GUILTY PA - Dr. Melissa Ketunuti, 35, murdered in her Philly home, 21 Jan 2013

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SunnieRN said:
I'm not saying this is the case, but there is a possibility that this was done by a patients family member.

I am an RN and have been for over 20 years now. There have been incidents of physicians being killed out of grief or anger in the past.

Things have changed not only in our society, but in the medical field. I had a patient two weeks ago that got angry when the physician wouldn't order additional pain medication. His statement to me was, "You'd better hope I don't see you, or any of you racist bi*****s outside this hospital, cause I'll kill every last one of you bit***s." It's nice to go to work and bend over backward to try to help someone and end up being threatened. Sheesh.
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That actually is a very good point. She worked in pediatrics. Police need to look into the parents of patients and see if she lost any patients recently (or any patients had complications, etc).
 
There was a lock box on the door. (on JVM)
 
Just wondering if the dog was crated?

Perhaps the Doctor was not followed but per Matou's lockbox was inside waiting?

JMO and I am usually wrong, but this is random. Then again nothing was stolen? How did the murderer get the rope and tape? Was it from inside the home?

Special paryers for the family of Doctor Katunuti. She obviously was a very special person.
 
O'Really said:
Word round the neighborhood is the police are hard at work and they have hit up every store and homeowner that has video surveillance.

And last I heard Pooch is going to Red Paw rescue for foster.
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O, they were pulling alot of video. JMO I think they at least are suspect of someone on a tape obviously. With South street so close they have to hit on something and those little businesses.

Special thanks to Philly's finest.
 
I have not seen many (any? I think not any..) instances of a woman's body being set on fire without it being a sex-motivated crime, or revenge. The lack of regard for this poor woman as a human being couldn't be more clear than in this act of total obliteration -- of her, and/or evidence of what was done to her. Add to that, she was hogtied, another gesture of dehumanisation.

It's an act of total derogatory hatred and rage, whether directly against the victim, or vicarious (ie, against women in general). But hogtying and strangling wasn't enough for this perp- he had to set her on fire, too.

I honestly don't think this is a burglary gone bad. If she wasn't raped or in some sort of abusive/bitter relationship, I'd be picking through the list of former patients in search of psychotic rellies/deceased children, etc, for sure.

Eta: Oh - it didn't occur to me to connect that she was a doctor. Some crack head, demanding drugs and not getting them.. that's a robbery scenario that seems pretty plausible.

The level of insane rage would be about right.
 
This shouldn't be a footnote to my previous post - but it's sometimes hard to express sympathy for the victim properly in crimes this heinous, when it hurts to even feel it.

Her poor family. What a lovely young woman.
 
Roxborough snatcher was an older guy . . . the hogtieing makes me think maybe military? Of the Vietnam generation? Ketunuti was Asian . . . just thinking aloud.
 
She looks like my sister. I really hope they find the person who did this... that's about as much as I can muster for this case. It just seems too much. Why go so far? This poor woman's final moments must have been truly terrorizing.

How do they justify ever letting someone out of jail who does this? Yet they do, all the time. She doesn't get another day or another chance. I hope they find the perp and give him the same. It isn't fair that we keep hoping to change these people who do this. There are plenty of times where I think a perp deserves a 2nd chance and has a lot of hope, but these types of situations aren't one of them. No way.
 
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So Vinnie Parco, private investigator, let`s recap and review. No immediate sign of sexual assault. No sign of forced entry. Her home was reportedly not ransacked. There are no suspects, no motive. The boyfriend has been ruled out. Nothing amiss outside. Somebody walked by ten minutes earlier and said everything seemed fine.
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JVM Transcripts
 
She worked pediatric oncology? She could have had some patients that didn't make it. Police should definitely explore that angle, it's not so far fetched that somebody could have blamed her for a bad outcome.
 
Gracelin said:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...n-Basement-of-Center-City-Home-187766341.html

When they arrived at the home, they say they found the body of 34-year-old Melissa Ketunuti, a pediatric doctor at CHOP, on fire in the basement. Investigators say her hands and feet were bound and that there was some type of rope around her neck. They believe she was strangled and then set on fire.
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How horrific for this young woman! There appears to be a mean vindictiveness in the manner she was tortured. The fact that they bound her hands and feet suggests that the murderer(s) wanted to show their power over her, and that they wanted her to submit to them, maybe even interrogate her about something -- a slow humiliating torture. Strangling her means the murderer(s)' anger and rage took over. This to me means the murderer(s) were jealous of this woman's power in some way, and that they knew her in some personal or professional capacity. The murderer(s) were not strangers.

If Melissa wasn't sexually assaulted, I'd think her murderer(s) were women. Could be that her murderer(s) were family members of a child she treated as a pediatrician.

This eerily reminds me of the Rebecca Zahau case. Becky was a medical technician, hands and feet bound, a noose and a t-shirt wrapped around her neck. One difference is that Becky was reportedly found hanging off a second-story balcony whereas Melissa was found immolated in a basement.

Was Melissa also nude or can they not determine that because her body was too burnt?
 
She came home at about 10:50 am. Police think she was killed between 10:50 am and 12 pm. Dog walker found the body at 12:30 pm.
So whoever did that could have been waiting for her as she was coming home-thus no forced entry. I suppose if she knew the perp she could have also let the perp in (or even if she didn't). Boyfriend has an alibi, was in New York at the time.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/l...ad_been_strangled_before_being_set_afire.html
 
My guess is that it was someone in the neighborhood and that it was a sex crime. That is why he set her on fire to burn any DNA left behind. He was probably worried about "touch DNA' and used condoms for bodily fluid ( and took those with him). Just because LE says there was no obvious signs of sexual assult doesn't mean it wasn't.
 
colette said:
My guess is that it was someone in the neighborhood and that it was a sex crime. That is why he set her on fire to burn any DNA left behind. He was probably worried about "touch DNA' and used condoms for bodily fluid ( and took those with him). Just because LE says there was no obvious signs of sexual assult doesn't mean it wasn't.
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Well, unless LE states otherwise, I would not be presuming facts not in evidence.
 
jjenny said:
She came home at about 10:50 am. Police think she was killed between 10:50 am and 12 pm. Dog walker found the body at 12:30 pm.
So whoever did that could have been waiting for her as she was coming home-thus no forced entry. I suppose if she knew the perp she could have also let the perp in (or even if she didn't). Boyfriend has an alibi, was in New York at the time.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/l...ad_been_strangled_before_being_set_afire.html
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If there was no forced entry, then she either opened the door for the perp to enter her home, or the perp had a key (stolen, made a copy, etc.)

If she opened the door, it had to be either someone she knew, or a repair worker or technician of some kind.

Where was her dog during her attack?
 
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