A nine-month investigation by police in Bellevue, Washington, has led to the arrest of a 30-year-old software engineer for the murder of his 27-year-old wife, a Hyderabad native. N. Avinash, a Secunderabad native, was arrested on June 27 and produced in court on July 1, charged with the murder of his wife, Rajita Sabbineni.
According to investigators, Avinash strangled his wife on October 27, 2025, and attempted to make it look like a suicide. The investigation revealed that Avinash had been having an affair with a woman he met before marrying Rajita, whom his parents had arranged for him to marry. The woman, who was not named, had also attended the couple’s wedding on June 5 last year.
Rajita, who had a US work visa, had discovered that Avinash had lost his job, despite claiming to work for a multinational technology company. In the days leading up to her death, Rajita had sent text messages to Avinash, complaining that the smoothies he made for her tasted bitter, sometimes like cough syrup. It is unclear if anything was mixed into the smoothies.
On the day of her death, Avinash called the police, claiming that Rajita had locked herself in the bathroom. He told officers that he was not home when she entered the bathroom. However, investigators believe that Avinash had access to the apartment and that he had murdered his wife.
Avinash allegedly admitted to sending a photo of his wife’s body to his girlfriend and his mobile phone records showed that he called her at least four times on the day Rajita died. Avinash remains in custody on a USD 5 million bond. The case was initially treated as a suicide, but investigators came to believe that Rajita had been murdered.
