No verdict in Yandamuri murder trial

After deliberating for close to six hours Wednesday, a Montgomery County Court jury did not reach a verdict in the case of a King of Prussia man accused of murdering a grandmother and a 10-month-old baby girl, in what prosecutors called a kidnapping plot gone bad.

If convicted, Raghunandan Yandamuri, a 28-year-old former information technology worker who came to the United States from India on a work visa, could face the death penalty in the 2012 stabbing of Satayrathi Venna, 61, and suffocation of her granddaughter, Saanvi Venna.

Shortly before 9 p.m., jurors told the court they had reached a verdict, then they apparently backtracked moments later. Common Pleas Court Judge Steven T. O'Neill told attorneys there had been no decision.

A brief closed-doors meeting followed among the judge, attorneys, and Yandamuri, who is representing himself. Afterward O'Neill said there was a potential problem with one juror. "There is nothing to indicate that juror is incapacitated or physically unable to continue," he added, but he did not elaborate.

Deliberations continued until 10.

Earlier Wednesday, Yandamuri apologized to the victims' families in his closing arguments, but maintained that he was innocent of the killings.

"This is a very terrible thing," he told the jury. "Whoever did it, they should be given very big punishment."

Yandamuri spoke for more than an hour. He told jurors he had been made a scapegoat by zealous detectives who cherry-picked evidence that supported his guilt and refused to listen when he told them others were involved.

"They are asking me to take the blame," he said.

At one point in the investigation, Yandamuri confessed to the crimes, but he recanted. He has since said that he was present during the crimes. but that they were committed by two men who ordered him at gunpoint to help them carry out the kidnapping scheme.

Montgomery County prosecutors contend that the killings stemmed from Yandamuri's botched kidnap-for-ransom plan to feed his gambling problem.

First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele said in his closing remarks that Yandamuri went to the Venna family's apartment with "murderous intent" and killed the grandmother because she would have been able to identify him as the kidnapper. He said Yandamuri knew the woman would open the door to him because he had visited the apartment in the past.

"When she turned the handle of that door, she sealed her fate, and she was going to die," Steele said.

He reminded jurors of records from the Valley Forge Casino resort that showed Yandamuri had lost more than $20,000 gambling in the week before the slayings, and that bank records showed him borrowing thousands from his friends at the same time.

Steele also said Yandamuri was trying to blame the crime on "fictitious" people, who never turned up in the investigation.

"There's simply no evidence of anybody forcing him to do any of this," Steele said.