For 10 days, she kept fabricating stories

Discrepancies in the statement of Maria Susayraj, 27, gave Crime Branch vital leads to crack the murder mystery of Neeraj Grover, creative head of Synergy Adlabs.

A source said Susayraj told Malad police that soon after Grover went ‘missing’, she had driven to Manor with fiancé ML Jerome Matthew, a Navy lieutenant based in Kochi. When Crime Branch sleuths grilled Susayraj about the ‘friend’, who lent them his car for the trip, she named one of Matthew’s friends, Jitesh - also from the Navy, and based in Colaba. But when Jitesh was questioned, he denied having lent his vehicle to the couple.

When grilled again, Susayraj confessed to lying, and said that the car was borrowed from her friend, Andheri-based choreographer Kiran Shyran. She told Crime Branch that she borrowed Rs3,000 from Shyran, and asked for his car to go for a drive with Matthew.

“But Shyran told us a different story. According to him, Susayraj had told him that her fiancé had shifted from Kochi to Mumbai and needed a car to move his things,” the source told DNA.

“For 10 days, she kept on lying. When we told her that there were several discrepancies in her statement and pointed out those, she broke down and admitted
that Matthew had killed Grover in her presence,” said another Crime Branch official on condition of anonymity.

After Susayraj’s confession, the Crime Branch team took her to Manor, where she showed them the spot where Grover’s chopped body parts, concealed in bags, were burnt. The victim’s silver chain and a deodorant bottle were also found from the spot.