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Indian American woman charged with 11-year-old son’s murder in California
The Orange County District Attorney's Office has charged Saritha Ramaraju with one felony count of murder and an enhancement for personal use of a deadly weapon.
Ramaraju, who moved out of California after divorcing the boy’s father in 2018, was visiting the state for a court-ordered custody visit. / Santa Ana Police Department
Saritha Ramaraju, a 48-year-old Indian American womsn, has been charged with murder after she allegedly slit her 11-year-old son's throat in a Santa Ana motel room, just hours before she was supposed to return him to his father. The boy had spent three days at Disneyland with his mother during a custody visit.
Ramaraju called 911 on the morning of Mar.19 to report that she had killed her son and had attempted to take her own life by ingesting an unknown substance. When Santa Ana police arrived at the La Quinta Inn on Hotel Terrace, they found the boy's lifeless body on the motel bed, surrounded by Disneyland souvenirs. Authorities believe he had been dead for several hours before the call was made.
Ramaraju, who moved out of California after divorcing the boy’s father in 2018, was visiting the state for a court-ordered custody visit. She purchased a three-day pass to Disneyland and stayed at the motel with her son. On the day she was supposed to return him, she allegedly used a large kitchen knife—bought just a day earlier—to end his life.
She was arrested on suspicion of murder after being discharged from the hospital on Mar.20. The Orange County District Attorney's Office has charged her with one felony count of murder and an enhancement for personal use of a deadly weapon. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 26 years to life in prison.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer condemned the crime, emphasizing the devastating consequences of parental conflicts escalating beyond control.
"The life of a child should not hang in the balance between two parents whose anger for each other outweighs their love for their child," Spitzer said in a statement. "Anger makes you forget who you love and what you are responsible for doing. The safest place for a child should be in their parents’ arms. Instead of wrapping her arms around their son in love, she slit his throat and in the cruelest twist of fate removed him from the very world she brought him into."
Senior Deputy District Attorney Harris Siddiq of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting the case.
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