Kozhikode (Kerala): A court here Friday sent alleged serial killer Jolly Thomas and her two accomplices to jail, after the police did not seek further custody of the three accused. All the three were arrested on October 5th and since then they have been in police custody in connection with the case of the murder of her husband Roy Thomas.
According to the police, Jolly has confessed to killing five other members of her family between 2002-16 during her custody. All the three accused will be brought back to the Thamarassery CJM Court on Saturday, as their 14-day custody period ends and their bail applications are also coming up for hearing.
Following her confession in police custody, they have registered five cases of murder against the three accused in connection with the other deaths too.
According to police sources, they are likely to arrest the three accused in the second case – the murder of Sily, the first wife of Jolly’s current husband Shaju.
In a related development, a friend of Jolly, Rani, who was on the run for a while, appeared before the police Friday. Jolly, who claimed she was a lecturer at the NIT Kozhikode became close to Rani, who ran a tailoring shop near the NIT.
Rani has informed the police she had no clue of the murders, and that she only had a business relationship with Jolly. Police sources said, however, that they have not taken Rani’s version at face value and are looking into various angles in the relationship with Jolly.
The first to die an unnatural death was Jolly’s mother-in-law Annamma, a retired teacher in 2002. She was followed by Jolly’s father-in-law, Tom Thomas, in 2008. In 2011, their son and Jolly’s husband, Roy Thomas, died. It was followed by the death of Roy’s maternal uncle, Mathew, in 2014. The two-year-old child of Sily (Shaju’s first wife) died the following year, while Sily passed away in 2016.