Kozhikode: In a shocking development that may even have its bearing on the trial of the infamous Koodathayi serial murder case, the forensic examination failed to find any trace of cyanide or any other poison in the bodies of four of the victims.
The bodies of Tom Thomas (father of the main accused Jolly Joseph’s first husband), Annamma Thomas (Tom’s wife), Mathew Manchadiyil (Annamma’s brother), and toddler Alphine (daughter of Shaju who is Jolly’s second husband) were earlier exhumed and the remains sent for examination at the Central Forensic Laboratory at Hyderabad.
The investigation team has submitted the shocking forensic examination report before the court.
Out of the six people killed during the period between 2002 and 2014, only the autopsy of Jolly’s first husband, Roy Thomas, was done. The postmortem revealed the presence of cyanide as the reason for his death.
Though the remains of the bodies of five others were examined at Kozhikode Regional Chemical Laboratory in January 2020, the cyanide presence was found only in the body of Sily, the first wife of Jolly’s second husband, Shaju.
It was then that the samples collected from the bodies of the four others were sent to the Central Forensic Laboratory in Hyderabad. As per the case charge sheet, the main accused Jolly murdered Annamma Thomas by lacing ‘dog kill’ poison in her food and the others by giving them cyanide.
It was while forging a duplicate will with the aim of snatching all the family property of her husband Roy and the complaints filed therein that led to the unravelling of the shocking murders, which otherwise were considered normal deaths. According to the charge sheet, Jolly Thomas, daughter-in-law of the Ponnamattom family, killed the six people to gain ancestral property. Their deaths happened in the period between 2002 to 2014.
The first murder happened in 2002. Annamma Thomas collapsed to her death after having mutton soup. Six years later, Annamma's husband Tom Thomas, and three years later their son Roy Thomas, died in a similar fashion. The fourth death was that of M.M. Mathew, brother of Annamma Mathew. The very next month, Alphine, the one-year-old daughter of Shaju, died. In 2016, Sily, the wife of Shaju, too breathed her last.
Among these, it was the death of Roy Thomas that raised doubts of foul play. The presence of cyanide was confirmed in the post-mortem report. Until then, it was considered a case of suicide. Later, it became clear that Jolly was deliberately attempting to paint Roy's death as a case of suicide. The complaint regarding the fraudulent will, furnished by Rojo Thomas, brother of Roy, and submitted to the Vadakara Rural SP, led to the unravelling of the murder series.
After a three-month-long investigation led by then Rural SP K.G. Simon, the bodies of the victims were exhumed by breaking open the grave in 2019. Jolly was arrested on the very next day. M S Mathew, Jolly's friend who procured the cyanide for her, and Prijukumar, a goldsmith who gave the cyanide to Mathew, were also arrested.
The first accused Jolly and the second accused M S Mathew are currently in jail. A charge sheet has been submitted in all six cases. Five of them state that the deaths occurred due to the intake of cyanide. The discovery of cyanide in the internal organs of Sily happened after the charge sheet was submitted. The traces of cyanide were initially found in the body of Roy Thomas. Now, the test results of the internal organs of the remaining four persons have come out.
