Nearly two years after a 24-year-old Indian software professional was gagged, raped and then strangulated to death in her apartment in a Seattle suburb in the US, the local police has filed chargesheet against a convicted sex offender.
Arpana Jinaga, a software professional, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in her apartment on November 1, 2008 in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, where Microsoft office is based.
The King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg yesterday announced at a news conference that Emanuel Fair, who also goes by the name Anthony P. Parker, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with Jinaga's slaying on October 31, 2008.
Jinaga's body was found in her apartment by one of her friends who went to see her at her apartment following a call from her father B.C. Jinaga.
Arpana was staying alone in her apartment. Accused Fair, 27, has been in jail for more than a year, serving time after a third conviction for failing to register as a sex offender.
His earliest release date is February 2012. He served just under three years in prison for having sex with an underage girl in 2003 and 2004. He pleaded guilty to charges of third-degree child rape, a reduced charge, in 2005 after the 15-year-old victim refused to testify, King County prosecutors said.
"The killer had been savagely brutal," Satterberg said. He said that Fair used "extreme caution" while trying to conceal the crime. Arpana's mobile phone number is still to be found out.
"The defendant opened the locked door to Jinaga's apartment, attacked her, stripped off her clothing, gagged her, assaulted her and finally strangled her to death," senior deputy prosecutor Jeff Baird said in charging paperwork.
If convicted as charged for Murder First Degree, the standard sentence range is 34 to 45 years in prison, Satterberg said. Jinaga, a graduate of Rutgers University, was employed by EMC, a corporation in Bellevue. Her recreation activities included martial-art and riding her motorcycle.
The police said the murder took place on the night of October 31, 2008 when the software programmer hosted more than two dozen people who rotated between her apartment and three others. It is here she met Fair, a violent sex offender.
Hours later, Fair broke down her door, gagged and raped her, and then strangled her. He then poured motor oil he found inside her home and caustic chemicals on her body in an apparent effort to conceal evidence, the police said.
The police said it collected hundreds of items to test for possible DNA and found Fair's DNA on Jinaga's burned bathrobe, a piece of tape that had been used to gag her and on the victims neck.
"This was never a cold case. It's been worked on continuously the last two years," he said, adding the filing of the chargesheet is the first step towards justice.