Man Who Killed Wife, 3 Kids Because He Couldn’t Provide For Them Gets Life Imprisonment

A North Carolina man, who confessed to killing four members of his family because he could not provide for them financially after losing his job, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Shankar Hangud, 55, who murdered his wife and three kids over several days at his apartment in Roseville in October 2019, then drove to a police precinct in Mount Shasta -- about 200 miles from his house -- with the body of his oldest son, and turned himself in to the authorities, Record Searchlight reported.

Hangud was arrested after he confessed to murdering his 46-year-old wife, Jyothi Shankar, and children Gauri Hangud, 16, Nischal Hangud, 13, and Varum Shankar, 20. The police later found the body of the three victims from his apartment.

Hangud pleaded guilty in September to three counts of first-degree murder and one count of deliberately aiding his wife to commit suicide.

The prosecutors told the court Hangud was in despair after losing his IT job and he was dealing with a marriage that was falling apart, Sacramento CBS Local reported.

"It’s hard to reconcile with the facts that this tragedy could happen because someone couldn’t get employed. But it’s an old-world, patriarchal thought pattern where if he can’t be a provider, he doesn’t want his family to have anything. So he kills his family," Placer County prosecutor David Tellman said.

The court has handed down three consecutive life sentences to Hangud. As Hangud killed more than one person, he has no possibility of parole, District Attorney's office said.

Placer County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Penney described the case as a "horrific crime" during the sentencing since no victims were alive to speak.

In May, a man in Tennessee was arrested for killing his three family members, including his 11-year-old sister. Nathanial Pipkin, 22, was arrested for fatally shooting his mother Traci McNeely, 44, and his siblings 11-year-old Kailee Warren and 20-year-old Carson Pipkin inside their family residence in Maury County. Pipkin who was arrested at a traffic stop three hours after the incident claimed that he carried out the act in “self-defense.”