Five days after the incident, police said circumstantial evidence, as well as the preliminary investigation, show that Chaudhary killed Muna before committing suicide by hanging.

According to autopsy reports, which came out on February 14, though Muna had sustained severe head injuries, she died of strangulation, Senior Superintendent Tek Prasad Rai, chief of Lalitpur Metropolitan Police Range, said on Sunday.

An investigating officer, who refused to be identified, said the motive behind the incident was still under investigation.
“We have sent their phones to the forensic lab,” said the official.

According to a statement given to police by Mina Koirala, another domestic help at the Karki residence, Chaudhary had been working in the house for the last seven years and she had never noticed any dispute between Muna and Chaudhary.

“In my nine years working in the house, I have never come across any situation that was suspicious on the part of Chaudhary. Nor was there any fight between him and other family members,” the officer quoted Koirala as saying.

On February 10, Karki had found critically injured Muna and the lifeless body of Chaudhary at their Sanepa home. Muna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead.
The Karki couple lived in the house with their 11-year-old son and Chaudhari. Their son was at school at the time of the incident.