Montco murder suspect admits robbing victim

Speaking defiantly and often raising his voice, the man accused in the 2012 killing of a baby and her grandmother in King of Prussia on Tuesday said the police who built the case against him were liars, and blamed the gruesome murders on two men who he said forced him at gunpoint to help them.

Raghunandan Yandamuri, 28, couldn't identify the men he said were responsible for stabbing to death the 61-year-old woman and kidnapping her 10-month-old granddaughter, whose body was found days later.

But Yandamuri, whose DNA was found on the woman's body, admitted taking the gold bracelets off her arms as she lay in a pool of blood.

"You took bangles off a dead woman," Montgomery County Deputy District Attorney Samantha Cauffman said. "You took them off one by one."

"This person forced me to take off the bangles," said Yandamuri, who spent the afternoon sparring with Cauffman. One of the bracelets didn't come off easily, he added.

"So you had to really tug that last bangle off," Cauffman said.

Yandamuri agreed.

The exchange came as Yandamuri, who initially confessed to the crimes but later recanted, testified for a second day at his capital murder trial in Norristown. Acting as his own trial lawyer, Yandamuri spent hours in the witness box just turning and addressing the jury.

Prosecutors contend he stabbed Satayrathi Venna and suffocated her granddaughter, Saanvi Venna, after a botched attempt to kidnap the baby for ransom to feed his gambling problem. They are seeking the death penalty for Yandamuri, a former information-technology worker from India who, like the victims, lived in the Marquis Apartments complex.

Yandamuri has said the police coerced his confession and held him for questioning without his consent. On Tuesday he said the lead detective in the case ignored his claims about the other killers because the detective didn't want to admit a mistake.

"You know how detectives are," Yandamuri told the jury. "It's all about an ego thing."

In her cross-examination, Cauffman noted that until Yandamuri told Montgomery County Detective. Paul Bradbury where the baby was, police were still searching for her. Yandamuri also told detectives he had put a cloth in the infant's mouth, wrapped a towel tightly around her head, and zipped her into a suitcase - details consistent with the coroner's ruling on her cause of death.

Yandamuri identified the alleged killers only by their first names - Matt and Josh - and told jurors they had a gun and a key to his apartment. Yandamuri said that after they killed the grandmother and took the baby, he lived in fear of them, and that he tried to negotiate to return the baby.

Prosecutors, however, have presented video surveillance from the hours and days after the murders in which Yandamuri appeared calm as he went to Walmart alone to buy a suitcase, and to the Valley Forge Casino Resort to play blackjack.

Jurors at times shook their heads and frowned as Cauffman highlighted inconsistencies between Yandamuri's testimony and other evidence. When Yandamuri said his wife did not speak English, for example, Cauffman reminded him of a letter he wrote to her in English.

"You like to be in control of things, right?" she asked at one point.

"It depends on who the other person is," Yandamuri responded.

Yandamuri also told jurors a partial footprint and hair were evidence of an unknown person at the crime scene. He said he cooperated with authorities because he believed they would help find the real killers.

"I grew up with police," Yandamuri, whose parents worked in law enforcement, testified. "I believed detectives were my friends."

Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Wednesday.