, investigators initially believed they were dealing with an accidental drowning case. The body had remained in water for nearly three days and was in an advanced state of decomposition by the time it was sent for postmortem examination.

Recalling the investigation, Manjunath said the first autopsy nearly brought the case to an end before it had truly begun. “The first postmortem examination concluded that he had died due to drowning. The body was handed over to the family, the last rites were performed, and, technically, the case was almost closed there itself,” he said.

But Prakash Babu’s brother, Francis, remained deeply suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the death.

According to Manjunath, Francis had returned to Bhadravati from Hubballi on January 18, 2020, expecting to meet his brother. Instead, he was told by Flora Nancy that Prakash had allegedly left the house on January 15 along with an auto driver friend.

“What disturbed Francis was that for nearly three days she had not called anyone, not informed the family, not even attempted to search for him. When he questioned her, she appeared unusually calm about the situation,” Manjunath said.

Francis then insisted that the police be informed, following which Flora accompanied him to the Paper Town police station to file a missing persons complaint. “That detail stayed in my mind too,” the officer recalled. “At the station, she cried a lot and appeared genuinely distressed, so initially we believed her version.”

However, as investigators began probing further, inconsistencies started emerging in Flora’s statements.

Initially, the police said, Flora claimed that Prakash had left with an unidentified person. Later, she changed her version and stated that he had gone with an auto driver friend. She also provided the police with a few phone numbers, claiming they belonged to people known to Prakash.

“But when we verified those numbers, none of those persons had visited Prakash recently or were in touch with him around the time he went missing,” Manjunath said. The ‘auto driver’ angle soon became one of the biggest challenges in the investigation.

“There was no CCTV footage, no vehicle number, and no witness who could identify this alleged auto driver. Still, we could not ignore the possibility entirely,” he added.

Police teams then began extensive ground-level verification across Bhadravati and nearby areas. Investigators questioned local auto drivers, checked possible travel routes, and spoke to residents and transport workers to determine whether anyone had seen Prakash on the night he allegedly disappeared.

Manjunath said the investigation was moving simultaneously with handling other regular policing duties, law and order work, and other criminal investigations while continuing to pursue leads in the case whenever they were in the field. “Every day, we had multiple responsibilities. But whenever we got time, we kept working on this case too – speaking to people, checking movements, and verifying contradictions,” he said.

Manjunath E O, the investigating officer. (Photo Credit: Special Arrangement)

The turning point came when investigators analysed Flora Nancy’s Call Detail Records (CDR). The police found that she had been in constant contact with a man identified as Rajasekharaiah, 25. “What made me suspicious was the frequency of calls between them. When we asked Francis about him, even he did not know who this person was,” Manjunath said.

The police then summoned both Flora and Rajasekharaiah for questioning. “We kept confronting them with contradictions for nearly two to three weeks. Slowly, their versions stopped matching, and the inconsistencies became obvious,” the officer recalled.

Eventually, investigators claimed, Flora Nancy confessed to the murder conspiracy.

The affair

According to the police, Flora Nancy had married Prakash Babu, who was also her maternal uncle, in 2014 at Bhadravati MPP Kalyana Mantapa. Soon after marriage, Prakash travelled to Dubai for work in hopes of securing financial stability for the family.

During his absence, Flora joined a private nursing home as a nurse. The police said that she later developed a relationship with Rajasekharaiah, who was associated with the same workplace.

Investigators claimed the two continued the relationship even after Prakash returned from Dubai permanently in 2016, following the death of his mother, and decided to settle in India. To support his livelihood, Prakash purchased an Etios car and began working as a driver, including running the vehicle on a rental basis.

The police said that Prakash eventually discovered his wife’s affair and attempted to separate the two by shifting Flora to another nursing home. When the relationship allegedly continued, he stopped her from working altogether, leading to repeated arguments between the couple. “That was when Prakash had become the main obstacle in their relationship,” Manjunath said.

The murder plot

According to the police, Flora Nancy began planning the murder by carefully studying Prakash Babu’s daily routine. “She knew his routine very well. Every night before sleeping, he used to drink bitter gourd juice. That routine became part of the murder plan,” the officer said.

Investigators said she structured the plan around his daily habits in a way that would not arouse suspicion, choosing a method that appeared natural and routine-based rather than overtly violent or unusual, while ensuring it could be executed without drawing immediate attention.

The police said that on the night of January 15, 2020, Flora crushed SOLOPOSE sleeping tablets and mixed them into the bitter gourd juice before serving it to Prakash Babu. They added that, being a nurse, she had knowledge of sedatives and is believed to have sourced the tablets from the medical store attached to the nursing home where she worked.

The original plan, according to investigators, was to sedate Prakash into unconsciousness, transport him elsewhere, and dispose of the body in canal waters so the death would appear accidental. However, the plan did not unfold as intended. “Even after consuming the tablets, he did not become fully unconscious. He remained semi-conscious,” the officer said.

According to the police, Flora Nancy called Rajasekharaiah, and he arrived at the house around 11.30 pm. Investigators claimed the two then overpowered Prakash while he was still partially conscious. The police further alleged that Rajasekharaiah strangled him from behind, while Flora held his legs tightly to prevent him from resisting.

The body was later loaded into Prakash Babu’s Etios car and taken to the canal near Galihalli Cross between Tarikere and Lingadahalli, nearly 20 km from his residence.

“They believed the flowing canal water would carry the body away and erase all evidence. But there had been no heavy rainfall at the time. The canal water was stagnant, and the body did not drift away as they had expected,” Manjunath added. The body was later recovered by the local police.

A second autopsy

Manjunath also recalled that Prakash Babu’s body was later exhumed for a second postmortem examination, which proved to be highly challenging for doctors due to the advanced decomposition and the fact that an earlier postmortem had already been conducted before burial.

“The body was already decomposed, and the first postmortem had been done. After burial and further decomposition, the second postmortem became very difficult for the doctors,” he said. However, despite the challenges, doctors eventually concluded that the cause of death was strangulation, not drowning.

Following the discovery and subsequent confession, the police reconstructed the entire sequence of events using technical evidence, witness statements, forensic findings, and call detail records. “We filed the chargesheet within the statutory 90-day period, but even after that, we continued strengthening the case through witness verification and evidence collection,” Manjunath said.

Death sentence

Following the trial, the 4th Additional District and Sessions Court in Bhadravati, Shivamogga, on May 8, 2026, convicted Flora Nancy and Rajasekharaiah under Sections 302 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code for murder and destruction of evidence. The court awarded the death penalty to both accused and imposed a cumulative fine of Rs 14 lakh. The court also directed that Rs 5 lakh be paid to the complainant as compensation.

In its judgment delivered by Judge Indira Mylaswamy Chettiyar, the court held that the prosecution had proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt and classified the murder as falling under the “rarest of rare” category, warranting capital punishment.

Explaining the reasons for awarding the death penalty, the court observed that the murder was not committed in a sudden provocation or moment of rage, but was instead a carefully planned act carried out with cruelty and deception. The judgment noted that the accused had allegedly exploited the victim’s daily routine to incapacitate him, murdered him in a calculated manner, and later attempted to destroy evidence by disposing of the body in a canal and filing a false missing person complaint to mislead investigators.

The court further held that the crime reflected a complete betrayal of trust within a marital relationship and was committed solely to eliminate an obstacle to the accused person’s relationship. It also observed that the actions of the accused subjected the victim’s family to further trauma, including exhumation and a second investigation after the initial postmortem.

Describing the conduct of the accused as “premeditated, cruel, cold-blooded and inhuman,” the court said they had shown “no remorse at any stage” and had acted with the sole intention of eliminating the victim while attempting to erase all traces of the crime.

The judgment further stated that there were no mitigating circumstances warranting leniency and held that the manner in which the offence was executed, coupled with the deliberate destruction of evidence and deception, had “shocked the collective conscience of society.”

The court concluded that the case fell within the “rarest of rare” category and that capital punishment was the appropriate sentence.