Who Killed Leona Swiderski?

That’s where the law finally caught up with 28-year-old Fruitwala. He had eluded the police for a year, but now, his incarceration could reopen the sensational Swiderski murder case. In February 2003, 33-year-old aspiring American model Leona Swiderski was abducted from Mumbai’s Sahar International airport, drugged with chloroform, strangled and dumped in a weedy ditch beside the highway—all within hours of her arrival in India.

The story grabbed the headlines in India and America when it emerged that her death was not a hit-and-run—as initially presumed—but likely a pre-planned murder, a sub-plot of a transnational script of love and betrayal, contract killers, million-dollar insurance fraud, and possibly the mafia.

The main suspect: Swiderski’s Indian-born fiancé Pragnesh Desai, 40, who was acquitted last September for lack of evidence. According to the police, his accomplices included Fruitwala, who was allegedly hired as a contract killer.

Today, the remains of Swiderski’s dreams lie in Case Number 21/2003, scribbled in a dour crime register at Kashimira police station in Thane, a neat but sweltering haven for middle-class professionals on Mumbai’s north-eastern edge. How did it all begin?

Swiderski and Desai flew into Sahar airport by Air India flight 144 early on February 8, 2003 with plans to make purchases for their wedding in May.

But hours after their arrival, Swiderski’s tracksuit-clad body—bloodied and bruised around the neck, mouth, waist and hands—was discovered beside the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway, in a ditch near Hotel Hilltop in Vasai.

Around 11 am that same day, Kashimira police station received word about this discovery. Based on the bruised condition of the body and angle of the limbs, the case was registered as a hit-and-run.

Attempting to trace the body, the police at Kashimira called police stations across Mumbai. At Sahar, they struck gold. A man called Pragnesh Desai had reported his American fiancée’s disappearance soon after arrival at Mumbai’s Sahar International Airport that very morning.

Desai told Sahar police he had gone to find a prepaid taxi while his fiancée Swiderski—ill and vomiting—went to use the airport toilet.

When she did not return for half an hour, Desai claimed, he scoured the airport and then decided to file a missing-person report.

After Sahar police received the call from Kashimira, Desai was taken to Kashimira police station where he identified his fiancée’s body.

“He felt dizzy and fell unconscious on seeing the body,” said Ramchandra Munde, a sub-inspector in Kashimira. Desai was admitted to the now-defunct Bhaktivedanta Hospital in the Mumbai suburb of Mira Road on February 10, where he was diagnosed with severe denial reaction and depression.

Then an autopsy revealed Swiderski had been strangled. It was now a murder investigation.

A breakthrough in the case came when Superintendent Ramrao Pawar discovered all the numbers in Desai’s mobile phone call log were missing. Asked to explain, Desai replied he habitually deleted records of numbers he had called or received calls from.

“Unless you want to hide something, you would not be wiping all the numbers from the cellphone’s log,” said Pawar. He continued the interrogation until Desai named a childhood friend, Vipul Patel of Vadodara.

Within five hours, Thane police appeared at Patel’s doorstep. He led them to a friend’s house from where police recovered Leona’s baggage and vanity case, Rs 9.5 lakh in Indian currency and 2,100 in US dollars.

Meanwhile, the Thane police enlisted the help of Desai’s cellphone service provider to retrieve the entries in his call log and then identify the alleged contract killers, Altaf Patel and Fruitwala.

The recovered money—some Rs 10.5 lakh—was described as incriminating evidence which, police alleged, Desai paid Vipul Patel to hire Fruitwala and Altaf Patel.

Desai was arrested on February 9, and Vipul Patel on February 11. Fruitwala and Altaf Patel were reported to have escaped to Chhatisgharh and later to Bharuch in Gujarat.

During interrogations, Desai reportedly confessed he had to kill Swiderski because she wanted to kill his ex-wife and two children who also lived in New Jersey.

Desai had divorced his wife of 20 years for Swiderski, but his continued meetings with his ex-wife and children caused much tension between him and Swiderski, and twice they were booked for domestic violence, according to Pawar.

Prosecutors in New Jersey also charged that after the couple’s relationship soured in the summer of 2002, Desai forced Swiderski to name him beneficiary on two $500,000 policies and bullied insurance agents to push the paperwork through.

Days later, Desai whisked Swiderski to Mumbai on the pretext of collecting a huge inheritance, according to legal records. US prosecutors described him as hard-pressed for cash, saddled with alimony payments and debts.

In May 2003, they sought his extradition on alleged wire-fraud charges relating to the insurance policies.

But on September 26, 2003, the case collapsed when a Thane Sessions Court judge threw out the charges against Desai and Patel for lack of evidence.

Desai spent two quiet months in Vadodara after his acquittal, unbeknownst to anyone.

“He would still say that he misses her,” his mother Leelaben Desai said. “How could he have got her killed?” A former primary school principal, the 64-year-old lives alone in the two-storey Desai Kutir in a bylane of Madanzampa, a lower middle-class locality of Vadodara.

Clearly shattered and occasionally incoherent, Leelaben said she plans to head for the US, where her relatives live, to leave behind the memories of the Swiderski murder case.

In February 2004, US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents visited Mumbai to reportedly probe Swiderski’s murder and possible links between the accused and the mafia.

A few months after beating the murder rap, Desai was re-arrested on other criminal charges and incarcerated in Tihar jail.

On March 19, he was released on bail by the Delhi High Court and is now at an undisclosed location in the capital.

After his acquittal by a Thane court last year, Vipul Patel reportedly keeps a low profile in the Karelibaug area of Vadodara where his family is based. His mother Bharti said the family has cut ties with him, but added, “Our son has not done anything.”

After his May 1 arrest, Fruitwala was handed over to Thane police. According to police sources, preliminary investigation has revealed that he was unaware of the planned murder until the last moment—when he was inside the car with Swiderski.

The other alleged contract killer, Altaf Patel, is still at large.

Desai’s lawyer in Mumbai, A Majeed Memon, said the US Consulate has revoked Desai’s passport pending disposal of the court cases against him.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra police have appealed against the acquittal of Desai and Vipul Patel in the Swiderski murder case.

“We are opposing the admission of the appeal,” which is set to be heard by the Mumbai High Court in the last week of June, Memon said. “We maintain (Desai’s) innocence.”

(With inputs from Abhishek Kapoor in Vadodara)