Man Kills His Family and Lives With Their Bodies For Days, But Why?
Astral projection or anger projection?
April 9, 2017: Firefighters of Trivandrum city in Kerala (southernmost state of India) had just received an alert:
Smokes and fumes were coming out of a home in Nanthancode, not far from the official residence of the Chief Minister of Kerala.
A unit was soon dispatched, and as they forced their way through the front door to several rooms of the house, they found as many as four bodies inside. Three bodies were partially burnt, while one was wrapped in a cloth, infested by flies and microbes.
The 60-year-old Raja Thankam, his wife- Jean Padma(58) , their daughter Caroline(26), and her 70-year-old aunt Lalitha were all dead.
The only person missing from the house was the son of Raja and Padma- Mr. Cadell Jeansen Raja.
As the firefighters loaded the dead bodies to the rear of the ambulance truck, they knew that this wasn’t just a fire accident. Those family members were long dead before the fire broke out.
And the 30-year-old Cadell Jeansen Raja was now the suspect number one.
Three days before
April 6, 2017: “I have made a new video game. Can you come and take a look?” Cadell asked his unsuspecting mother.
Cadell had been to Australia to learn Artificial Intelligence but dropped out midway for no reason he could convince his parents. This enraged them because Cadell had already dropped out of his engineering course before.
Raja Thankam was a retired college professor, while Jean Padma was a retired doctor- both high achievers who had pinned great hopes on Cadell. He didn’t quite rise to their expectations, and his academic indolence cut a stark contrast to his hard-working sister.
With twin dropouts under his belt, Jeansen mostly stayed inside his bedroom and told his family that he was working on video games. It was not hard to believe, for Jeansen was good with programming and computers.
So, when Cadell requested his mom to take a look at his new creation- the video game, Jean Padma couldn’t turn it down.
As she climbed stairs to Cadell’s room upstairs, little did she know that the video game story was completely cooked-up. In fact, Cadell’s creativity had taken the wrong turn long back.
Inside his room, Cadell put his mom in front of the computer, and while she waited for the game to appear on the screen, out came a sharp machete Cadell had been hiding for long.
He swung the machete wildly at his mom’s head, again and again, until she fell dead in her own pool of blood. Her body was then taken to the bathroom.
Cadell had just begun his killing spree.
Same MO, different people
Cadell launched the attack on his mother when his father and sister were out of the station. In the next few hours, as they returned, Cadell would employ a similar modus operandi to take their lives as well. The 70-year-old aunt was easy prey, for she was old and blind.
We do not know if each of them fell for the video game story, but he hacked them all to death for sure. And we don’t know yet which dead person was wrapped in a cloth.
Once the killings were done, Cadell made a call to the close relatives of his family to tell them that they were going on a trip. He requested not to bother them with phone calls for a while. He used the same tactic to avoid the servant too.
And with people out of the way, Cadell had all the time in the world to dispose of or burn the body at his pace.
However, Cadell continued to live with the dead bodies of his family for a couple more days, where he ordered food, maybe played video games, and slept peacefully. He was calm, cool and collected.
When he placed those food orders, he made it a point to order for five people, not to give a sniff to anybody around.
Fire… Fire
Mr. Raja Thankam’s house was now drenched in blood. The dead bodies had begun to decompose, and a horrible stench erupted, making the place inhabitable for Cadell. He knew it was time to set them on fire.
Cadell, by this time, had made a dummy of his size to convince the world that all the family members perished, including him. If Police believed that all of them were dead, nobody would ever come searching for Cadell, and he could live the life he wanted.
Jeansen was perhaps hoping to burn the bodies slowly, not to alert the people around. Unfortunately for him, some neighbours spotted smoke coming out of the house.
From there, Cadell was losing. The firefighters arrived way too sooner than he had anticipated, and that’s probably why he couldn’t even hide the murder weapons.
When the firefighters ecam at the scene, they had caught a glimpse of someone escaping through the backyard. But they had a more important job on hand than chasing a jumper. And for all they knew, it could have been some who came to help.
But It was probably Cadell.
Escape to Chennai
After murdering his entire family, Cadell set off towards the city of Chennai. The investigating officers quickly arrived at the conclusion that Cadell, in all probability, was the murderer.
They soon issued a lookout notice and even extended the search for Cadell to other states. Airports were alerted to prevent him from fleeing the country. The officers tried to track him through his cell phone, but it was switched off.
And then it suddenly rose to life.
Guess what? Cadell, instead of fleeing the scene to the farthest corners, was moving towards Trivandrum city from Chennai! He was returning towards the crime scene.
None of this made sense to the officers, but they lined up at the railway station and had him taken to custody.
The shocking revelation
Cadell Jeansen was totally composed inside the interrogation room. His mild manners and calm demeanour belied his horrible actions and surprised even the seasoned police officers.
“Why did you murder your parents”? the officers asked the obvious. And Cadell’s answer involved two words:
Astral Projection.
To the uninitiated, astral projection is a term used to describe an out-of-the-body experience, where the ‘astral body’ can be separated from the physical body. Of course, this automatically assumes the presence of the astral body or the ‘subtle body.’
Needless to say, the scientific evidence on such claims is paper-thin, and Cadell was probably abnormal. He had believed in this supernatural crap so deeply that he used his own family as his test subjects.
So, why did he come back?
According to Cadell, he came back because he expected the souls of his family to have returned by then. He thought he would find those dead happy souls there because he had liberated them from the tyranny of the physical body.
Now, do you believe this guy?
Because the police didn’t.
Astral projection or anger projection?
According to Police, the whole story about astral projection is just a charade Cadell had been building to hide his actual motive: i.e., Cadell’s hatred towards his family.
Ever since he dropped out of the course in 2009, Cadell was an object of ridicule by his parents. The frustration and the anger had been progressively building up inside him, which eventually culminated in the murder. At least that’s how the police felt about it.
The astral story, if proven, might be a line for Cadell to prove his insanity. And If he is found insane, he would obviously walk out of the courtroom scot-free. Then, instead of a prison he might be placed into a mental correction centre.
However, there is no denying that the man was into the occult and video games. He was shy, silent, and introverted, who kept things to himself.
Neighbours recollect Cadell as a reserved character who rarely engaged in chatter, but they have their opinion about the whole family. Some people say that this family lived a secluded life, was not very social, and their windows were rarely opened.
Where is Cadell now?
Its been more than four years since the Cadell murders shook the entire state. Legal proceedings are a time-consuming process in this part of the world, and it’s only worse with the Covid delays.
As per the latest reports, the trial of the case is yet to begin. Cadell is currently lodged in prison as an under-trial prisoner. He couldn’t get bail since nobody forwarded the bond to secure bail.
However, he was admitted to a mental health centre several times after he showed symptoms of schizophrenia. Whether those symptoms were a part of his game or not is a secret only Jeansen will know.
But if it was a part of his plan to build on the premise that he is insane, then it’s hardly working as the doctors who treated him certified that Jeansen is mentally fit to face court trial.
Throughout the course of the trial, Cadell kept changing his statements. From astral projection to satan worship, then hatred towards parents over prioritizing his sister- Cadell kept updating his reason for murder.
Is he hoping that such ambiguous statements would reinforce the theory of his mental unfitness?
Will Jensen be convicted? Time will tell.
Post his dropouts, Cadell had become too inward and isolated. He remained inside his room, avoiding contact with all of his friends.
Cadell’s parents, despite being educated and one of them even a doctor, never felt the urge to take him to a psychologist? This is something that personally baffles me.
Too bad that the parents had to pay the price for their negligence with their own lives.
Note from the author
This story is incomplete without showing you a few original pictures of the people involved, especially Cadell. But the copyright policies on Medium are so strict that I had to avoid them.
You can find the original photos by clicking here, which will take you to the google image result page for the search term ‘Cadell Jeansen Raja.’
Sorry for the inconvenience.
If Cadell sent enough shivers down your spine, here is an even more bizarre family murder you might wanna take a look.
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