NEW DELHI — In the middle of last week, with the arrest of the former media executive Indrani Mukerjea on suspicion of involvement in her daughter’s death, India’s crime reporters embarked on their latest bender.

The coverage spun out in cinematic curlicues, painting a portrait of Ms. Mukerjea as a social-climbing, thrice-married, ambition-crazed seductress. Reporters called her the “ ‘Gone Girl’ of India,” the “Great Gatsby of Mumbai,” the “Desi Don Draper” and the “Siren of Guwahati.” On Aug. 28, editions of The Times of India contained 12 articles on the case, which has since been awarded its own rubric, “Murder in the Family,” as if it were an outbreak of war.

As is common in such cases here, the news coverage was eye-popping, animated by copious unattributed leaks from police officials. A “former employee” who was granted anonymity told The Times of India that “there was something diabolical” in Ms. Mukerjea’s eyes. A man who dated Ms. Mukerjea for three months in college — in 1986 — was granted anonymity by The Pioneer, another daily newspaper, in return for an interview in which he described her as ambitious and calculating.

In this orgy of incrimination, you would have to be observing closely to notice what was largely absent: forensic evidence. The victim, Sheena Bora, disappeared in 2012, and only last week did the police exhume parts of a skeleton from a forest and send it to a laboratory, hoping for enough DNA to prove that it is Ms. Bora’s body. The case against Ms. Mukerjea seems to be based largely on two confessions, both of which were given in police custody and under Indian law would not be admissible in court.