Five Murdered for a Business, Two Baby Bodies Still Missing 23 Years Later

New Podcast Reopens Disturbing Mystery of Two Babies Dumped at Sea

They wanted a business. Five members of a family died. Three bodies eventually surfaced. Two belonged to babies who have never been found.

A businessman vanished after leaving his employees for what they believed was a meeting near Stonehenge.

Two days later, his young wife, their two baby boys and his mother-in-law also disappeared from their west London home.

What initially looked like a family disappearance would become one of Britain’s most chilling organised-crime murder cases.

More than two decades later, the case has returned to public attention through a new episode of the Daily Mail’s On The Case podcast, which revisits how Amarjit Chohan, his wife Nancy, their sons Ravinder and Devinder, and Nancy’s mother Charanjit Kaur were kidnapped and murdered in 2003.

A fake business meeting

Chohan, who ran Ciba Freight, a fruit import and export business, had told employees on February 12, 2003, that he was going to a business meeting near Stonehenge. He never returned.

The supposed meeting had been fabricated.

Investigators later established that Kenneth Regan, a criminal associate of Chohan, had lured him to the area with a story about a potential buyer for his company.

Regan and William Horncy, another criminal associate, were involved in the plan, while Peter Rees was used to pose as a prospective Dutch buyer.

Chohan was kidnapped and taken away. The motive was not simply to kill him. The gang wanted control of his business and planned to use it as a vehicle for criminal activity, including drug smuggling.

The family disappeared too

Two days after Chohan vanished, Nancy Chohan, their 18-month-old son Devinder, their eight-week-old son Ravinder and Nancy’s mother, Charanjit Kaur, also disappeared from the family’s home in Hounslow.

The scene left behind was deeply unsettling. There were children’s toys in the house and unfinished domestic activities that suggested the family had disappeared suddenly.

Nancy’s brother, Onkar Verma, became concerned because his sister had stopped communicating with him.

His concerns eventually helped push the disappearance into sharper focus.

Meanwhile, documents were being produced that appeared to transfer control of Chohan’s business to Regan.

The investigation would later establish that these documents were part of the conspiracy.

The body that changed everything

For weeks, the case remained a disappearance. Then, on April 22, 2003, Amarjit Chohan’s body was discovered in the sea near Bournemouth Pier.

The discovery transformed the investigation.

Police were no longer looking for a missing businessman. They were investigating murder.

The investigation eventually uncovered evidence that the five family members had been buried on a farm near Tiverton, Devon, before their bodies were later exhumed and taken to the Dorset coast.

The gang had attempted to erase the evidence by dumping the bodies at sea.

Three bodies recovered, two babies never found

The bodies of the three adults were eventually recovered. Amarjit Chohan was found first. Nancy’s body was later recovered from Poole Bay, while Charanjit Kaur’s remains were discovered around the Isle of Wight.

But the two children disappeared into the mystery.

Ravinder was only eight weeks old. His brother Devinder was 18 months old. Their bodies have never been found.

That remains one of the most haunting elements of the case. Evidence recovered from the burial site included fragments associated with the babies, including clothing fasteners, but investigators were unable to recover their remains.

Justice came, but not answers to every question

The investigation eventually led to the prosecution of Regan, Horncy and Rees.

In 2005, Regan and Horncy were convicted of the murders and received whole-life sentences.

Rees was convicted of murdering Amarjit Chohan and other related offences and received a 23-year sentence, while he was cleared of the other four murder charges.

Yet even after the convictions, some questions remained unanswered. The precise causes of death of the victims were not conclusively established, and the remains of the two babies were never recovered.

That means the Chohan family case has never had the kind of final physical closure that usually comes when victims’ remains are found and returned to their families.

Why the case is back in the spotlight

The new On The Case episode, released on September 21, revisits the investigation with former Detective Inspector Tony Bishop, who recalled how the discovery of Chohan’s body changed the direction of the case.

The podcast retraces the conspiracy, the disappearance of the family, the discovery of the bodies, the attempted concealment and the eventual convictions.

But more than 23 years after the murders, one fact still gives the story its disturbing final note: Two children disappeared with their family, and their remains have never been found.

For the Chohan family, the convictions brought justice in court.They did not bring complete closure. ValidViewNetwork reports.

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