The sweater that eventually solved the case was found with a few other clothes in the suitcase by the crime branch,which was tasked with parallel investigations in the case.
A sweater’s tag helped the Mumbai crime branch solve the mysterious case of a suitcase with body parts, found floating at seaside in Mahim, and unearth the chilling details of a city musician’s murder by his adopted daughter and her boyfriend.
A tailor’s tag on a sweater found in the suitcase that washed up at the Mahim sea front finally led to establishing that the body parts inside belonged to a 59-year old guitarist named Benet Ribello.
Further investigations revealed that the musician was killed, chopped and stuffed into the case by his 19-year-old adopted daughter Aaradhya Patil and her 16-year-old boyfriend.
Aaradhya killed Ribello for exploiting her sexually and opposing her relationship with the boy, said police.
Ribello was first attacked with a bamboo stick and his face smeared with a mosquito repellent before Patil and his boyfriend stabbed him at the guitarist’s Vakola flat on November 26 evening.
“The body was kept in the flat for three days. Ribello’s daughter and her boyfriend were in the flat during this tenure,” said Shahaji Umap, deputy commissioner of police, crime branch.
The couple used four sharp knives to cut the body into small pieces. The knives were heated before chopping the body parts that were stuffed in three suitcases and thrown in the Mithi river.
“The couple carried the suitcases in a rickshaw to the river. One of the bags floated to Mahim which was recovered by us,” said Umap.
The sweater that eventually solved the case was found with a few other clothes in the suitcase by the crime branch,which was tasked with parallel investigations in the case.
The tag led the police to the city tailor who scanned through his customers’ record to find the sweater had been stitched for one Benet.
The police then scanned social media for people with the name Benet and found the man they were looking for on Facebook.
“A Facebook profile helped us identity Benet as he was found wearing the same sweater in one of the posts,” said Umap.
Prasanta Patnaik