A sensational murder in Madras involving the Kadambur Zamin
The Hindu
An early unsolved mystery is the sensational murder that rocked Madras in 1919-20. The victim was Clement de la Hey, 41, the acting principal of Newington School, which was a residential institution. The teenaged heir of Kadambur zamin was the main accused
Tamil Nadu has witnessed a few murders that were unsolved. One of the earliest was the 10th Century assassination of Chola prince Aditya II or Aditya Karikalan, whose murder was perhaps avenged, but lack of historical records had made it a mystery.
The murders of C.N. Lakshmikanthan (1944), Immanuel Sekaran (1957), Tha. Kiruttinan (2003), and K.N. Ramajayam (2012) are a few recent examples, in which, despite wide public attention, the culprits were not caught, or at least not yet.
An early unsolved mystery that is not remembered much is the sensational murder that rocked Madras in 1919-20, in which an Englishman was the victim and the teenaged heir of Kadambur zamin was the main accused.
On the intervening night of October 15-16, Clement de la Hey, 41, the acting principal of Newington School, was shot in the head at close range with a 12 bore gun when he was asleep in a bed next to that of his wife on the first floor of the school building which was also his residence.
Woken up by the report of the gun, Dorothy de la Hey screamed in horror as she saw her husband lying in a pool of blood. She could not see anyone else, but heard a thud. The police, who arrived quickly, thought that they solved the murder in less than a day with a student, Seeni Vellala Siva Subramanya Pandya Tallivan, the under-aged (minor) zamindar of Kadambur, identified as the killer.
Four months later, he was acquitted in what an article, published by Bombay High Court in the 1960s, described as the “most notable and spectacular criminal case ever tried” on its premises. The murder would forever remain a mystery.
The Newington School, which functioned on the present-day campus of the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services at Teynampet, was a residential institution. It was intended to be run on the lines of English public schools to educate minor zamindars who were under the Court of Wards system. The presence of minors gave the building the moniker ‘minor bungalow’.