ATLANTA
The death penalty will be sought against a former mathematics professor accused of sending contract killers to murder his 22-year-old daughter-in-law, Fulton County prosecutors said this week.
Prosecutors say Chiman L. Rai, a 67-year-old native of India, paid $10,000 to have four men kill his daughter-in-law. They say Rai disapproved of his son’s marriage to Sparkle Rai because she was Black.
In April of 2000, Sparkle Michelle Rai was found strangled and stabbed to death inside the Union City, Ga., apartment she shared with her husband, Rick Rai. Their 7-month-old daughter, Alana, was found unharmed inside the home. A tip to police in 2004 reopened the case, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Chiman Rai brought his family to Jackson, Miss. in 1970 and taught math at historically Black Alcorn State University. He left teaching after a decade to open a supermarket, and later moved to Louisville, Ky., where he opened a hotel.
Rai was ordered by Superior Court Judge Bensonetta Tipton Lane to remain jailed after prosecutors successfully argued he might try to leave the area or the country. The four alleged hit men are scheduled to appear at the Fulton County courthouse at the end of the month.
The four men charged along with Chiman Rai are Willie Fred Evans, 74; Herbert Green, 60; Cleveland Clark, 49; and Carl Clark, 43. The latter two were both serving time in a Mississippi prison for armed robbery when they were charged. Evans and Green are both of Louisville, Ky.
