The murders of five family members by a 23-year-old youth in Venjaramoodu have a few chilling parallels to the Nanthencode killings in 2017 in terms of manner and sheer goriness.

A tall, hefty youth, Cadell Jensen Raj, then aged 29, was accused of murdering his parents, Raja Thankam and Dr Jean Padma, sister Caroline and aunt Lalitha. Their mutilated, partially burnt bodies were found at their residence at Bains compound near Cliff House in April 2017. He used a hatchet to kill them and then burnt the bodies in the bathroom.

A  murderous rage may have spurred Afan, the accused in the Venjaramoodu murders.
Cadell was haunted by a sense of betrayal from his family members. With his flowing locks of hair and a cryptic smile, he toyed with the investigators in the beginning. He had absconded to Chennai after the murders and was held by the Railway police and handed over to Thiruvananthapuram city police. "He tried to bring in a psychotic angle to his story, telling us about concepts of astral projection and the like. We consulted with a psychiatrist and we knew he was lying. It was his pent-up frustration of constantly being treated as an under-achiever which eventually led him to kill his own family," said K E Baiju, district police chief, Kozhikode rural.  Baiju was then the Assistant Commissioner of Cantonment police who led the Nanthencode murder investigation.

Cadell told investigators that his parents had never allowed him to mingle with others and tried to portray him as an introvert. After killing his parents, he tried masking his motive with the image of a psycho his parents had unwittingly created. He had wanted to study history but was sent to Australia to study medicine and he came back without completing his studies. The trial of the Nanthencode case is currently underway. In a family of achievers, he felt like a pathetic loner and took it out on them.

Nanthencode murders were pre-planned. Evidence later showed that Cadell practised with dummies, trying to perfect killing people in one neat blow. Afan was seen near the house of his grandmother Salma Beevi at Pangode in the morning. While a sudden cause may have prompted him, police believe he planned the murders with deadly calm, even buying a new hammer.

Close relatives and neighbours of Afan's family said that Afan was not so good at studies, and he was taken to the Gulf to assist his father, Rahim, in business. Unlike Cadell, he was attached to his family, going by the narrative of those who knew the family members closely. He could be seen riding his motorcycle with his brother Afsan whom he killed on Tuesday. As they rode around the locale, Afsan would put his arms around his brother. "Even a day ago, I saw them together holding hands. Who would think that a youth who loved his brother was capable of killing him in one blow," said Jaleel, a neighbour.