A day after the dead bodies of six members of a family were exhumed from their graves in Kerala, the police have taken four people into custody for questioning.
Six members of a family from Koodathai of Kozhikode district, including retired educational department officer Tom Jose, his wife and retired teacher Annamma, their son Roy Thomas and three other relatives died between 2002 and 2016. Now, the Crime Branch team has taken Roy’s ex-wife Jolly into custody. Shaju, her current husband and Tom Jose's nephew, was also questioned by the police.
According to reports, another man, who works in a jewellery store, too, is being questioned. The police are questioning the man to find out if he had supplied poison.
As of now, there is no hard evidence to link the six deaths, and the investigating team has taken the persons concerned into questioning to find out if there's a connection or if the deaths were coincidental.
Here’s a timeline of the six deaths:
56-year-old Annamma, Tom Jose’s wife, died in 2002. She is believed to have had a bowl of mutton soup and passed away subsequently.
Tom Jose (66) died six years later, in 2008. He’s said to have eaten a tapioca dish and then collapsed vomiting. Both died before being taken to the hospital.
Roy Thomas, son of Annamma and Tom Jose, died in 2011 and was survived by his wife Jolly. The suspicion of the relatives intensified when cyanide was found in his body. However, his wife Jolly claimed that he had financial issues and may have killed himself. A case of suspicious death was filed.
In the same year, another person related to Tom Jose passed away, this time a child. His nephew Shaju's baby Alphine died. Shaju was the son of Tom Jose's brother Zacharias. The child had choked and according to relatives, she had had an epileptic attack.
In 2016, Shaju’s wife Cily passed away. Cily had gone with Shaju for a dentist’s appointment when she suddenly died. Jolly is believed to have been with them.
In 2017, after all the deaths, Shaju and Jolly got married. This made people all the more suspicious that the deaths were not natural or accidental.
The case is currently being investigated by the Crime Branch following a complaint from Roy’s brother Rojo, who is based in the United States. According to reports, the complainant alleged that relatives were trying to grab Tom Jose’s property.
Vadakara Rural SP KG Simon told the media that all the deceased had consumed food prior to their death and that this could have been a case of slow poisoning. He made it clear that the investigation team had reasonable doubt in the case which led them to exhume the mortal remains.
The mortal remains of Tom Jose, Annamma, their son Roy Thomas and Annamma’s brother Mathew Manjadiyil, were exhumed from Koodathayi St Mary’s Church cemetery. Cily and her 10-month-old child Alphine had been buried at the Kodenchery church cemetery and their bodies were exhumed from there. With police suspecting the usage of arsenic or cyanide, tests will be done on their remains to find traces of poison.
According to reports, post-mortem was done only on Roy Thomas’s body at the time of death. Though Malayalam media reports said that the post-mortem had revealed traces of poison, at the time of death, it had been categorised as suicide. Roy Thomas’s body was found in a bathroom which had been locked from the inside.
"Jolly is in the police station now. Her husband Shaju and Annamma’s brother Zacharias too are being questioned. We had questioned her earlier. We cannot reveal anything more for the time being," a police officer in the investigating team told TNM.