Subramnian Ponnazhakan faces a charge of capital murder in his son’s killing, police say
MCKINNEY, Texas — Warning: The following article contains graphic language and descriptions.
A North Texas man accused of killing his eight-year-old son had told his wife multiple times earlier that day that his family should die, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA.
Subramanian Ponnazhakan, 39, is accused of killing his son, Nanitin Ponnazhakan, who was found dead of stab wounds in the family’s garage in McKinney on Jan. 6.
When police arrived on the scene, they said they found the father, Subramanian Ponnazhakan, with self-inflicted stab wounds of his own, although he survived those injuries. He now faces a charge of capital murder in his son’s killing, police said.
Ponnazhakan was arraigned on a capital murder warrant by McKinney Police, and his bond was set at $1 million bond.
An arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA on Wednesday outlined what police learned when they responded to the Subramanian home on Jan. 6.
Officers were called to the home in the 700 block of Anson Court in McKinney, where a woman told 911 that her son was unconscious and bleeding, and that her husband had locked her out of the home.
Police said they arrived and spoke with the woman, who told officers her son was in the garage. When officers entered the home, they found blood inside and could hear a man yelling from the master bedroom near the rear of the home, the affidavit said.
That man, later identified as Subramanian Ponnazhakan, had multiple cuts on his body and was holding a large butcher-style knife in his hand, according to the affidavit.
Officers then continued looking for the woman’s son, who was found dead on the floor of the garage, the affidavit said. The boy had multiple cuts and lacerations, according to police.
When police interviewed the boy’s mother, she said her husband, Subramanian Ponnazhakan, had been feeling depressed lately “for an unknown reason,” the affidavit said.
The woman said Ponnazhakan stated multiple times on the day of her son’s killing that he thought the three of them should die, according to the affidavit.
The woman told police that she told her husband he should see a psychiatrist and that he was “not happy about that,” the affidavit said.
Later that day, the affidavit detailed, Ponnazhakan went to pick up his son from school while his wife stayed home and slept.
The wife later woke up to a sound coming from the direction of the garage in her home, per the affidavit. The noise sounded like screaming, the affidavit said, but she initially thought it was children playing outside.
According to police, she then decided to call her husband, having not heard from him and their son, at which point she could hear her husband’s phone ringing inside their home. She went to the living room to inspect the sound, and found her husband sitting in the living room, the affidavit said.
Police said Ponnazhakan then told his wife that their son was at a friend’s house. But she thought “something was not right,” the affidavit said, so she began looking for her son and eventually found him unconscious in the garage.
She then ran out of the house and screamed for help, police said. A neighbor then placed the call to the McKinney Police Department, according to the affidavit.
Police told WFAA there was no prior record of 911 calls from the family’s home or of any involvement from child protective services.
The boy, police said, attended Prosper Independent School District.
“It’s hard to think of somebody who’s capable of doing that,” neighbor Lincoln Banry told WFAA. “I can’t comprehend it. It’s something completely out of the realm… You see it on TV, too much, then you see it in your neighborhood. And… it’s just sad — that there’s people that hurt that much in this world [and] that’s what they come to.”
Banry said he wants the boy’s mother to know that there are people in the neighborhood who want to support her.
“There’s a lot of love and compassion that comes from us,” Banry said, “and the neighborhood as well.”