A letter sent to Robert and Reidun Priddy about the brutal murder of a lady in her room at Prashanthi Nilayam (date uncertain, but about a week after the murder of the Swiss/German-speaking lady in her room in Prashanthi Nilayam - probably in 1992, certainly some months at least before the June 1993 murders in Sathya Sai Baba's bedroom took place.) At that time, Marge Hendel, an American Jew, was living mostly in Norway, but with months per annum in India for a number of years.

Marge Hendel was known to many US devotees, having known Alvin Drucker well and been in his group when Jewish US devotees had a Sai Baba interview together arranged by Drucker. In that interview, Sathya Sai Baba reportedly said - when asked about Adolf Hitler - that he was also a good man and that he repented before his suicide! (This last is totally and famously refuted by his final statement just before his suicide, as confirmed fully by his personal secretary who took down Hitler's last lengthy vituperative statement against the Jews and the entire German populace). Later Marge Hendel stayed for much longer periods in India, at Puttaparthi and Brindavan.

My wife had met the Swiss-German lady who was about to become a flat owner. When we were back at the ashram again, I asked Danish Mr. Thorbj;rn Meyer - then the coordinating Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization for Scandinavian group of countries what he knew of the murder of that lady. He said she was killed at her apartment a day or so after having been to the State Bank of India in Puttaparthi, and because she had not concealed her withdrawal (of Rs. 80,000.- an extremely considerable sum for Indian villagers), she had been followed. He added that it was really her own fault! I was lost for words when he said that... he was and still is one of the most active Sai officials at covering up anything whatever which may reflect badly on his Lord and Master, Sathya Sai Baba.

The above murder was investigated by the Puttaparthi police, who caught the murderers - two brothers resident in Puttaparthi. Some weeks later they escaped from custody. V.K. Narasimhan told me that the police had allowed them to abscond after they had agreed to tell where the money was hidden, which the police then took for themselves. The Prashanthi Nilayam authorities were apparently able to prove this embezzlement and this information was used by Janakiramiah and others involved to pressure the Puttaparthi police chief into gviing the order for the execution by rifle fire of the four Sai follower young men trapped in Sai Baba's bedroom apartment.