Kozhikode (Kerala): Kerala State Police chief Loknath Behra on Saturday admitted that Koodathayi serial murder case, where a woman allegedly eliminated six of her relatives using cyanide, is going to be very challenging. He was quick enough to add that nothing is impossible in the investigation.
After lengthy meetings with the police probe team investigating the murder trial in the family of the accused serial killer, Behra said: "This is a challenging case. I have come here, as this is an important case."
Kerala cyanide killer case is very challenging: Top cop Behra The DGP said that the preliminary investigation by the special team was excellent as they detected the case. There were no complaints about the murders and later, based on one complaint, the special team unravelled the case.
"After the detection of the case comes the challenge of collecting the evidences which have to be produced before the court," he said.
They would take the help of the experts. Some tests could be done in Kerala, some could be done in Chandigarh, Hyderabad or in America. "We are for that," he quipped.
The mammoth challenge before the police is collecting evidence for the murders which happened over a period of 14 years from 2002 to 2016.
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.
It was only on Friday that the police registered five more separate cases of murder.
It was on Thursday, a lower court here remanded Jolly and her two accomplices -- M S Mathew, who procured cyanide, and jewellery store worker Praji Kumar -- to six-day police custody for the murder of Jolly's husband Roy Thomas.
On Friday, all the three accused were taken to six places as part of evidence collection. It was part of the investigation into the death of Jolly's first husband Roy Thomas.
It was only after Roy Thomas's brother, Rojo Thomas filed a complaint with Kozhikode Rural Police two-and-half months ago, about the mysterious deaths in his family, a special team was formed to probe the murders.
The noose started tightening around Jolly after the special team unravelled the bluffs of the woman like she was staffer of NIT Calicut and she finally ended up confessing the crime.
In six murders, postmortem was conducted only on Roy Thomas. Intriguingly, the postmortem did reveal traces of cyanide. But police meekly bought the explanation of Jolly that her husband was in financial trouble and killed himself.
Police failed to ask the question, how 'cyanide' - not so common poison - was involved in the death of Roy. It is believed that the fourth victim, Mathew apparently started questioning this more than the police before Jolly allegedly decided to shut him up permanently with the same cyanide.
It is now left to see how Kerala police, with its chief already conceding to the challenge in the case, is going to collect all the forensic and material evidences to prove Jolly guilty before the court finds otherwise.
Also read:Kerala: Jolly confesses to poisoning five out of six family members
