The Kerala woman, who was arrested in connection with the murder of six members of her family, has admitted to killing her husband Roy Thomas, the police said.
Jolly Thomas, wife of Roy Thomas who died in 2011 at Koodathayi in Kerala's Kozhikode district, was questioned by the police in connection with the suspected murders. The news hit headlines after eerie similarities between all the six deaths, in a span of 14 years, came to the fore. Retired educational department officer P. Tom Thomas (66) his wife Annamma (57) son Roy Thomas (40) wife of Tom Thomas's brother's son Shaju Skaria, Sily Shaju (44) her two-year-old daughter Alphine, and Annamma's brother Mathew Manjadiyil (68) had died under mysterious circumstances during the period from 2002 to 2016.
Kozhikode rural superintendent of police K.G. Simon told reporters that Jolly was arrested in connection with the murder of her husband Roy, with whom she did not have a good relationship. The accused admitted to the police that she poisoned her husband.
In all the cases, traces of cyanide had been found and it had been a case of slow poisoning, police said. "We found that the Roy's death had occurred due to cyanide, while the wife had claimed he had died of cardiac arrest."
Each of the murders had different motives. Police said Annamma Thomas, who was the power centre of the family, was killed to claim her money, while it is suspected that Tom Thomas, a retired government employee, was murdered to get more share of the property.
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Roy was killed as the accused was not getting along well with her husband.
Annamma's brother Mathew had insisted on postmortem of Roy, due to which he was killed, police said, addingthat Sily and her one-year-old daughter were also killed in similar circumstances.
However, the police said there were contradictions in the reasons she offered for killing Sily and her daughter Alphine.
Foul play was suspected in the deaths after a part of the family property was allegedly grabbed by Jolly, fabricating fake will documents. The case came to light after Tom's second son and Roy's brother Rojo, who is settled in the USA, filed a complaint alleging foul play in the deaths, after Jolly secured the property.
The probe team, on Friday, exhumed all the bodies for a re-examination to confirm whether they were poisoned.
After the death of her relatives, Jolly allegedly tried to fabricate a fake will and take over the property. This prompted the police to make inquiries. Jolly was asked to undergo a lie-detector test which she refused, forcing the cops to exhume the bodies to collect evidence.
Two others, identified as Mathew and Praju Kumar, who supplied cyanide to Jolly were also arrested.
(With PTI inputs)