Execution Date Set For Upper Merion Baby Killer

UPPER MERION, PA -- An execution date for the Upper Merion man convicted of killing a baby and her grandmother has been set for February, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections announced.

Raghunandan Yandamuri, 32, was convicted in 2014 of the October 2012 stabbing death of 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna, as well as the suffocation death of Saanvi Venna, her 10-month-old granddaughter. The killings were part of a botched kidnapping- for-ransom plot attempted by the defendant, authorities have alleged.

Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel signed the notice of execution on Monday. The date has been set for Feb. 23.

"The law provides that when the governor does not sign a warrant of execution within the specified time period, the secretary of corrections has 30 days within which to issue a notice of execution," the Department of Corrections said in a statement on Monday.

The death sentence for Yandamuri, who holds an advanced degree in electrical and computer science engineering, must be signed by Gov. Tom Wolf, who declared a moratorium on the death penalty in the state in 2015. The moratorium will be in place until Gov. Wolf has reviewed the report of the Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Commission on Capital Punishment. In the meantime, the governor has said that a temporary reprieve will be granted to death row inmates.

"This moratorium is in no way an expression of sympathy for the guilty on death row, all of whom have been convicted of committing heinous crimes," Gov. Wolf said in 2015. "This decision is based on a flawed system that has been proven to be an endless cycle of court proceedings as well as ineffective, unjust, and expensive."

Yandamuri has gone through a lengthy appeals process, and most recently had the death sentence imposed on him upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2017, according to court documents.

Only three people have been executed in Pennsylvania since 1976, all of them between 1995 and 1999 under Gov. Tom Ridge. No one has been executed in the state in nearly 20 years.

In 2015, a Montgomery County jury convicted Yandamuri, a former friend of the Venna family, of first-degree murder for each slaying, handing down a pair of death sentences.

The case since has been unusual: Yandamuri determined to represent himself during the appeals process, and he also decided to press perjury charges against a detective who testified during his trial.

In a decision penned by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer, the court reaffirmed that the evidence to prosecute Yandamuri was sufficient, and cited numerous background elements supporting the jury's determination to execute. The court also responded to and refuted each of Yandamuri's claims about unfair treatment, including his allegations that his Miranda rights were not read and that he was arrested without probable cause.

Yandamuri is being held at State Correctional Institute-Greene in Waynesburg, Greene County, in the southwestern corner of the state.

Image via Montgomery County District Attorney's Office