Violent crime creeps into every corner of New York City.

Indian prince Chitresh “Teddy” Khedker, 57, and his socialite wife, Nenescha, 70, were found dead in their luxurious apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on April 12, 1993, according to New York Homicide, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.

“There weren’t any gunshots. There weren’t any stab wounds,” former New York City Police Department Detective Marc Slender said in the true crime show’s “Royal Bloodshed” episode. He added that, by then, the victims “were starting to decompose.” 

The housekeeper who discovered the bodies around 11 a.m. that Monday morning informed police that, “Teddy was a prince from India,” Slender said. “The wife came from money as well and was originally from South America.”

Between the royal lineage and the couple’s wealthy Park Ave. address, investigators faced a “high-profile case,” Slender said. 

Before the investigation was resolved, two more murder victims and a horrifying crime scene would be tied to it. 

The crime scene 

Detectives combed through the residence, where a blinking answering machine had several messages from an unidentified woman whose calls to Khedker became increasingly insistent.

“It was apparent to us that she had plans with Teddy that weekend, and he was a no show,” said former New York Assistant District Attorney Douglas Nadjari. 

Police found no forced entry and that the apartment had been ransacked. They considered that a robbery had turned deadly.

According to the building’s doorman, Khedker and his wife had two male visitors who arrived between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday, April 9. 

“They were in the apartment for maybe an hour and a half,” said Slender. “He saw them leave with a couple of bags. Everything just seemed normal.”

The doorman didn’t get a good look at the younger man of he two, but he was able to provide a description of his partner that gave police an early clue. “The police brought in a sketch artist,” said Nadjari.

Police interview victims’ inner circle

Investigators spoke with those in Khedker’s social circle and found that not everything about the Upper East Side prince was exactly as it appeared. 

Khedker passed himself off as a high-flying entrepreneur, but police realized that he had not brokered deals. While he was part of a royal family in India, “they lost that title many years ago,” Slender said.

Nenescha’s friends told police that the couple fought and there were cracks in the marriage. “Interviewing people, you would find out he would go out. She would stay home,” said Slender. “He had late nights. He’d go to clubs.”

Infidelity had become an issue. “They were having marital problems. He was cheating on her because he was younger,” said former New York Daily News reporter Patrice O’Shaughnessy. “He liked younger women.”

Those who knew Nenescha said that she didn’t leave him because she was worried about being alone, according to Slender. 

Clues from autopsy and victims’ answering machine

For both victims, the medical examiner found “telltale signs of asphyxia,” Nadjari said. The couple had been strangled.

Detectives determined that the woman who’d left the frantic messages for Khedker was a downtown performer named Rachel Cain. Detectives sought to find out how the edgy singer got involved with an uptown prince. 

“I think that when he did hear me sing, he was pretty transfixed, and I was very transfixed with him too,” Cain told New York Homicide. “He said, ‘I can make your career. I have the money, I have the contacts, you have the talent, you have the looks.’”

Cain acknowledged that it was very seductive. She said that despite Khedker’s pursuit, she did not have a sexual relationship with him. Investigators were able to clear Cain as a suspect. 

New evidence emerges

A week after the bodies were found, the case was all over the news. The public awareness led to a potential break in the case.

Detectives got a tip that Khedker’s very expensive alligator-skin wallet had turned up in a pawn shop. “A man who was described as a homeless person came in,” O’Shaughnessy said. “He was willing to take $20 for it.” 

When the same man returned to the pawn shop, the store owner told him that the police wanted to speak with him. The witness told detectives that he’d found the wallet near Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side and hocked it. He was eventually cleared as a suspect.

A bombshell break in the case

Three months into the case, progress had stalled. But on July 18, 1993, New York Daily News reporter Dick Sheridan called detectives with a game-changing tip.

Sheridan had been contacted by a man in Reno, Nevada, named George Cobo, 56, who claimed that he was at the scene of the Khedker murders, according to New York Homicide. 

Cobo, who had a criminal record for robbery, said that his partner, Tony Lee Simpson, 21, had murdered the couple in their Park Ave. home. 

“They had a fight in Reno, and that’s one of the reasons that he gave him up,” O’Shaughnessy said. “He thought that Tony would kill him to keep him from talking about the murders.” 

George Cobo and Tony Lee Simpson arrested 

Cobo and Simpson were arrested and brought back to New York. The men each gave police their versions of how the murders went down.

“Cobo knew Teddy for a little while. They met at an auction house,” said Slender. Cobo claimed that he and Simpson went to the Khedker home to steal valuables. 

Cobo blamed Simpson for the murders and stated that, “Tony went out of control… He strangled Teddy. He suffocated Nenescha with a pillow,” according to Slender.

Simpson had a different story. He told detectives that Cobo was the mastermind of the murders. Cobo and Simpson were both charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

George Cobo and Tony Lee Simpson charged with more murders

The Khedker double-homicide took a shocking twist when Cobo revealed to police that he and Simpson were responsible for the June 27, 1993 murders of Milton Setzer, 60, a Broadway musical conductor, and actor Eric Price, 25, UPI reported.

Cobo and Simpson had gone to the men’s Upper West Side apartment to steal valuables under the pretense of buying a piano, and Setzer and Price were attacked. 

“The crime scene was grisly,” said Nadjari. “Their throats had been slit.”

The victims’ loved ones were left reeling. “Our family was changed forever. My mother was never the same after that,” Price’s brother Mark Yablonski told New York Homicide.

Cobo and Simpson were indicted for the Setzer and Price murders. The men were tried separately and convicted in 1994 and 1995. They were sentenced to 25 years to life for each of the four victims.

“George and Tony made the case easier for us in the end,“ said Slender. “They gave their confessions and pointed fingers at each other.”

To learn more about the case, watch the “Royal Bloodshed” episode of New York Homicide, which airs new episodes on Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.