Son of murdered American tourist sent to juvenile home in Jodhpur

A local court today sent John Carlo Paten, the prime suspect in the murder of his mother, a 50-year-old American, to the Juvenile Protection Home till Monday.

John, 15, who was arrested yesterday from the airport here in connection with the murder of Cindy Iannarelli, was produced before the chief judicial magistrate.

The CJM ordered that John be produced before him on August 16.

Cindy, who hailed from Pennsylvania, was found murdered with her throat slit near a resort in Osian village, 65 km from here, and her body was found yesterday, according to the superintendent of police (Rural Jodhpur) Girdharilal Sharma.

The American tourist had been attacked by a sharp edged weapon and there were wounds on her neck, the SP said.

In his statement to the police, John had said that his parents were divorced and he wanted Cindy to patch up but she was not convinced. "They had a heated argument on the issue on Thursday and in the night this incident occurred," police said.

Meanwhile, the postmortem examination was conducted in the presence of a 4-member team of the US embassy in New Delhi which arrived in Jodhpur. The team then left for Osian.

The police have almost reached the conclusion that John killed his mother by slitting her throat with a knife, which he had brought from the resort in the name of opening some packing material.

He attacked her when she was sleeping at night, dumped his and mother's blood stained clothes in the bathroom, wrapped her in a bedsheet and threw her below the sand dune near the resort, Sharma said.

After that, early on Friday morning, he left for Jodhpur with all the belongings of her mother and dumped them in a dust bin at the airport, where he was caught, he said.

"Now we are further investigating the matter to find out if  anybody else was involved in the crime or he did it alone," he added.