Attorney: Ingle killing suspect not read rights before statement

Attorneys for the mother and son accused of killing their family patriarch argued in a Delaware County courtroom Wednesday that the evidence used to implicate their clients was obtained illegally.

Parth Ingle - son of slain Arunkuman Ingle - was in custody when he gave state police a statement but was not read his rights, defense attorney John Kusturiss said during the pretrial hearing. Any evidence obtained from these interviews should not be used as evidence in an upcoming trial, he said.

In January 2008, Arunkuman Ingle, 55, was killed in the bedroom of his Middletown Township home. The Boeing Co. engineer was savagely beaten and stabbed and his testicles were mutilated.

Prosecutors charged, Parth Ingle, 25, of Pottstown, and his mother, Bhavnaben Ingle, 52, over the winter with first-degree murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes in the four-year-old case.

They said that the pair killed Ingle after an argument, and that they stood to gain from the $3.6 million in insurance policies left to them.

At Wednesday's hearing, Assistant District Attorney Thomas F. Lawrie Jr. asked Trooper Robert J. Levan whether Parth Ingle asked to leave when he was being interviewed at the police barracks. Levan said he had not.

When Levan was asked whether Parth Ingle requested a lawyer after inconsistencies in his testimony were pointed out, he said he did "and got up and left."

The pretrial hearing, before Judge Barry C. Dozer, will continue at a date yet to be determined. The judge has imposed a gag order in the case.

The case has had unusual twists and turns.

Arunkuman Ingle allegedly had criminal plans of his own.

He was having an affair with a Russian woman he met on the Internet and planned to obtain a fake passport, fake his death, and move with her to India, according to court records.

Investigators believe the victim knew his killer. There were no signs of a break-in, and nothing was missing or disturbed. Investigators believe a pipe wrench was used to bludgeon him. No weapons were ever recovered. Defensive wounds indicated he fought for his life.

Police have focused much of their investigation on the family. This is the second time prosecutors have charged Parth Ingle in connection with the case.

In December, he was sentenced to two years of probation after being convicted of putting spyware on his father's computer to capture passwords for e-mail accounts. His sister, Avnee Ingle, was acquitted. Those e-mails revealed that his father was having an affair. He also installed a GPS device on his father's car to track his comings and goings.