Six members of a woman's family, including a two-year-old girl, died under mysterious circumstances in Kerala's Kozhikode over a span of 14 years. Read on to know how the case unfolds
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Kozhikode: In a spine-chilling case of the mysterious deaths of six people of a family between 2002 and 2016, the Kerala police on Saturday arrested three people including a family member Jolly.
Speaking to the media, Superintendent of Police K. G. Simon who led the investigation, said that he took over the probe based on a complaint which he received two months back and on Saturday in one case - death of Roy Thomas - three people have been arrested, which includes 47-year-old Jolly, then wife of Roy Thomas. She is allegedly involved in the death of the other five also.
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"Incidentally, in the death of all the six, presence of cyanide has been found, but that will now have to be proved scientifically. Apart from Jolly, her friend M. C. Mathew who was the one who gave her cyanide which he got from another person named Praju Kumar, are the other two that have been arrested," said Simon.
On Friday, the police exhumed all the bodies for a scientific probe. The police dug in the cemeteries at two churches near here to take samples for conducting scientific tests.
The deaths occurred in the family of retired government official Tom Thomas. The first to die was his wife, retired teacher Annamma in 2002, followed by Thomas in 2008. Then in 2011, their son Roy Thomas died, followed by the death of his maternal uncle Mathew in 2014.
Then the next year, the two-year-old child of Sily, a relative by marriage of the family, died and in 2016, Sily also passed away. The police began the probe after Rojo, the son of the couple and settled in the US, filed a complaint.
According to the police, with the case now cracked and Jolly admitting to the crime, the police is contemplating to bunch all the five deaths as one case for investigation. But, Shaju, Jolly's present husband and her father, however have given a clean chit to her saying they will not believe that she has done this.
"The reason behind the crime is not just the property dispute, as there are other issues also and every aspect will be tracked down, as our probe will be covering everything," added Simon.
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