Guilty Plea From Father In Patel Brothers' Deaths

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Apr 16, 2010 9:20PM

Kaushik Patel, the Glendale Heights man charged in the 2007 murder of his two young sons by burning them alive, has reached an agreement to plead guilty to the crimes in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Patel made a similar deal in 2008 but prosecutors later rejected that original deal.

Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty for Patel for the deaths of his sons Om, 4, and Vishv, 7. Om didn't die until January 2008 and Vishv passed away due to injuries sustained in the incident in February of that year. A judge had already cleared the way for Vishv's dying words to be admitted as evidence at the trial. No word on why prosecutors accepted the deal this time around.

On the night of November 18, 2007, Patel (pictured left) doused his two sons and himself in gasoline and lit the fire, though he contends that his intent was only to harm himself, claiming it was a suicide attempt. After the fire, Patel drove the boys to his brother's house in Hanover Park where a relative called 911. In a March 2008 interview with the Daily Herald, Patel said, "It wasn't murder. No one understands. I love my kids. I was not trying to kill them, only me." Patel claims to have been suicidal stemming from family problems involving his live-in mother-in-law from his 1997 arranged marriage to the boys' mother, Nishaben. Authorities, though, don't believe Patel, citing the boys' more serious injuries and an alleged incriminating statement Patel made to his brother.