Two Chicago brothers have been sentenced to more than 40 years each for killing their landlord and throwing his body in a sewer in 2018, ABC7 reports.
Elijah Green, then 25, and Tony Green, then 22, strangled Vasudeva Kethireddy, 76, to death. He was missing for almost two months before his body was recovered from the sewer in the city’s West Englewood neighborhood. The brothers were arrested within days of the man’s body being found; the brothers lived on the same block as where Kethireddy’s body was recovered, per ABC7.
On Wednesday, Tony Green was sentenced to 45 years and Elijah Green was sentenced to 47 years for the brutal killing, CBS reports.
The brothers, who owed Kethireddy rent, reportedly lured him to their apartment by claiming they had a leak. Elijah then choked him to death. The men also stole $1,600 and credit cards from the older man. Prosecutors said robbery was the motive of the attack, CBS News reported in 2018.
According to prosecutors, someone also used Tony Green’s phone to search, “How long does it take for a body to decompose in the sewer?”
“These were two brothers that were shaking my hand and giving me hugs, expressing their condolences,” Shantan Kethireddy, the victim’s son, told CBS News in 2018. The outlet also reported that a witness had seen Elijah Green carrying Kethireddy over his shoulder.
Kethireddy went missing on August 4, 2018; he was last seen at a bank. His body was found approximately two months later across the street from a residence he owned. His car — with the plates taken off — had also been found nearby just a few days after his disappearance, per CBS.
The brothers then used Kethireddy’s car to drive around looking for a location to dump his body; they kept the body in the car for a day before getting rid of it the next morning. Police said the brothers took off the sewer cover in front of their apartment building and deposited the victim’s body inside, according to WDSU.
Kethireddy moved to Chicago from a poor village in India, per CBS, and later became an engineer as well as a landlord. He would reportedly make a point of renting apartments to people who were underserved or had legal troubles.
