‘Jolly by day, killer by night’: It was a good run for Kerala cyanide killer

All the six mysterious deaths took place in the family of retired government official Tom Thomas, the father of Jolly’s first husband Roy Thomas.

Probe into six deaths in one family has now revealed accused cyanide killer Jolly Amma Joseph was leading a ‘jolly’ good life, with booze, extra marital affairs and real estate deals. Her journey came to an abrupt end, just when she was planning to get married for the third time.

Jolly Joseph is accused of killing six members of her extended family between 2002 and 2016 in Kerala’s Kozhikode. (HT Photo)

With Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra admitting that the curious case of Jolly is a challenging one, it has now come to light that “jolly by day, killer by night” has confessed to having eliminated all six member in her family including her husband.

Her wayward lifestyle was in no way in tune with the copybook Kerala home maker, and it began right from her college days.

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The highlight of it was when she managed to camouflage everything, till last month, when the Crime Branch busted her strong defence, after she came under the scanner and finally succumbed.

The juicy stories of how she did it all are now out in the open.

All the six mysterious deaths took place in the family of retired government official Tom Thomas, the father of Jolly’s first husband Roy Thomas.

Police probe has concluded a single person linking all six deaths -- the 47-year old Jolly.

Saturday morning Behra admitted that the case of the cyanide serial killer Jolly is a very challenging one, as there is a gap of 14 years between the first and the sixth alleged killing.

It was during the lengthy questioning that the other side of Jolly’s life’ came out, that she used to consume liquor and to eliminate Roy’s maternal uncle, Mathew, who died in 2014, she had a drink with him the previous night.

Next day, she used the remaining liquor, which she mixed with cyanide and gave it to him and he passed away immediately.

Jolly has admitted to the police that two days after her husband died, she had made a pleasure trip to Coimbatore with her friend and BSNL employee Johnson and a police team has already reached Coimbatore as part of evidence collection.

Jolly further revealed that after she married Shaju Zachariah in 2017, after eliminating his wife Sily and their child, she made a failed attempt to finish Shaju with an intention to marry Johnson.

Here too came another shocker, when she admitted that there was a failed attempt to finish off Johnson’s wife when cyanide was mixed in her food, when they all went for a pleasure trip, but for some reason his wife did not take the food.

Also revealed was her real estate deals and she used to do it on her own, even when she was the wife of Roy Thomas.

The police team has now begun a detailed probe on her role which she portrayed very cleverly when she claimed that she was a lecturer at NIT Kozhikode and every day used to leave her home to the college.

The police are looking into the activities that took place at a flat near NIT, where she used to often frequent.

And now with Behra having expressed extreme confidence in the way the police probe team has busted the case, her counsel B. A. Aloor is supremely confident that these mere statements won’t be enough when the case comes up before the court, it will only look into evidences and not confessions, hence the coming days will be crucial not just for Jolly, but the police too.

The first in the family to die in 2002 was Jolly’s mother-in-law Annamma, a retired teacher. She was followed by Jolly’s father-in-law, Tom Thomas, in 2008. In 2011, their son and Jolly’s husband, Roy Thomas, also died to be followed by the death of Roy’s maternal uncle, Mathew, who died in 2014.

The two-year-old child of Sily, a relative by marriage, died the following year, while Sily passed away in 2016.