NSW: Mother of strangled woman tells of 'gurgling' phone call

AAP General News (Australia)
12-01-2009
NSW: Mother of strangled woman tells of 'gurgling' phone call

By Katelyn Catanzariti

SYDNEY, Dec 1 AAP - The mother of a woman strangled by her husband received a call
that sounded like somebody was "drowning" on the night her daughter died, a court has
been told.

The bloodied body of Pharzana Nanthagopal, 27, was found by her parents, in the early
hours of February 25 last year, in the home she shared with her 37-year-old husband Nanthagopal
Lechmana.

Lechmana had left a suicide note at the couple's North Parramatta unit and was arrested
hours later at a known Sydney suicide spot with two bottles of bourbon and a bottle of
sleeping pills.

He has admitted strangling his wife, but says he was suffering from major depression
at the time which, he argues, should be grounds for reducing the charge against him from
murder to manslaughter.

At his murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday, a jury was told both husband
and wife were being treated for depression at the time of Ms Nanthagopal's death, and
they had been attending regular marriage counselling sessions.

Ms Nanthagopal's mother, Mahrukh Palkhiwala, told the court that the couple, who had
lived with them for a period prior to the incident, had been arguing a lot and had not
appeared to be in a happy marriage.

The day before her death, Lechmana had been trying to kiss, cuddle and tickle his wife
on a family walk, and Ms Nanthagopal had told him to "stop it", Ms Palkhiwala said.

Shortly after 3.30am the following day, Ms Palkhiwala answered the family phone and
heard a "gurgling" noise on the end of the line.

"I heard a gurgling noise - somebody was sort of drowning and trying to put their head
up and trying to breathe," she told the court.

"I kept saying, 'Hello? hello?' but there was no voice from the other end."

A short while later, Lechmana called to say "in a very calm, cold voice" that their
daughter was dead, she said.

In a suicide note he left on the ironing board, Lechmana had written: "As you know,
I love Pharzana very much and every time she says she wants to leave me it breaks my heart
to pieces - hurts me to pieces".

"When you find this letter I will probably be dead too."

The trial before Justice Megan Latham continues.

AAP kc/wjf/jl/cdh

KEYWORD: LECHMANA

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