Father kills family and himself, despondent over financial losses

by Sanjay Jha | October 6, 2008 at 10:05 pm

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In these unprecedented financial crisis unexpected is happening. A mother of all bail out to the tune of $700 billion to rescue the financial world. But impact of the crisis is already started happening. People have started taking extreme step of abandoning their home and now there are reports of suicides.

While an Indian has been made the incharge of the bail out package another has become the victim of this crisis.A successful 45 year old Indian origin Karthik Rajaram had become victim of this crisis. Rajaram, who according to the Loss Angles Times, a financial manager who once made more than $1.2 million in a London-based venture fund had lost his job. His luck playing the stock market ran out. An unemployed Karthik didn’t see much hope in the government's $700 billion financial rescue bail out plan and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community. Police have found two suicide letters and a will, and determined that the man once worked for a major accounting firm and was at least the part-owner of a financial holding company.

On Sept. 16, he bought a gun. He wrote two suicide notes and a last will and testament. And then, sometime between Saturday night and Monday morning, he killed his wife, mother-in-law and three sons, and took his own life.

"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed, apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit," said LAPD Deputy Chief Michel Moore. "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."

In a letter addressed to police, Rajaram blamed his actions on economic hardships. A second letter, labeled "personal and confidential," was addressed to family friends; the third contained a last will and testament, Moore said.

The letter to police voiced two options: taking his own life, or killing himself and his entire family. "He talked himself into the second strategy," Moore said. "That that would be the honorable thing to do."

Authorities believe Rajaram killed his family and himself after seeing his finances wiped out by the stock market collapse, according to a source familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Concern about the family's welfare began Monday morning when Rajaram's wife, 39-year-old Subasri, did not show up for her carpool. Friends went to the house in the 20600 block of Como Lane, only to find it strangely quiet. The morning newspaper lay in the frontyard. The family's two cars, a Suburban and a Lexus SUV, were parked in the driveway.

When police entered the home in the gated, Spanish-style community, they first found the gunman's mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in a downstairs bedroom. His wife and three sons -- Krishna, 19, a sophomore at UCLA majoring in business economics; Ganesha, 12; and Arjuna, 7, all named after Indian gods and warriors -- were discovered in various upstairs bedrooms, all shot in the head, some with multiple gunshot wounds.

Their father was found dead in a bedroom with Ganesha and Arjuna, the gun still in his hand, police said.

The Rajarams had lived in the upscale Sorrento neighborhood of Porter Ranch for a couple years in a 2,800-square-foot rented house. The landlords, another Indian couple, said that the family paid their rent on time and that there were no indications of trouble.

Neighbors in the Northridge neighborhood where the family previously lived said they were well-liked and enjoyed entertaining guests. Except for one night when residents heard a man screaming for hours, the family seemed content for the nine years they lived there.

"He loved those kids more than any man I've seen love his sons," said next-door neighbor Sue Karns.

But Karthik Rajaram, who held an MBA from UCLA, was a hard-driving businessman. He was involved in several financial ventures. Between his home sale and another lucrative investment, he should have had a pile of cash.

A 2001 article in The Daily Telegraph of London, under the headline "Bust, but big bucks for the big boys," called Rajaram a "winner" in a deal for NanoUniverse, a Los Angeles- and London-based venture fund taken public on the London Stock Exchange.

For a 12,500-pound investment, Rajaram, one of the company's founders, received 875,000 pounds -- or about $1.2 million in 2001 dollars -- after a voluntary liquidation, the newspaper reported.