Raghunandan Yandamuri
Raghunandan Yandamuri (born 21 February 1986)[1] is an Indian citizen, murderer, and kidnapper, who is currently awaiting execution on death row in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at SCI Somerset, as of 2024.[2][3][4] He was previously scheduled for execution by lethal injection on 23 February 2018, at age 32, but it was halted due to the 2015 moratorium of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.[5][3] Two days prior to the murders and kidnapping, Yandamuri attended a next-door birthday party along with his wife, at the Marquis Apartments in King of Prussia.Yandamuri also discarded some of the jewellery into the Schuylkill River and kept the remainder in a bag, concealed behind a vending machine inside of his office building.After he was brought in for questioning, Yandamuri was originally defiant towards disclosing his actions, but as the evidence mounted against him, his attitude switched from defiance to desperation.[12][3] Yandamuri's trial began on 25 September 2014 and was highly publicized and controversial, due to the nature of his crime and his Indian citizenship.Nevertheless, his account was weakened by the overwhelming amount of evidence bestowed by the prosecutor, abandoning little doubt in the minds of the jury about his guilt.[16][8] At the end of his trial, Yandamuri was found guilty on all counts and officially sentenced to death on 20 November 2014, after he decided to give up on finding more arguments.[18] He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on 23 February 2018, at age 32, but it was halted due to the 2015 moratorium of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.