Prosecutors say the children were found unresponsive at a Hillsborough home; the mother faces two counts of first-degree murder.
In a disturbing case out of New Jersey, an Indian mother has been charged with the murder of her two children, ages 5 and 7. According to prosecutors, 35-year-old Priyatharsini Natarajan, a resident of Hillsborough in Somerset County, allegedly killed her two young sons.
In a heartbreaking sequence of events, Natarajan was taken into custody after a 911 call in which a man told police that his children were not breathing. The incident occurred at approximately 6:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
According to a statement by Somerset County Prosecutor John P. McDonald, “The caller advised that upon arriving home from work he subsequently found his two children unconscious and that his wife did something to them.”
Soon after the report, police officers responded to the scene. Upon entering the home, they found both the man who made the call and Priyatharsini Natarajan. Officers discovered two young boys inside a bedroom and attempted life-saving measures, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The children were pronounced dead at the scene.
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In a further disturbing development, according to the affidavit of probable cause, the children appeared to have been strangled and had been dead for several hours before police arrived.
The names of the children have not yet been released, nor have the cause and manner of death been officially determined, as the autopsy report is still pending.
Natarajan has been taken into custody and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree possession of a weapon, according to court records.
She was taken to the Somerset County Jail ahead of a pretrial detention hearing.
NJ.com reported that, according to her LinkedIn profile, Natarajan is a software developer and document composer for Smart Communications’ SmartCOMM platform.