- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
(CNN) - For years, Jolly Joseph talked about how his house was cursed, according to neighbors.
His mother-in-law apparently died of a mysterious disease. At least three of her close relatives suffered fatal heart attacks, and her two-year-old niece was drowned with a piece of food.
In October, however, the Indian police presented a different theory and no curse was mentioned. Instead, presumably, Joseph had poisoned them all, one by one, and then covered up his crimes with lies that so far begin to unravel.
Her full name is Joliyamma, but people call her Jolly for short. She lived in a pastel pink three-story house in Koodathai, a small town with only 12,000 inhabitants in the Kozhikode district of Kerala state in southern India.
Jolly Joseph confessed to killing his relatives, but has not been convicted.
A 47-year-old mother of two children, she seemed an honest citizen, neighbors say. Every day, she left her home and told people she was going to work as a professor at the prestigious University of Calicut National Institute of Technology (NIT), half an hour away, according to police. He wore a clean sari, and in his spare time he regularly went to church and helped his neighbors when they were sick.
"Jolly seemed like a perfect woman to us," said Saidu NK, 30, who lived next to Joseph for more than two decades and who, like other South Indians, uses an abbreviation as a surname.
"We never had a doubt about Jolly until the recent turn of events," said another neighbor whose name CNN agreed not to publish, because she fears repercussions from other residents for talking about the case, a very sensitive issue in Koodathai.
A pastel pink house with a dark secret
When Joseph moved to the area, she seemed friendly and kind, according to her neighbors.
It was 1997 and Joseph had just married Roy Thomas, an unemployed son of a popular local couple, neighbors said. He moved to Thomas's family home, a spacious property with an iron fence that stood out among the lush vegetation around Koodathai. A small plaque on the door is named "Tom Thomas", the father of Roy Thomas.
Jolly Joseph's house in Koodathai.
Joseph often talked with Saidu's family while hanging clothes on the balcony, which was lined with white railings. "She was very talkative and polite," she said.
"Jolly was very loving," said the neighbor that CNN agreed not to identify. "She was here if we needed anything or if someone got sick."
In the predominantly Muslim city, Joseph and her husband's family were some of the few Christians, according to Mohammed Bava, 37, who lived next door and attended Roy Thomas and Joseph's wedding. She was a regular parishioner, Bava said.
The couple had been married for five years when the tragedy occurred.
In 2002, Roy Thomas's mother, Annamma Thomas, 57, died in unexplained circumstances, but because he had health problems, his death was not considered suspicious and there was no autopsy. In India, autopsies are only necessary if death is not natural or suspicious. They may be requested by the family of the deceased, but some Indians are reluctant to do so due to the cultural belief that autopsies are a desecration of the body.
After the death of Annamma Thomas, the mood changed, said Bava, who by that time was so close to the Thomas family that they occasionally prepared an extra plate for him to eat something after arriving from work. “There was no joy in the house that used to be when (Annamma Thomas) was alive,” said Bava.
In 2008, Bava recalled hearing someone who was suffering violently in the house next door. He said Joseph called him and calmly told him that Roy Thomas' father, Tom Thomas, 66, was not well. When Bava arrived there, he reported that he found Tom Thomas lying on his back, with foam in his mouth. Bava took him to the hospital where doctors declared him dead by a heart attack. According to Bava, Roy Thomas and Joseph inherited the property in the will of Tom Thomas. However, police investigations found that, at the time of the death of Elder Thomas, all of his assets had been transferred to Joseph.
Three years later, Roy Thomas, 40, was also dead. Again, Joseph called Bava, who said he found the man lying on the bathroom floor, and that foam was coming out of his mouth. This time, Roy Thomas's uncle, Mathew Manjadiyil, insisted that Joseph's husband needed an autopsy and took him to the hospital. The autopsy revealed that Roy Thomas had died after consuming cyanide, a chemical commonly used in mining and jewelry making that can be fatal in high doses. The police described him as suicide and did not investigate further, according to Bava. But again, Joseph told others, including Bava, that it was a heart attack. "It is a fact that the investigations at that time were not to try to find out where he received the cyanide," Kozhikhode District Police Superintendent KG Simon said at a press conference in October.
After that, according to neighbors, Joseph moved further away from the community. "She was no longer as friendly or close, but we didn't really care, because we knew she was a woman and a widow," said Biju Mon, who used to transport Joseph and Roy Thomas' eldest son to school.
Saidu NK, a neighbor of Jolly Joseph, at his home in Koodathai on October 25, 2019.
But the deaths continued. In 2014, Roy Thomas's uncle, Mathew Manjadiyil, 67, died in the presence of Joseph, another heart attack said the woman, according to Bava. That same year, Alphine, Roy Thomas's two-year-old daughter Shaju Sakhariyas, died after allegedly choking on food at a christening ceremony. Then, in 2016, the wife of Sakhariyas, 43, named Sili, also died.
In 2017, a year after Sili Sakhariyas's death, Joseph remarried. Her new husband was Shaju Sakhariyas, widower of Sili Sakhariyas.
Raising suspicions
By the time he remarried, people close to Joseph began to suspect that something was wrong.
After the death of Joseph's first husband in 2011, Bava said he saw a new version of Tom Thomas's will, which said the family home should be transferred to Joseph. Suspecting the change of will, Roy Thomas's brother, Red Thomas, began looking for people who had witnessed, Bava said. Rojo Thomas told Bava that, in the course of his investigations, he discovered that Joseph was not working at the NIT as she had claimed.
“The whole family attacked him. They were not ready to believe in Red, ”said Bava. “Such was the influence and image that Jolly had in the family; everyone thought that Red Thomas was saying that because he had an eye on the house and property. ”
For 2017, Bava also had doubts.
Rojo asked Roy Thomas for a copy of the autopsy and found a discrepancy in Joseph's story, Bava says. Joseph had told Bava that he was preparing her husband an omelet for dinner when he suddenly ran to the bathroom and collapsed. But according to the post mortem report that Red Thomas shared with Bava, Roy Thomas had eaten a dinner of rice and chickpea curry the night he died. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the autopsy content.
When Red Thomas confronted Joseph about the inconsistencies, she stuck to her original story, Bava said. The men began to suspect more.
Then, Bava, Red Thomas and Red's sister, Ranji Thomas, began to closely observe all the deaths. In each case, they found a common bond: Joseph had been present.
Earlier this year they complained to the district police, who referred their complaint to the Thamarassery police station in nearby Kozhikode. However, Bava says they were told there was nothing to investigate because the autopsy mentioned suicide as the cause of Roy Thomas's death. They complained again to the Kozhikode police criminal unit, and this time, the police accepted that there was a possible criminal case.
Mohammed Bava, another neighbor of the alleged murderer, photographed in Koodathai on October 25, 2019.
Jolly's story begins to falter
Police said they began investigating in August and soon found inconsistencies in Joseph's stories.
Like Rojo Thomas, the police found that Joseph was not really a NIT university professor as she had argued. Although he had a university card, the police revealed that he had pretended his role as a teacher to obtain people's respect. The NIT registration officer, Pankajakshan K, confirmed to CNN that Joseph had never worked there, although police investigations indicated that she sometimes went to campus and bought tea in the cafeteria.
However, that was not the only strange thing that police said they had discovered about Joseph.
They thought it was strange that she told people that Roy Thomas had died of a heart attack, when he knew the cause was cyanide suicide. In total, the authorities found about 50 discrepancies between their statements to the police and other evidence.
Since no autopsy had been performed except for Roy Thomas, the police ordered that the bodies be exhumed and examined.
After two months of analyzing the evidence, the Indian police were ready to inform the public. At a press conference on October 5, crowded with a local press, Kozhikhode District Police Superintendent KG Simon announced a significant advance.
Joseph confessed to killing the six family members, Simon said, adding that he had poisoned them with cyanide to gain control of the family's assets and then marry the man he was targeting.
Police said Joseph poisoned his in-laws to take over the house, and when his marriage to Roy Thomas got worse, he killed him. Then, he allegedly murdered Manjadiyil, her husband's uncle, who had insisted that Roy Thomas needed an autopsy, mixing poison in an alcoholic beverage, police documents show. He allegedly killed Sili Sakhariyas and his daughter Alphine by poisoning their water and food, respectively, to approach Shaju Sakhariyas. "Jolly told many people that he wanted a husband like Shaju," Simon said.
According to police documents, Joseph was arrested for the alleged murder of Manjadiyil, Alphine and his father-in-law, Tom Thomas. The arrest came weeks before a man in another part of India was arrested after allegedly confessing to the murder of 10 people by giving them religious offerings or cyanide medications to steal their money, gold or silver.
Jolly's other face
Not many things happen in Koodathai. The town is so green that it looks like it could be swallowed by the manigua and it smells like damp earth. Stray dogs roam the main street smelling waste. In general, people know what their neighbors do.
But now, people wonder what they really knew about Joseph.
Surroundings of Koodathai, India, October 24, 2019.
"It's no small thing to be able to fool people with the false identity of an NIT teacher for 14 years," said Simon.
For their part, the neighbors said they saw other things that seemed to contradict Joseph's perfect image.
Although several people told CNN that Joseph regularly went to the local Lourdes Matha church, Reverend Joseph Kizhakkepurakkal questioned him. “He is not even a member of this diocese. He came here after getting married, ”he said. "Jolly was not a frequent visitor, nor did it have anything to do with church activities."
Beyond Koodathai, the story has been news in India, where many have been surprised that a woman is suspected of so many murders.
Around the world, women are significantly more likely to be victims of murder, and they are significantly less likely to be the perpetrators of the crime. India is no different: only 6.7% of people arrested for murder are women.
The proportion of female serial killers is even lower. According to Amit Thakre, assistant professor of Criminal Psychology at the National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences in New Delhi, male serial killers are much more common than women, just as there is a higher rate of men with psychopathic traits, where they are unable to empathize with others. "We don't find serial killer women too often," he said.
Of course, it has not yet been tested if Joseph is one of them. Authorities say she confessed to the crimes, but her lawyer, K Haider, says that if she is accused of murder, she plans to plead not guilty. He did not answer questions about women's defense.
For now, the house for which Joseph apparently killed people to obtain it is in poor condition. The weed creeps over the driveway and a lock hangs over the rusty door.
Joseph remains behind bars, while the police continue their investigations. Under Indian law, suspects of serious crimes such as murder can remain detained for up to 90 days as part of the investigation process. She has not yet been charged. Police said they will continue the investigations and that they will go to trial once a statement of objections is filed and consolidated.
If Joseph is accused and convicted, he could face life imprisonment, or even death.
Julia Hollingsworth of CNN reported and wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Manveena Suri reported from New Delhi, and journalist Ananthu Sureshkumar reported from Koodathai, Kerala state.
Murder Serial Killer