Nov 16, 20193 min read

Motta Navas: Story of a Psychopathic Serial Killer who Targeted Innocent People Sleeping on Street

Hailing from the Kerala district of Kollam, Motta Navas was born in the year 1966. Navas was a drug-addled psychopath who would go to sleep around eight in the evening, and wake up sometime in the middle of the night and just stroll out of his house for a night walk.

On these early morning walks, he was actually on the hunt for people whose lives he could take. A horrible thing to say, but sadly, this was the case from June to August of 2012.

Crimes:

It all began in 1996 when Motta Navas committed his first of seven murders. A man named Rajasekaran had been murdered in cold blood by Navas. However, there were no witnesses found for it at all. This is why even though Navas was imprisoned in that year, he was only in jail for about four years.

He was acquitted due to the lack of ample evidence and a lack of witnesses. The second time, Navas was arrested and convicted for the murder of someone called Shamir in the year 2007, more than a decade after his first. Both of these murders took place in different parts of Kollam, the first in Mundakkal and the second in Karikode. The worst episode of Navas’ killing broke out in 2012. This is when he targeted people sleeping on the streets in his district, Kollam, in the night-time. Navas used blunt force trauma, using objects like large rocks to bludgeon these five people to death.

Also Read: Chandrakant Jha: Killer who Love Punishing People and Challenging Cops in his Unique Style

The first and second murders took place in the first week of June 2012. On 6th June, Navas killed a 65-year-old sleeping under the S.P. Office flyover. The next day ended the life of Navas’ second victim, Appukuttan Achary. Navas encountered Achary on the verandah of a shop and bludgeoned him to death by bashing in the nape of his neck, which went on to damage the spine and kill him. The police suspected that Navas was, in fact, behind the deaths of these first two street people, but when arrested, he pretended as though he was mentally ill. The police then shipped him off to an asylum in Trivandrum, where the appropriate entities conducted tests on him just to find out that he was actually sane. They were professionals, but they labeled a textbook psychopathic person as mentally fit, leading to disastrous consequences. Once Navas was discharged from the asylum, he returned to Kollam and went on to bludgeon three more homeless people to death through June to August of that year. On 18th June, once again under the S.P. Office flyover, a 65-year-old Bondan Kumar was hit on his head by Navas with a stone that killed him.

The fourth victim was Thankappan, who was killed in his sleep inside a bus waiting shed on 3rd August. 18 days later, Navas took the life of his last victim, Sadarsanan, on the verandah of a municipal building. He was also killed with a stone. His two other victims after his assault managed to survive, which made his murder count to remains at 7 now, or it would have been 9. Navas managed to escape from the eye of the police even when night patrol teams of the police had noticed Navas loitering in the city on those days, but on seeing the police party, he feigned mental illness and was ignored by the police.

Investigation and Arrest:

However, after investigations that lasted about a fortnight, a police team led by Kollam East Circle Inspector V. Sugathan, Sub Inspector G. Gopakumar, and senior civil police officer Prasanna Kumar arrested Navas from the Nehru Park area in the city on 2nd November 2012.

Navas is currently in custody, awaiting his trial. What he did really shook up the district of Kollam, as well as all the other districts around it.

Up Next: Ravinder Kumar: A Story of Child Rapist and Killer who Indulged in Necrophilia with the Bodies