The highly decomposed body of an elderly man was found in a flat in Hyderabad, nearly 45 days after he is suspected to have died. His family was in US.The death of Lakshminarayana Murthy, 75, a retired govt. employee, came to light only after his wife and two daughters returned from the US the other day. The flat was owned by one of Mr Murthy’s daughters and it had a central locking system. As all the doors and windows were closed, neighbors did not get any foul smell. Residents in the apartment thought the flat was locked from outside and that the entire family lives in the US.
The elderly man is suspected to have died in mid-August. Police said he sustained severe head injuries and died on the spot after presumably having stepped on a lizard and falling down while coming out of the bath. A dead lizard was found near his feet, hinting he skid after stepping on it.
When Mr Murthy was not answering phone calls from family in the US, they simply assumed he was angry with them. He had reportedly turned down repeated requests by his daughters to move to the US to live with them. He had sent his wife to the US in July and preferred to live alone in his daughter’s flat in Hyderabad.When there was no response from him to their calls even after a month, his family returned to Hyderabad to check on him. When he didn’t open the door, they broke open it and found his body in a highly decomposed state.