When brutal death came by post

By Carl Muller

Forty-nine years ago, on May 21, Lenduwa Lokuge Jayawardene, a self-styled tailor who conducted his business at 129, Trincomalee Street Kandy, stood before the trial judge, the Hon. Mr. Reginald Felix Dias, LL.D., Puisne Justice, who said, “The sentence of the Court, pronounced and published this day is, that you, L.L. Jayawardene, be taken hence to the Bogambara Prison in Kandy, and on Thursday, the 30th day of June, 1949, within the walls of the said prison, be hanged by your neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”

It was the uprooting of a vicious, dissipated life. The trial lasted eight days. lt was, and will always be remembered as the most sensational case in the annals of crime - the Kadugannawa Postal Bomb Case.

Two eminent men have recorded this story of perversion, thwarted sex, jealousy, youth abuse and the twisted, tormented and awfully deliberate work of a kill-crazy man. Mr. A.C. Alles has given the case an airing and so has Mr. A.C.M. Ameer who was, for the trial, Counsel for the Crown. The trial was opened at the Kandy Assizes on May 9, 1949, and Jayawardene was found guilty and sentenced to death on May 21. The story that unfolded was exceptional. Never before had murder been committed by means of a home-made explosive - a bomb that was sent by post.

Mr. A.C.M. Ameer, in his absorbing work, tells us in introduction of a man named Cranstoun who first conceived the idea of using the post as a means of murder. That was in 1751. Cranstoun sent packages of arsenic by post from Scotland. In truth, the post has been used by many murderers, and we have cases of the contents of parcels containing poisons, deadly microbes, venomous snakes and explosive devices. As Ameer says, in old Ceylon, the doubtful privilege of using the post as a means for a brutal murder and the dynamite bomb as a weapon, fell to a tailor from Kandy, whose achievement is unique in that for the first time in recorded criminal history, he had also made arrangements for igniting the dynamite electrically, a method that had not been thought of elsewhere.

But the story is far more than the actual death and destruction that was caused. The story takes us down a dark road, shows us how this blackness resides in the minds of men. Today there are those who run around the beaches of this country, screaming imprecations at foreigners. So typical it is of our people. They rise to damn the sins of those on the outside, blithely ignoring the horrendous practices of those who function, perversely enough, under their noses. There seems to be a sort of “national carpet” under which the national sins are swept. Only the tourist rugs are hung up and beaten.

Jayawardene knew no tailoring at all. Of that we are certain; but he did have some assistants who could sew boys’ shirts and shorts. Yet, he lorded it over his “Jayasiri Tailoring Mart” which fast became a haunt of many schoolboys from Kandy. He had an old James motorcycle and was also happy to take schoolboys for rides. The young assistants would shrug and get on with their work. They knew, or could guess what their boss did with his many schoolboy visitors, but that was his business.

Jayawardene could have been well satisfied with his many “conquests”. And there were boys a-plenty. Schoolboys brought in turn their friends and classmates. They were attracted by the motorcycle rides, the little gifts they received, the money. Boys would come to him for “fit-on’s”. This was always done in his inner room with his help. It was so easy to spread the corruption, the abuse. Later, in the course of police investigations into the murder charge, several boys admitted that they had allowed Jayawardene to commit unnatural offences on them. They told their stories before shocked parents who could not understand that their children had actually traded their bodies for sweets, for coins, for rides on a motorcycle.

It is the way of the predator. He could not be satisfied. He wanted, above all, a stay-in victim; someone who would live with him, someone who would always be there, to be abused whenever the need was on him. This someone was a 14-year-old boy, a student of Dharmaraja College, Kandy. The boy, S.M. Samarasinghe of Kabaggamuwa, had an elder brother and two elder sisters. The brother, Samarasinghe, was a self-taught man. One sister, Podimahatmaya had married a Seneviratne. She was a trained teacher, and in the Government Training College in Colombo. The other sister, Dingiri Amma, was a trained nurse. The father, a cultivator, was so proud of his family who by dint of much perseverance, had begun to succeed in life. The brother and sisters wished that their younger brother be well-educated.

They could not afford to place him in the College hostel. They had to find a suitable place in Kandy to board the boy. At first he was found a home with an ayurvedic physician in Kandy but he was later placed in Jayawardene’s care. That was in 1945, and suffice to say, their relationship soon soured.

The boy, Samarasinghe, was at first quite delighted. He was showered with gifts and kindness. Also, he kept a diary in which he made notes of the way he had received such gifts. An entry of April 10, 1945 says how Jayawardene had given him a “small gift”. Again, on April 17, “a shirt”; on April 21 “cash”. When holidays came, the boy returned home full of praise for his kind and generous boarding master and Jayawardene also wrote to him kind, warm letters. The boy even sent Jayawardene a photograph of his sister Dingiri Amma on April 22, and he returned to the tailoring shop, pleased to be back and happy in the thought that this “maama” would look after him with fond affection.

Jayawardene then made his intentions painfully clear. Samarasinghe was dismayed. Also, he couldn’t endure the sexual assaults made repeatedly on him. Obviously, Samarasinghe fought. He was helpless, he knew, but he loathed the way he was forcibly used. He would cry, struggle and threaten to tell the school. Jayawardene was no longer the kind “maama”. He was a monster - a loathsome man who took him when he pleased, becoming quite ferocious, even more inflamed when the boy refused.

We have this plaintive entry in Samarasinghe’s diary on June 21, 1945: “Mr. L. L. J. said that he cannot make me a shirt.” The previous night the boy had vehemently opposed the tailor’s advances. This was the lesson he was teaching the boy. No shirt.

Imagine the passing of each day. Very rarely did Samarasinghe pass a day unmolested. Soon, he was too dispirited to fight anymore. He submitted woodenly, knowing that to keep fighting, fretting, only made his tormentor more vicious, more demanding. Jayawardene was satisfied. The boy made scant response but he could continue to molest him whenever he wished.

Eighteen months. This was the period when Samarasinghe changed, from a happy young boy to a robot. He was no longer the bright student. He fared badly in class and took no part in games or sports. He walked back from school mechanically, knowing that “maama” waited. “Maama” would wish to help him, watch him undress, be with him when he bathed, propel him into the small bedroom. Samarasinghe could not take it any more. By January 1947, he was determined to escape, live elsewhere. But where? Then, on February 1, a diary entry tells us that he chanced upon a family friend, Mr. Kodikara Aratchie, and told of his problems. Kodikara Aratchie was shocked. At first he thought it almost unreal and gross exaggeration, but he decided to help. “l will find you a place,” he promised.

Samarasinghe was dejected. He simply had to get away. On the evening of February 8, he went to Henry Stores in Trincomalee Street, where Kodikara Aratchie was well known, and stayed there. He remained there on the 9th as well and was then taken by Kodikara Aratchie to the home of the proprietor of Fancy Stores, Kandy.

Jayawardene could not allow this to happen. It was easy to discover where the boy was and he went there, determined that Samarasinghe come back to him. The Fancy Stores proprietor, Mr. Alwis Appuhamy, was worried. He had no moral right, actually, to keep the boy. Obviously, the family had entrusted the boy to Jayawardene. Kodikara Aratchie accordingly conveyed matters to the family and they insisted that the boy remain in his new home.

Jayawardene was adamant. He also laid in wait outside Dharmaraja College. One day, he succeeded in waylaying the boy, dragged him home and molested him. “l will get you back,” he had promised. “You go now, but you cannot escape me.”

Jayawardene also accosted Kodikara Aratchie. At the trial it was told how on the first occasion Jayawardene had told him: “This boy was living with me; I fed him, clothed him and did everything for him; he has left my house having removed a ring of mine. That boy is a very bad boy. Please get him out of the place where he is boarded at present.”

A second time Jayawardene had told Kodikara Aratchie to take the boy out of Alwis Appuhamy’s home, send him back to him. When he called on Kodikara Aratchie the third time, it became plain that Jayawardene was growing violent. When he was informed that the boy would not return to him, he pulled a kris knife from his waist and snarled, “lf I cannot destroy him with anything else, I will destroy him with this!” That clinched it. The family had to get Samarasinghe out of Kandy. The elder brother arranged with one Jayasinghe, the Manager of the Tarzan Bus Company at Kadugannawa, to board Samarasinghe there. The boy left Kandy on March 3, 1947. It would seem that his nightmare time was over.

But nothing would stop Jayawardene. He went to Kadugannawa, told Jayasinghe, “Send the boy back. My business is going down because he is not there.” He explained that the boy was a good omen. “He has a pleasant face and he is good-looking, and it is pleasant to have him in my shop.”

Jayasinghe did not like the man. He refused. Jayawardene went back to Kandy in a fearful mood, waited each afternoon outside Dharmaraja College. On March 24, he caught Samarasinghe in Ward Street, and when the boy struggled to free himself, assaulted him. This brought matters into the open. The police filed plaint on March 29 on a complaint made by Samarasinghe. Jayawardene panicked. On the very day of the assault he sent a telegram to the elder brother Samarakoon, asking him to come to Kandy on a matter of importance. When Samarakoon met him on March 25, Jayawardene tried to justify himself. “l hit your brother because he refused to come when I called him. Now the police are filing a case. Have the case compounded.”

“But why did you hit my brother?” “Even though he has left my house, he must occasionally visit me.”

Jayawardene went to Samarakoon several times thereafter but the elder brother was adamant. Jayawardene then made a threat: “Then you people will all fall into trouble,” he said darkly. He was not going to revenge himself against the boy only. He would attack the family.

It was said at the trial that he also resorted to charms to win back the affection of the boy. Even this did not work and it was then that murder was planned. Opposite to the tailoring shop lived Simon, an amateur astrologer. I will now, with due acknowledgement, resort to Mr. A.C.M. Ameer’s edition of “Trial of Lenduwa Lokuge Jayawardene” (Times of Ceylon Printers, Colombo) to give you this extract from the opening speech for the Crown:

(Jayawardena had) offered one Karunaratne a reward of five hundred rupees to break the boy’s arm or leg. Karunaratne refused it and advised the accused against such a course; he told his good friend Simon that he would kill the boy during the Perahera and escape in the crowd; he further resorted to charms with a view to working evil on the boy. The charms again had no effect; we do not know of any attempts made during the Perahera. But the evidence will show that the thoughts of the accused are flowing into dangerous channels.

Simon was a friend of the accused. He lived in a house opposite the accused’s house; he had his meals in a house adjoining the accused’s; he used to meet the accused practically every day, and also used to join him in drinks. Simon appears to have been a sort of amateur astrologer and the accused had even begun taking lessons in astrology from Simon; a large number of books on astrology belonging to Simon were found in the accused’s premises after the tragedy. The accused had even suggested to Simon to compare his horoscope with that of the boy which, according to Simon”s evidence, was for doing evil to the boy; he had asked Simon to find out the bad period of the boy. He had told Simon that charms had failed to take effect but that such failure would only result in greater harm to the deceased; that he was going to send an explosive parcel to the deceased; that he knew how to make bombs; that he had tested a bomb which had devastating effect and that he was going to send the boy a bomb.

Simon at first treated the matter lightly but as the accused was persisting in talking about bombs and realising the gravity of the situation that might arise if the accused should really send a bomb, conveyed the information to one Piyadasa, a servant of the accused, to warn the deceased to be careful of parcels he might receive.....

One early day in January 1948, the accused visited the hardware stores of a man called Premadasa. On three occasions he went up and down looking into the premises but did not enter it, apparently because there were customers about. On the fourth occasion Premadasa questioned him and his reply was that he would return when there were no customers about the place. Premadasa told him that he was then free and so the accused took Premadasa aside and asked him for ten sticks of dynamite and twenty detonators of the military size. The accused introduced the subject by stating that a friend of his had undertaken some jobs at Hingurakgoda. Premadasa told him that he did not deal in exp1osives and directed him to shops which had licences to sell them.

And so it was that not one, but four ordinary parcels were handed in at Colombo, two at the GPO and two at the Havelock Town Post Office. One was addressed to the boy Samarasinghe at Kadugannawa. Another was addressed to Mrs Seneviratne, the boy’s married sister who was then at Nelundeniya; the third to the elder brother, Samarakoon and the fourth to a Miss D.M. Dissanayake who lived in Ambanpitiya. It was later revealed that the boy Samarasinghe had formed an attachment to Miss Dissanayake, and thus, obviously, she too merited death.

The sender’s name, in each case, was the name of a family member, a name that would not rouse the slightest suspicion, for as we know, the family had been warned about the receiving of suspicious parcels. The bombs inside each were cleverly contrived, and the description of these infernal devices at the trial is best repeated:

A cylindrical stick of dynamite four-and-a-half inches long and one-and-a-half inches in diameter, was made to fit tightly into a thick cardboard tube. This tube was stoppered at both ends with wooden bungs, secured to the tube with tacks; a hole was drilled through each of the wooden bungs and a detonator inserted through each hole into the two ends of the stick of the explosive. The detonators were of the type commonly intended for fixing with safety fuse but had, in this case, been converted into the electrical type by the insertion of a filament of a flashlight bulb into the open end of the detonator. The space round the filament was packed with gun powder and the open end sealed and the leads from the filament connected to the source of current and the switching device. The power for heating the filament was obtained from two miniature one-and-a-half volt flash light cel1s connected in series and placed at one end of the tube containing the explosive. The tube containing the explosive and the batteries was enclosed in an outer cardboard tube. The switching device was attached to the outer tube. Two copper strips were fixed to the tube spaced about 3 in. apart, one lead from the battery and one from one end of the filament being connected to each copper strip. A thick copper wire was passed under the two copper strips and was prevented from. making electrical connection by the presence of insulation on a short portion of the wire under one of the strips. To each end of the wire were attached tags labelled “Pull”. Pulling of the wire in either direction shifted the insulated portion from under one copper strip, made electrical connection between the two strips and ignited the detonators which set fire to the gun powder which finally exploded the stick of dynamite.

A wire was labelled “Pull”! Samarasinghe did so, and died. His sister, in cutting the outer strings of the parcel, had also snipped the wire. When she pulled it, it simply came apart.. Her life was saved, seemingly miraculously. Miss Dissanayake opened the parcel, saw a cylinder and a wire with the instruction to pull. She did not. As she told the Court, she could not read English. Nor did she suspect that it was a bomb. But she thought about what the family had said about suspicious parcels and did not try unwrapping it any more.

The elder brother Samarakoon became suspicious no sooner he received the parcel. Taking it with him, he rushed to Kadugannawa. “I suspected that my brother, too, would have received a similar parcel and I wanted to advise him against opening it. He was too late. His younger brother who had been rushed to hospital, had died.

When the news spread the people of Kandy were most panicky. They considered every parcel lethal The trial, naturally, became much of a sensation. Huge crowds flocked to the Audience Hall where the Supreme Court held its sessions. The jury announced its unanimous verdict at 11.51 a.m. The judge’s summing up took four hours.

Jayawardene did appeal. This was dismissed. Again, he made application to the Privy Council for leave to appeal. This, too, was refused. It is significant and quite intriguing to record that letters and petitions from Jayawardene’s friends and relations began to pour in, asking that his sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Both Buddhist and Catholic priests also wrote, asking that the man be spared. There were anonymous petitions too, insisting on Jayawardene’s innocence, pointing fingers of accusation at others.

Maybe it all boils down to love, love that is the twin of Hate, and thus does twisted love claim as its darker face, contorted hate. What did this hatred achieve? Dr. T. Dharmaratnam, MOH Galagedara, told court that when Samarasinghe was admitted to the Kandy hospital at 4.20 p.m. on January 2l, 1948, he had the following injuries:

• Left hand blown off from the wrist.
• Right hand blown off and fingers hanging by tags of skin.
• Extensive blast injuries on the body and face, apparently blinding the patient in both eyes. The area of the blast was all over the face and about, and the upper part of the thighs.
• Lacerated wound three inches by half-an-inch over front of upper part of left eye.
• Lacerated wound on right scrotum with prolapse of the right testicle.

Dr C.M. Vanniasegaram, JMO Kandy listed the following injuries at the post-mortem:

• Singeing of almost the whole face including the eyes. The left eyeball was lacerated.
• Numerous irregular areas of singeing on the front of the body from the face down to the knees, varying in area from half by quarter inch to three-and-a-half inches by two-and-a-half inches - each burnt area was of that size, and in depth, from superficial laceration of the skin, to laceration of muscles to a depth of one-and-a -half to two inches. There were eight areas of superficial singeing of the neck, of small size, 101 over the left half of the body and 39 over the right half of the body. One of these was a lacerated wound on the middle of the right arm, three inches long, two-and-a-half inches wide and one-and-a-half inches deep; a second was a lacerated wound of the left groin three-and-a-half inches long, two-and-a-half inches wide and two inches deep, and there were three more lacerated wounds of the right groin, each half-inch long, half-inch wide and half-inch deep.
• The left hand was completely blown off at the wrist, leaving on the stump an irregular top of charred skin, muscles and tendons.
• The right hand wrist and lower forearm was blown off into fragments.
• The right scrotum was blown off leaving behind a lacerated testicle.
• Internally the right heart was dilated and contained dark fluid blood and the organs were congested.

And so, a young life was destroyed. But consider, what sort of life, how much pain, how much was endured. The boy was just 14 when he came to school in Kandy. He was 18 when he died. What, then, is this all about? How much suffering was caused, was spread, cannot really be imagined but it does tell us that there are these labyrinths of the human mind we cannot even dare to plumb. It is this dark side we skirt each day because this is what the human condition is all about.

It was Jayawardene himself who asked that he be executed in Colombo, not in Kandy. This was granted. He was hanged at the Welikada Prison on March 18, 1950.

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