US police investigating killings of three Indian-Americans over past week
The murders were reported from Virginia and Florida states over the last seven days.
Police are investigating the murder of three Indian-descent Americans in two separate incidents reported from Virginia and Florida states over the last seven days.
An Indian-descent woman and her adult son were found shot dead in their home in Aldie, a city in the state of Virginia, after the mother failed to report for work this week.
They were identified as Mala Manwani, 65, and her son Rishi Manwani, 32. The bodies were found by the police on Wednesday after the woman’s colleagues complained she had not come to work all of the week.
Police have said they are investigating it as a case of double homicide.
The Loudon County police said in a statement it was notified by a caller on Wednesday that a co-worker who lives in the 25000 block of Tomey Court had not come to work this week.
“Deputies checked the residence and the adult in question and another adult were found deceased inside. Both appear to have died from gunshot wounds.”
The police went on to say, “The case does not appear to be a random act and there is no indication of any threat to the public.”
No other details were available.
And police in Miami Beach, Florida, are looking for a man who fatally shot Kamil Patel, who had recently moved to the area from Dallas, Texas as operations manager for high-end designer Prada retail store.
Patel was shot twice in the chest by a man described by police and a witness, the victim’s friend, as a “small” and “thin” African American man with dreadlocks, who had then fled in the car he had drove up in.
“Katy, keep walking,” were his last words to his girlfriend Katy Park, who was with him at the time, and has since started a GoFundme page — “Justice for Kamil Patel” — to collect reward money for information leading to the killer’s arrest and defray funeral costs.
Patel would have turned 30 later this month. He had moved to Miami Beach from Dallas on January 8 to take over as manager at Prada’s Bal Harbor retail store. His parents live in Buffalo, New York.
Police have questioned two men who were identified from surveillance video of the car used in the crime. One of them was released, the other is cooperating with investigators, the police said.
The video shows Patel and Park walking hand-in-hand and a white car driving up on them from behind.
Park wrote on the GoFundme page she and Patel had just left a bar and were walking towards another one. “That’s when time stopped. A small African American male got out of the passenger side of a white car pointing a gun at us.
“He fired two shots that hit Kamil in the left shoulder and abdomen, then got back in the car and disappeared. I am alive because Kamil protected me. He didn’t hesitate. His last words were ‘Katy, keep walking’”.
Police have not said anything yet about the motive of the crime. Nothing was stolen from the couple. And it was not known if this could be a hate crime targeting an Indian-descent American, of which there have been some cases in recent years.
Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an IT engineer from Andhra Pradesh, was fatally shot at a bar in Olathe, Kansas in January 2017 by a white man who has claimed to have thought the victim and his friend were West Asians.