In 1999, a bunch of boring, grown-up newspapers reported on the passing of Sitha Vemireddy, an Indian teenager who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a rundown apartment building in Berkeley. But seeing as cautionary tales about building safety codes aren't sexy, the papers quickly moved on. All but one: The Jacket, Berkeley High's paper. Editor Iliana Montauk was puzzled that, despite living in their neighborhood, she had never heard of Vemireddy. She asked Meghan Greenwell, a junior, to look into the story.
Together, working on tips from Indian-American students at their school, the pair uncovered some strange facts about Sitha. For starters, she and her sisters attended none of the schools in their district. Instead they worked full-time in a restaurant owned by Lakireddy Bali Reddy, one of Berkeley's wealthiest businessmen. Also strange: The apartment Sitha lived and died in wasn't the address her supposed parents lived at. Something smelled fishy, and this time it wasn't that weird kid with the fish thing.
State of CaliforniaInstead, it was the weird kid with the $69 million real estate empire.
After barely a week, Greenwell and Montauk had uncovered a sinister evil all the adults in Berkeley had been missing for years. With evidence in hand, they broke the story. The deceased girl (whose real name was Chanti Prattipati) and her sister had been the victims of a human trafficking ring orchestrated by Reddy. For decades, he and his son abused the Indian caste system, returning to their hometown in India to lure low-caste women with promising work in America.