Roseville, CA (AP) — A man in Northern California who confessed to killing his wife and three children was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on Wednesday.
Shanker Hungad, 55, confessed to killing his family in two counties in Northern California in October 2019 for several days, according to a Placer County investigator. Reported by KCRA-TV.. His children were 13, 16 and 20 years old.
According to prosecutors, Hunged was arrested shortly after his eldest son’s body was driven to a police station in Mount Shasta, more than 200 miles (320 km) away from his home. After confessing, police said the bodies of the other three victims were found in a family apartment in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento.
Judge Jeffrey Penny of the Placer County Superior Court sentenced Hungad to life imprisonment three times, calling it a “terrible crime” in which the victims were not alive. The local prosecutor’s office said there was no possibility of parole because Hungad killed several people.
Prosecutors said Hungad claimed he was in despair after losing his IT job and dealing with a collapsing marriage.
In September, Hungad pleaed three murders against children and one deliberate support for his wife’s suicide.
“It’s hard to match the fact that this tragedy can happen because someone wasn’t hired,” said Placer County prosecutor David Thermann. “But it’s an old-world patriarchal thinking pattern, and if he can’t be a donor, he doesn’t want his family to have anything. So he kills his family.”
Hangud was an unemployed data specialist. His LinkedIn profile showed that he worked for several companies in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.