Kozhikode: Jolly Joseph, the prime accused in the Koodathayi serial murder, is trying to influence witnesses by using phone from the jail, according to a complaint.
Jolly has been using mobile phone in the jail to call the main witness in the case, her elder son. Hence, the complaint lodged by the relatives of the victims should be looked into, north zone IG Ashok Yadav has told prison DIG Rishiraj Singh..
Jolly has been using the phone allowed for prisoners in the presence of officials, the district jail superintended said. The phone uses a SIM card and it, therefore, shows 10 digits. This is the reason for the misconception that Jolly is using a mobile phone, he said.
Based on the complaint, IG Ashok Yadav spoke to Jolly’s son directly and also examined the voice records. He found that Jolly had called her son four times, with some calls extending up to 20 minutes.
Jolly is using a mobile phone in the jail and there is a possibility of her contacting other witnesses, too, the IG’s report said.
Jolly is accused of killing six members of her husband's family over a period of 14 years in Koodathayi in Kozhikode district. She killed them by giving them food or drink that was laced with cyanide, the police said.
According to the police, she killed Annamma Thomas, her mother-in-law, in 2002; Tom Thomas, her father-in-law, in 2008; her husband Roy Thomas in 2011; Mathew Manjayadil, Roy's maternal uncle, and Alphine, two-year-old daughter of Roy’s cousin Shaju, in 2014; and Sily, Shaju’s wife, in 2016.
The police reopened Roy’s case and also decided to reinvestigate the other five cases after his brother Rojo, who lives in the US, filed a complaint.
Jolly was arrested on October 5.
In 2017, Jolly married Shaju, a teacher. She was attracted to his calm demeanour, the police said. That is why she killed Alphine and Sily, they said.
The police said Jolly got the cyanide from M S Mathew, who was a relative of Roy, and a goldsmith Prajikumar. They had also arrested a jewellery employee for providing Jolly cyanide.
Jolly told people that she was a lecturer at the National Institute of Technology, Kozhikode. She even forged the NIT’s ID card, the police said.
