39°
"My daughter-in-law was seven months pregnant," Bharat Rudrawar told the news agency Press Trust of India in Mumbai. "We had been to their house and were planning another trip to the US to be with them again.”
Balaji Bharat Rudrawar, 33, and Arati Balaji Rudrawar, 31, were going to have a boy, sources with direct knowledge of the incident told Daily Voice. She was in the third trimester, they said.
Their bodies were found Wednesday after a neighbor at the Riverview Gardens apartment complex called police to do a welfare check after looking through the mail slot and seeing their bodies on the floor.
Both had been stabbed several times, apparently with the same knife, responders said.
Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella was awaiting a determination by the Medical Examiner’s Office before officially characterizing the deaths as murder-suicide -- based on the fact that Balaji Rudrawar had several stab wounds, including on his hands.
"An investigation revealed that Aarti B. Rudrawar died as a result of multiple stab wounds inflicted by her husband, Balaji Rudrawar," Musella said Friday. "Balaji Rudrawar also died as a result of multiple stab wounds, but his manner of death is undetermined pending the completion of an autopsy and investigation.
" At this time, no other individuals are believed to be involved," the prosecutor emphasized.
Their young daughter was staying with a friend of her father's, Bharat Rudrawar said from India.
"I am not aware of any possible motive,” he told PTI. “They were a happy family and had lovely neighbors.”
The couple were married in December 2014 and emigrated to the United States in August 2015, Rudrawar said.
His son was an IT professional with a prominent company and his daughter-in-law a homemaker, he said.
SEE: Indian IT Professional, Pregnant Wife Found Dead At New Jersey Home
A convicted sex offender died by suicide Saturday following an hours-long SWAT standoff at his Carlstadt home after he shot and killed his ex-wife in front of their 5-year-old daughter.
SEE: ‘Daddy Killed Mommy’
Wednesday's tragedy in North Arlington was the second at Riverview Gardens in five years.
Another man -- Eric Pleger -- beat his wife, Luisa, to death with a hammer a little over a block away. The January 2016 killing was the borough's first homicide in 22 years.
Daily Voice broke the news of Wednesday's incident, which began with a 5:40 p.m. call to police from a neighbor seeking a welfare check on the couple at 21E.
Officers who forced their way in a short time later found their bodies and their daughter, said Musella, the prosecutor.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Marlton-Evesham and receive free news updates.
