Police suspect foul play over death of retired teacher living alone

By Norman Palihawadane

The Cinnamon Gardens police investigating into the recent mysterious death of a retired music teacher, residing alone in her luxury house, have shifted their focus toward treating the incident as a potential case of murder.

Police said that the Judicial Medical Officer who examined the body of the 75-year-old retired teacher, who lived at Wijerama Road, Colombo 07, had observed some evidence that death was caused by strangulation and given an open verdict, ordering some body parts be referred to the Government Analyst for further inspection to obtain scientific evidence.

In addition to the police investigation, the Colombo South Criminal Investigation Unit has commenced another probe.

A senior officer said that the deceased had been identified as Mithrani Fernando Smith. She was originally from Kolonna but lived in the house at Colombo 07 since her marriage to her husband who had been a businessman. After her husband’s death, two years back, she had lived there alone. As per the preliminary investigations the death occurred on 15 Dec.

Police were informed of the death by the victim’s younger brother’s son who is an engineer by profession. He, who is a resident of Moratuwa, usually parks his car at the victim’s house. When he came there on 15 Dec.,, he found that the doors were open and electricity was disconnected. He informed the police on 119. In response to the call, the Cinnamon Gardens police arrived and found the body of the victim lying on the floor and noted that there were few blood stains. Post mortem on the body found no wounds on the victim and police suspects that the blood flowed from the victim’s mouth.

A senior police officer said that it seems that someone had strangled the elderly woman to death and tried to show it off as a death caused by electrocution because closer to her body there was a floor polisher with broken wires and the trip switch of the house was off. Police collected three empty tea cups and collected their fingerprints. They also collected nine rottis that had been prepared by the victim by using the gas stove. However, the gas cylinder was missing from the house. In addition, a laptop and her mobile phone, too, were missing, police said.

It has been found that the victim had been a talented pianist and was giving private lessons to some students. The police said that they would record statements from her students. .