The Thamarassery Judicial First Class Magistrate, on Thursday, sent Jolly Thomas—the main accused in the notorious Kerala cyanide murders—to police custody till October 16. No one led bail application for Jolly on Thursday. The court rejected bail applications of the other two suspects—Mathew and Prajikumar. The two were also sent to police custody. In the remand request submitted to the court, the police listed Jolly's four murder motives for killing her first husband. These included Roy's alcohol addiction, his belief in superstitions, his questions on Jolly's illicit relationship, and to marry someone with a regular income.
Police said that Jolly Thomas, wife of Roy Thomas who died in 2011 at Koodathayi in Kerala's Kozhikode district, admitted to the murders of 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). Jolly, according to the police, had named two co-conspirators—M.S. Mathew and Praju Kumar. Reportedly, it was Kumar, employed with a jeweller, who procured the cyanide. Goldsmiths use cyanide to extract the yellow metal.
The news hit headlines after eerie similarities between all the six deaths, in a span of 14 years, came to the fore. 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." 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. Each of the murders had different motives. Police said the first victim Annamma Thomas, who was the power centre of the family, was killed to claim her money, while it is suspected that Tom Thomas, the retired government employee, was murdered to get more share of the property.
Now, relatives have also raised doubts over the death of two more youths—Suneesh, 28, and Vincent (Unni, 24)—from the Ponnamattom family. They were the nephews of Tom Thomas, Jolly's father-in-law. Vincent was the son of Tom’s brother Ponnamattom Augustine. He found dead at his house in Kodencherry on August 24, 2002. He was suspected to have killed himself, two days after the death of Tom's wife Annamma. Suneesh was son of Tom’s another brother Dominic. He died in a bike accident near Kuranganpara at Kodencherry around 9pm on January 15, 2008. Relatives had later recovered Suneesh's diary. He scribbled Jolly's name in several pages and also wrote that 'he had been cheated'.
When the Crime Branch section of Kerala police produced the three main accused before the Thamarassery magistrate court, Kumar said that he had fallen into a trap. He claimed he was told that the cyanide would be used to eliminate bandicoot rodents, reported multiple media outlets. He claimed he was completely innocent. Hundreds of curious onlookers assembled to watch the woman who dominated the news cycle.
-Inputs from Onmanorama
