{"id":459791,"date":"2026-09-10T21:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T21:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459791\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T21:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T21:36:13","slug":"woman-charged-with-murdering-two-best-friends-in-violent-streak-in-san-jose-milpitas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/459791\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman charged with murdering two best friends in violent streak in San Jose, Milpitas"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 A South Bay woman has been officially charged with a second murder count that backs suspicions from victim families who believed she killed two of her close friends within hours of each other late last month, strangling and stabbing one in a San Jose home<\/a> then running down the other with her car<\/a> in an alleged ambush in Milpitas.<\/p>\n

\"AnilaAnila Baby is accused of two counts of murder, with both victims being people Baby already knew. Prosecutors say that on Aug. 28. 2026, she ran over a woman in Milpitas, killing her, and also stabbed and strangled another woman in San Jose. (San Jose Police Dept. photo)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anila Baby, 32, of Milpitas, was charged with murder Thursday in the death of Ann Mary Mathew, 39, who was found dead by her husband the afternoon of Aug. 28 at their San Jose home on Linda Vista Street off Toyon Avenue near the San Jose Country Club, according to police and 911 emergency dispatchers.<\/p>\n

Around 1:50 p.m., Mathew was discovered \u201con the ground, in a pool of blood, with a knife next to her,\u201d according to a dispatch recording archived online. A probable cause affidavit from San Jose police states that Mathew had injuries to her head and extremities, \u201cand appeared to be strangled\u201d; the Santa Clara County medical examiner would later conclude that she died from \u201ccombined strangulation \u2026 blunt trauma of head and face; and incised wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Jose police said at the time that homicide detectives determined that Mathew and her presumed attacker knew each other, and Baby was \u201cquickly identified\u201d as a suspect.<\/p>\n

By that point, Baby was already in police custody in Milpitas<\/a>, accused of driving over 35-year-old Anjana Hari at the Mill Creek Apartments on Dixon Landing Road in Milpitas less than two hours before Mathew\u2019s body was found.<\/p>\n

The criminal complaint against Baby has now been amended to reflect two murder counts, and she is being held without bail in the county Main Jail.<\/p>\n

She was arraigned in a San Jose courtroom Thursday afternoon; she did not speak or enter a plea, and was ordered to return to court Nov. 17. Her attorney Shawn George, declined to comment on the case, citing the need to review the allegations and evidence against his client.<\/p>\n

Deputy District Attorney Marisa McKeown said the victims\u2019 families are devastated and struggling to piece together why their loved ones were killed allegedly at the hands of their best friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one question that investigators are working on right now is why would a woman kill her two best friends in the middle of the morning in cold blood?\u201d McKeown said after the court hearing. \u201cBoth women were mothers. They are residents of our community and they and their families are suffering terribly from the ultimate question of why would someone do this?\u201d<\/p>\n

If convicted on the charges as currently filed, Baby would face 50 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n

The new affidavit indicates that the link between the two killings was made primarily from blood, DNA, and physical evidence connecting Baby to both deaths, as well as Mathew\u2019s missing cell phone being found in the defendant\u2019s SUV.<\/p>\n

At Mathew\u2019s San Jose home, homicide detectives found evidence of a struggle \u201cand blood clean up,\u201d and that her phone was gone, according to the affidavit. They also reviewed motion-activated surveillance footage from the home, and found that someone had deleted video clips recorded at 10:37 a.m. and around 11:35 a.m.<\/p>\n

McKeown said Thursday that appears to have been deliberate: \u201cWe do believe that in the course of committing the crime in San Jose that the defendant was involved in potentially attempting to cover up her crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the video clips that remained showed a sandal on a front door mat. Detectives obtained a witness statement attesting that Mathew \u201creceived an unexpected visitor\u201d around the time the first surveillance clip was deleted, and that no one else went to the home until Mathew\u2019s husband found her.<\/p>\n

Additionally, detectives stated that the sandal seen in the video clip matched what Baby was reportedly wearing when she was arrested in Milpitas, and that officers found Mathew\u2019s phone in Baby\u2019s vehicle. Surveillance footage and license-plate reading cameras, as well as Baby\u2019s cell phone signal, all placed her at Mathew\u2019s home around the time she was killed, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Baby and Hari both lived at the Milpitas apartment complex, and public records show Mathew also recently lived there before moving to San Jose. They all hail from the southern Indian state of Kerala, according to media from that region that have been covering the killings. Family and friends have established GoFundMe pages to support the survivors of Mathew<\/a> and Hari<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Around noon on Aug. 28, Milpitas police were called to a collision in the apartment parking lot, with witnesses describing a blue Toyota Highlander SUV fleeing the scene, and hitting three parked vehicles on the way out.<\/p>\n

An affidavit written by Milpitas police detectives stated that responding officers found Hari suffering from \u201csevere head trauma and bleeding,\u201d and she was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

Police then got a report that the SUV drove recklessly past responding patrol vehicles and abruptly pulled into a nearby Walgreens parking lot on North Milpitas Boulevard. Two detectives caught up to the vehicle and arrested Baby, who was incoherent and unable to answer questions, and showing visible injuries and blood on her arms and legs, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The Milpitas investigation confirmed through family members that Baby and Hari were good friends and neighbors at the Mill Creek complex. Witnesses to the deadly collision told police that Hari seemed relaxed and smiling as she approached Baby\u2019s SUV, but that once Hari stepped in front of the vehicle, Baby abruptly accelerated from a dead stop and hit Hari with the SUV\u2019s passenger-side tires before speeding away.<\/p>\n

Another resident of the complex told police they recognized Baby as she drove out of the parking lot and had to move out of the way of her speeding SUV. A Milpitas traffic investigator later found that there were no tire friction or skid marks indicating Baby tried to brake, helping police conclude she intentionally hit Hari.<\/p>\n

McKeown added Thursday that Baby called Hari prior to the fatal encounter.<\/p>\n

In relation to the Milpitas arrest, San Jose police wrote in their affidavit that the injuries and blood on Baby were inconsistent with a collision, and that the amount of blood on her did not match her own injuries, suggesting they were connected to Mathew\u2019s death. They also stated that blood on Baby\u2019s clothing matched Mathew\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 A South Bay woman has been officially charged with a second murder count that backs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[181315,181317,181316,237,10772,7359,134,8477,181318,191,1331,236,88,90,89,1878],"class_list":["post-459791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-anila-baby","tag-anjana-hari","tag-ann-mary-mathew","tag-arrest","tag-charge","tag-district-attorney","tag-homicide","tag-india","tag-kerala","tag-milpitas","tag-murder","tag-police","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-stabbing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}