Sixty-one year old Eric Nadel, a US citizen, breathed his last on Sunday morning at 11.30 am after struggling for his life for 11 days. Eric and his wife Heather (59) — both followers of spiritual guru Avatar Meher Baba, had sustained severe head injuries after being brutally attacked by robbers in the early morning hours of August 26 at their isolated bungalow at Arangaon village, 9 km from Ahmednagar. The couple has been staying on the trust’s residential premises at Arangaon for 35 years. Heather is a trustee of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in Meherabad.
Neurosurgeons at Sahyadri Hospital Dr Praveen Jain and Dr Vaijanti Belle said Eric died due to severe brain injuries. According to doctors, Heather’s condition — who too had sustained serious head injuries in the incident — is stable now. “She has been moved out of the intensive care unit to a private ward,” Jain said, adding that when the news of her husband’s death was broken to her, she suffered a shock but recovered later.
Doctors attending on Eric had said he had suffered multiple fractures on the skull and sustained brain injuries. He had slipped into coma after suffering a blow on the head.
Belle, who operated upon Eric, had said that he sustained multiple fractures on the skull as “the suspects had used sharp-edged weapons to assault him.”
Policemen at Deccan Gymkahana station carried out the panchanama in the hospital before the body was sent to the Sassoon general hospital for an autopsy.
Relatives and other family friends who were present at the hospital refused to speak on the issue. Assistant police inspector DS Mahajan who is investigating the attack on the US couple, said the two suspects — Gaphal Ashok Bhosale (20) and Amitabh Swastik Chavan (22) — arrested earlier are currently in magisterial custody. Police have been unable to make any headway in the case. No weapons and valuables have been recovered from the arrested suspects.
The attack on the couple had shocked local residents and followers of Meher Baba.
Heather and Eric were born into well-off families who met while studying at Stanford University. They gave up their lives of privilege to live in extreme simplicity in keeping with the philosophy of Meher Baba.
“Since 1971, they have chosen to live in a place that has long been about as remote as you can get from mainstream society,” a posting on the email by a member said.
