Bhubaneswar: Kerala housewife Jolly Joseph murdering six of her family members is taking the internet by storm. There’s more development in the murder case as Jolly’s second husband Shaju Zacharia was taken into police custody following interrogation.
Forty-four-year-old Shaju was called for interrogation by Police Monday morning and the crime branch took him in custody after his statements were found to be contradictory.
School teacher Shaju had earlier told police that he wasn’t aware of the circumstances surrounding his former wife and child’s deaths. He said he never suspected Jolly could be the mastermind of the mysterious deaths.
But Shaju’s statement was contradicted by Jolly, who told police that she revealed everything to Shaju before marrying him. She had told him that she orchestrated all the murders by poisoning them in order to marry Shaju.
Jolly had murdered her ex-husband Roy Thomas and Shaju’s wife Sily and got married in 2017. Shaju is Roy Thomas’ — Jolly’s ex-husband — cousin.
Earlier during initial investigations, Shaju and his father told police that they no inkling of the mysterious deaths in the Thomas family.
Now, Shaju’s father is next in line for the police to question.
Police found that soon after Jolly’s arrest, Shaju vacated his house and shifted his belongings, including the computer to another destination. Police suspect that he was trying to destroy evidence that proves his prior knowledge about the serial killings.
Earlier, Kerala Police Saturday arrested Jolly Thomas in connection with inexplicable death of her husband Roy Thomas and five other family members in a fairly long span of 14 years. The startling fact that came to light is all the deaths were due to cyanide poisoning.
The mysterious deaths took place in retired government official Tom Thomas’ family alone. The first one to be eliminated was in 2002, when Jolly’s mother-in-law Annamma, a retired teacher died. Jolly’s father-in-law Tom Thomas was the next six years later. In 2011, Jolly’s husband Roy Thomas died too.
The saga never stopped. Mathew Thomas (Annamma’s brother) was also murdered in 2014 as he apparently demanded for autopsy for one of the deaths.
The very next year, two-year-old child of Sily (named Alphonsa) — a relative by marriage — died following a cardiac arrest. In 2016, Sily also passed away.
Meanwhile, Jolly got married to Sili’s widower Shaju and claimed ownership of the family property coupled with support of the last will prepared by Tom, her father-in-law.
Suspecting some foul play, Mojo (Tom’s younger son who lives in the US) challenged the family property’s ownership transfer. Mojo lodged complaints with the Crime Branch highlighting the serial deaths in the family.
Once convinced with Rojo’s logic, the police exhumed the mortal remains of the deceased from graves and got forensic examination done. The initial reports indicated to poisoning.
Getting down to business, police quizzed Shaju and Jolly as many as eight times and found discrepancies in their statements. Further investigations revealed Jolly’s presence was found on all six locations where deaths took place. On being asked to go for polygraph test, Jolly refused it on health grounds.
According to police, Jolly’s first lie was detected when she said she was an engineering graduate — teaching at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) — while actually being a commerce graduate.
On call details verification, Police also found that Jolly was in constant touch with Shaju in odd hours.
On the other hand, forensic experts found the presence of cyanide in the bodies that were exhumed. It was a case of slow poisoning, police said. “We found that Roy’s death had occurred due to cyanide, while the wife had claimed he had died of cardiac arrest,” police officers said.
Two more accused — MS Matthew and Prajikumar — were arrested by Kerala Police for their alleged complicity in the chilling crime. The two share employer-employee relationship with Matthew being the owner of a jewellery store. They were known to Jolly for long time. Prajikumar is believed to have supplied cyanide to Jolly.
Investigations revealed meticulous planning and execution by the 47-year-old housewife. Murders may not be restricted only to the Thomas family, according to the Kerala Director General of Police (DGP) Lok Nath Behera.
Refusing to comment on the whole story behind the murders, police said it’s a complex case to handle. “It’s too early to comment on the entire dynamics of the crime carried out by Jolly and her aides. Though it’s a complex case to investigate, I don’t rule out more such killings executed by them,” Behera was quoted as saying by IANS.
“We are following certain leads and gathering information on previous linkages of Jolly to ascertain her criminal profile. At this moment, I can only say the police have done a great job to unravel the killings, which could have gone unnoticed,” Behera said.
Thomas’ NRI brother Rojo, was believed to be next in line for elimination. Since he was in abroad, the accused remained out of reach.
