Man with ‘financial woes’ kills himself and five family members

AN UNEMPLOYED man with an advanced finance degree shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in Los Angeles yesterday.

He was said to have been despondent over his own financial problems.

Officers found the bodies after the wife failed to show up at a neighbour’s home to go to work as a pharmacy bookmaker, deputy chief Michel Moore said. The deaths occurred sometime after Saturday evening.

A handgun that had been bought on September 16 was found in the father’s grasp, Moore said.

Karthik Rajaram, 45, left two suicide notes — one for police and one for friends and relatives — and a will. Coroner’s assistant chief, Ed Winter, said the family was from India.

“The source of it appears to be a financial state, a crisis if you will, that this man became embroiled in that has unfolded over the past weeks,” Moore said.

The man wrote in his suicide letter he felt he had two options — to just kill himself or to kill himself and his family — and decided the second option was more honourable, Moore said.

Officers found the mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in bed on the first floor. Upstairs, they found a 19-year-old son, Krishna Rajaram, dead in bed in the master bedroom.

The gunman’s 39-year-old wife, Subasri, was found in another room, also apparently shot while sleeping, Moore said.

In an adjoining room, a 12-year-old son, Ganesha, was dead on the floor, and his seven-year-old brother, Arjuna, was dead in bed. Their father’s body also was found there with a handgun “in his grasp.”

Winter said the victims were shot multiple times.

He said that the mother-in-law was an Indian national, but he did not know the status of the others. “I think they are legal residents,” he said.

Karthik Rajaram held a master’s in business administration in finance, and formerly worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Sony Pictures, but had been unemployed for several months, Moore said.

Moore did not specify what financial trouble the man had been in.

He noted the family did not own the home.

Investigators in the case have determined that Rajaram was part-owner of a financial holding company, Moore said.

He is listed as a co-manager of a corporation called SKGL LLC.

He formed the corporation for his family’s assets, said Las Vegas attorney Christopher R Grobl.

He did not know what sort of business SKGL was.

The business was incorporated in 1999 and renewed its annual license in December 2007.