chennai upset over business loss and unable to repay the diwali chit fund money to depositors an elderly woman and her son allegedly hanged themselves to death in korattur on friday night the duo poisoned their dog before ending their lives police identified the victims as amala john 60 and joshua john 29 residents of vanchi nagar korattur amala was living with her son after separating from her husband two years ago her husband works as a security guard on montieth road egmore the motherson duo ran a chit fund for diwali in the locality and promised to give the depositors their money back with interest joshua however lost the money in the share market and was unable to recover the loss they were supposed to pay the depositors on sunday ahead of diwali on tuesday they feared that they might be targeted by the depositors and decided to end their lives said an investigating officerjoshua has left behind a suicide note in which he stated that the dog was poisoned because he feared that no one else would take care of it he also asked the forgiveness of the 274 depositors who were part of the chit fundthe incident came to light when neighbour sophia noticed that the house was shut for two days and did not see amala stepping out of the house on saturday morning she rang the door bell but didnt get a response amala would usually wake up early to feed her dog and would chat with her neighbours but amala stayed indoors since wednesday and had told the neighbours that she was unwell and did not interact with anyone when sophia looked in through the window she found their bodies hanging from two ceiling fans and their dog dead she immediately alerted the police police sent the bodies to government kilpauk hospital for post mortem if in distress or having suicidal thoughts call 104 for the health departments helpline that offers counselling or 044 24640050 for sneha suicide helpline