The many faces of a sex maniac

Police have made a major breakthrough in the probe on the alleged rape and killing of a 26 –year-old office worker with details of how sex maniacs posing as beggars, vadai sellers or handicapped persons are raping and killing women. Gampaha police said they had details about the culprit who killed the woman at Wilwatta, two weeks ago.

DIG W. Prathapasinghe, SSP Shantha Rajapakse, SP Deshabandu Tennekoon and HQI Jayakody head the police team. SP Deshabandu who received a tip-off from a friend was able to start investigations on the suspect and arrest him. He was identified as a 35-year-old married man who is said to be facing a rape charge against him already. The man was released on bail after six months in remand.

According to police, at the end of last year he was arrested on a charge that he raped a woman in a railway compartment. He is said to have played the role of a vadai vendor, an epileptic and a dumb beggar at different times while travelling in the train. On October 1 he was released on Rs. 20,000 bail. His wife is said to have delivered a child recently after which period he allegedly had an affair with her sister.

Another suspect identified as Kadira alias Ariyaratne, a quarry worker at Mirigama, is in police custody over the Wilwatta rape and killing. He is supposed to know all details about the killing but had kept mum about it resulting in his arrest by police for that offence. According to him the first suspect had told him that he would rape this particular woman some day. This was said the day before the alleged rape. Kadira said that on the day of the incident he fled the moment the first suspect seized the woman.

The first suspect was arrested on October 27 when he was engaged in his bogus begging role. He made a confession of the rape incident detailing how he met her as she was walking on the road and then raped her as she struggled with him. Later he had held her head under water in a stream for five minutes or more till she died, took her body elsewhere and fled.

Police said he had taken ganja before the killing, although in his confession he had said he had taken liquor. The victim was to marry in January. The suspect had been to her house before to pluck coconuts. SP Tennekoon said that legion is the number of cases pending investigation but it is strange that in this case the police were able to get so much information to solve the killing. He said that if the public help the police, many such unsolved cases could be solved.