Between 2002 and 2016, six members of the family passed away and Jolly Amma Joseph was the only common thread.
It started in 2002 when 57-year-old Annamma Thomas collapsed and died just after finishing her meal. Her husband Tom Thomas also passed away under similar circumstances in 2008. Three years later in 2011, their son Roy Thomas died. In 2014, Annamma's brother Mathew also breathed his last.
Two relatives of the family – Sili and her one-year-old daughter – died in 2016.
Between 2002 to 2016, six members of the family passed away.
Seventeen years after the first suspicious death in the family, Jolly Amma Joseph, the daughter-in-law of Annamma and wife of Roy Thomas, was arrested by Kozhikode police on Saturday.
Two others were also arrested for supplying cyanide to Jolly.
While police said the three arrests were made in connection with the death of Jolly's husband Roy, they were also investigating deaths of five other members of the family.
While Jolly, who laced the food of her husband with cyanide, is the prime accused, her close friend MS Mathew (44) and Prajikumar (48), who had allegedly supplied the poison, are her alleged accomplices.
Prajikumar allegedly gave the cyanide to Mathew who handed it over to Jolly.
According to a report in ANI, Jolly came under the scanner after a complaint was filed against her by one of her in-laws.
Pursuant to the complaint, the remains of all the six members were exhumed on Friday and re-postmortem was conducted. While detailed forensic reports were awaited, police said traces of cyanide had been found in all the cases.
“We found that Roy’s death had occurred due to cyanide, while the wife had claimed he had died of cardiac arrest,” said Kozhikode Superintendent of Police (SP) KG Simon.
As the cops felt that the case had to be re-investigated, they found out that six people had died in somewhat similar circumstances between 2002 and 2016.
They found out that there was a pattern in all the deaths and Jolly was a common thread as she was present on all six occasions.
"She was present at every place where the death took place," Simon said.
Police suspect that the motive of the alleged murders was property.
"She had also forged some documents to get the properties in her favour," said Simon.
According to a report in PTI, police suspect that Annamma and her husband Tom were killed to get properties but Roy was killed after his relationship with Jolly deteriorated.
Annamma’s brother Mathew was killed as he had insisted on postmortem of Roy. The police, however, did not say why Sili and her one-year-old daughter were killed.
Jolly had married Sili's husband after her death.
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