RALEIGH, North Carolina

Arnav Uppalapati, now 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2015 homicide of his mother Nalini Tellaprolu, 51, which shocked the Indian community.

He strangled his strict-minded mother after their tense relationship boiled over and she slapped him, disapproving because he had ordered a pizza, prosecutors said, according to the News and Observer.

The Cary teen will serve between 12 and 15 years in prison, a sentence officials described as the absolute most lenient considering his age and immaturity.

Assistant District Attorney Howard Cummings said Uppalapati fit the profile of a normal teen, studying hard at Green Hope High School but wanting fun on the side â€” maybe playing in a band or having a girlfriend. His mother was strict, wanting him to put his emphasis on his education. It was all just bottled up inside.â€™

On a night in November 2015, with his father out of town on business, Uppalapati ordered a pizza delivered and angered his mother. They argued, Cummings said, and when she slapped him, he choked her. The prosecutor noted the teen would have had to hold his motherâ€™s neck for three to four minutes.

He then dragged her to the garage, thought about taking her to the hospital and tried unsuccessfully to place her in her car.

â€˜He already put a bag over her head because he didnâ€™t want to see her face,â€™ Cummings said.

Uppalapati, 16 at the time of the murder, avoided arrest for more than a year while police investigated the 2015 killing.

An autopsy showed she had been strangled with a plastic bag over her head, her feet in the back seat of a car.

District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the absence of forced entry made the son a suspect early in the investigation.

Investigators sent the plastic bag for laboratory testing, which discovered the teenâ€™s DNA on its tightly tied knot. Afterward, Cummings said, Uppalapati confessed.

Defense attorney Ryan Willis called the case a tragedy. Uppalapati did not speak during hearing.

Cummings said the teenâ€™s age and his confession were crucial factors in deciding the length of his prison term. He compared the murder to a domestic violence case.
â€œI believe sometimes when you snap,â€ he said, â€œitâ€™s because things are bottled up.â€

Nalini was found dead on December 17, 2015. The emergency personnel responded to a call from Arnav in the afternoon from their residence, reporting that he found his mother dead in the garage. Her husband, Babu Mahesh Uppalapati was traveling on business at the time of the incident.

Nalini, who has a daughter also, did not go to work on December 17 at Duke University Health System, where she was a testing coordinator and quality assurance team leader. She also served on the board of directors of the Triangle Area Telugu Association.
An autopsy report showed that she had been strangled with a plastic bag over her head. Her feet were in the back seat of a car. Her body was covered with bruises and scratches on her face, neck, torso and arms. There were minor blunt force injuries, and the cartilage in her neck was fractured.

Arnav told an emergency dispatcher that he had arrived home from school and found his mother lying dead on the garage floor of their home. The teen led two uniformed officers to his motherâ€™s body, according to News Observer.

Arnav told the officers that he had last seen his mother alive the night before at about 10:30 pm when they ate dinner together. Next morning he left for school at 7 am as usual.

He also told police that he did not see or talk to his mother before leaving out the front door. He said he returned home at 3:20 p.m. and saw her lying on the garage floor, according to a search warrant application from Cary police.
The alarm system had not been activated, and there were no signs of forced entry or any attempt to robbery. Detectives also learned that Nalini was adamant about activating the home security system each night before she went to bed. They discovered that on the night of December 16 into the morning of December 17, the home security system was never activated.
The family moved to Cary from Detroit in 2008.

One month after Nalini died, her longtime friend Padma Tummala said the slain woman often spoke fondly of her daughter, Avani, and son, Arnav. When Arnav stayed late to finish home work, Nalini would stay up with him to ensure he had plenty of snacks. â€˜Weâ€™re shocked as a community. This was not something we expected to hear. She focused all of her energy on her kids,â€™ Tummala said

Satish Garimella, an Indian American councilman at Morrisville, said at the time that the community was in shock over the arrest. â€˜Itâ€™s very devastating. Thereâ€™s never been an incident where a son has taken the life of his own biological mother.â€™

He told the News Observer that many parents were wondering how much should they monitor the kids and if they are giving too much freedom to the kids when incidents like this happens. â€˜You want to get your kids together and be close to them. You want to know what went wrong and how can we prevent this from ever happening again,â€™ he told News Observer.

Teen who killed his mother pleads guilty; to serve 12 to 15 years in jail