A Forsyth County man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty for the second time of shooting and killing his father.
Rajeev Kumaraswamy, 29, was found guilty of malice murder and aggravated assault in the 2021 shooting death of Sadashivia Kumaraswamy. Superior Court Judge Philip Smith sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole.
According to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, a Forsyth County jury deliberated for only 30 minutes on Wednesday before returning a guilty verdict.
Deputies responded to a home on Homestead Ridge Drive on July 23, 2021, and found Sadashivia Kumaraswamy with gunshot wounds. Investigators said the two got into an argument, before the son retrieved a gun from his room and shot his father several times.
After being arrested, he was appointed two attorneys by the court, but he later decided to hire his own attorney. Rajeev Kumaraswamy later entered a guilty plea in June 2024 for malice murder and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
He then filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, alleging ineffective counsel and his attorney withdrew from the case, which resulted in the court assigning him his original attorneys to the case, Forsyth County prosecutor Richard Vandever said.
In October 2024, Smith granted the motion to withdraw the plea, and ordered the guilty plea entered in June 2024 to be withdrawn and the sentence to be vacated before placing the case back on the trial docket.
Following the jury verdict, his attorneys filed a motion for a new trial.
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