New CCTV footage shows a dad buying sweets and a magazine for his two boys in Carlow, Ireland, before murdering them and hiding their bodies in the boot of his car.
Sanjeev Chada killed his two sons, Eoghan, 10, and Ruairi, 5, while their heartbroken mother, Kathleen has shed more light on the horror of finding out that they had died, reported GalwayBeo.
Double killer Chada went for a coffee as he drove around with his kids’ dead bodies in the boot and then rang Kathleen from a stranger’s mobile phone and casually told her they were dead.
He also whimpered “I’m sorry” to his wife in court after being convicted and reportedly planned to kill her too in a murder suicide to cover up his gambling debts.
On July 28, 2013, Chada told Kathleen that he was taking the two boys bowling in Carlow, but they never came back.
This resulted in the gardai issuing the first CRI (Child Rescue Ireland) Alert under new legislation brought in the previous year.
The murder of Ruairi and Eoghan will feature on the RTE One series, The Case I Can’t Forget.
In the show, Superintendent Martin Walker explains how he led the investigation to find the two boys after they were reported missing.
Supt Martin Walker said: “They left the house at 6pm but I found out the bowling alley was closed at 6pm, so that was never his destination. It suggested an ulterior motive. I had a gut feeling there was something terribly wrong here.”
When Superintendent Walker discovered that Chad had been questioned by gardai in the days previous and admitted to embezzling €56,000 from a community fund, the search took on a new urgency.
Supt Walker said: “They were caught on CCTV in a retail outlet in Carlow at 7.30pm. You could see the two little boys running around buying sweets and Tayto, and one bought a magazine. It appeared they were stocking up for a journey. My gut feeling was there was something terribly wrong.”
Just hours later, gardai in Mayo were alerted to a car crash in Westport as Chada rang Kathleen to tell her the horrific news.
Supt Gary Walsh recalled: “There was a collision and one [person] noticed car seats. One of the witnesses went to the boot and opened it, and made the shocking, traumatic discovery of Eoghan and Ruairi.”
Kathleen revealed: “I got a phone call, I answered. Immediately I knew it was Sanj on the other end of the line. I think he started off the conversation with ‘there’s been a crash’. I was like ‘are the boys okay?’ and he actually said ‘no, they’re dead in the back’.”
Fighting back tears she added: “I lost it at that point, I collapsed like I was falling into a black hole. How do you tell somebody that their children have been killed? All you can ever do is do it with as much care and empathy as is possible – and he didn’t even give me that.”
A half-eaten punnet of strawberries – purchased the previous evening at Tesco in Carlow – led gardai to pinpoint the scene of the murders. It was found discarded in a laneway near Ballintubber Abbey along with some used baby wipes.
Supt Walsh said: “Now we had our crime scene. This is the location where Sanjeev Chada murdered his two children. We interviewed him, he was very subdued. He gave very little initially but as time went on he started to divulge more. When they didn’t go bowling the boys asked questions, and he said they were going on a camping trip. They were probably content in the car, that they were going camping with their dad.”
He continued: “All this time, Sanjeev tried to give the impression the boys’ deaths were very peaceful. But we knew from the post mortem results that wasn’t the case. It took a lot of questions to get him to the point of admitting that, ‘okay, this was a more violent encounter in the car than I wanted to tell you initially’."
Chada murdered Eoghan first after taking him by surprise so that Eoghan could not fight him off.
Then as Ruairi sat weeping in the back of the car he took the younger boy onto his lap, told him everything would be okay, and strangled him too.
Supt Walsh said: “He decided to play God, he decided the children would be better off dead than alive and finding out he was a thief.”
Chada left the village of Ballintubber at 5:30am and transferred his two sons bodies to the boot of the car at 6:50am.
He then stopped in the village of Kilkelly at a local garage for petrol and a cup of coffee.
“There’s a part of me that says it would be easier if he was insane, because it would be an answer," Kathleen said.
"My husband was insane and he killed our two children as opposed to my husband was evil and narcissistic and chose to take the lives of our two beautiful boys for his own purposes."
Chada was sentenced to life in prison on October 14, 2014. He is serving his sentence at Arbour Hill.
