Jolly Joseph (Koodathayi Murders) Age, Husband, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Jolly Joseph

• Jolly Joseph is an Indian suspected criminal. She is the main suspect in the murder of six of her family members in Koodathayi, Kozhikode district in Kerala in around 14 years.

• She was born into a middle-class family. ^[5]Gulf News

• After getting married to Roy Thomas, she started living in Roy Thomas’s ancestral home in Koodathayi. There, her parents-in-law and a few other members used to live.
  

  Jolly Joseph’s house

• A few years after her marriage, her mother-in-law passed away. In 2008, her father-in-law died of a heart attack and when he suffered a heart attack a foam was seen coming out of his mouth. In the same condition, her husband died three years post her father-in-law’s demise. This time, her husband’s maternal uncle suspected that something was not right, and insisted on post mortem of Jolly’s husband. According to the reports, Jolly’s husband had chickpea curry in the dinner and traces of cyanide in his stomach. The local police then closed the case as a suicide case.

• After her husband’s demise, Jolly stopped interacting with her neighbours and relatives. However, people assumed that she was depressed after her husband’s demise.

• The series of deaths in her house did not stop there. In 2014, her husband’s maternal uncle Mathew Manjadiyil also died of a heart attack.

• In the same year, her husband Roy Thomas’s paternal cousin Shaju Sakhariyas’s two-year-old daughter Alphine died followed by Shaju Sakhariyas’ wife Sili Sakhariyas death in 2016.
  

  Jolly Joseph’s family members

• After so many deaths in the same house, people started believing the house was haunted or possessed with some negative energies. However, the case took a shocking turn when Jolly got married to Shaju Sakhariya in 2017, a year after Shaju’s wife died.

• The whole situation was not well received by Jolly’s brother-in-law Rojo Thomas. He doubted Jolly from the same day when the whole property was transferred in Jolly’s name. Rojo then came to know that Jolly was faking about her job at NIT.

• Rojo then asked for a copy of Roy Thomas’ post-mortem. In the post-mortem, he found a discrepancy in Jolly’s statement to police and the post-mortem reports. In the statement, Jolly had said that her husband had an omelette at dinner the day he died. However, in the post-mortem report, it was found that he had chickpea curry in dinner.

• Rojo and her sister then decided to file a complaint against Jolly at the district police station which was forwarded to Thamarassery Police Station near Kozhikode. The case was registered as a suicide case, so the police did not reopen the case. He then moved to the crime unit of the Kozhikode police, who reopened the case and started the investigation.

• During the investigation, around 50 discrepancies were found in Jolly’s statements and proofs. The local police then decided to do a post-mortem of all the family members of Jolly. The buried bodies were taken out for further investigation.

• In around two months of investigation, Kozhikode district police superintendent KG Simon conducted a press conference and shared that Jolly Joseph had confessed to the crime and was arrested. The police said that she had murdered all six family members with cyanide.
  

  Jolly Joseph with the local police

• The local police then said that Jolly murdered all her family members for property and assets. She had used cyanide as a slow poison to kill six of her family members with the help of M. S. Mathew (jewellery shop employee) and Praji Kumar (goldsmith).

• Reportedly, M. S. Mathew, a relative of Jolly provided her cyanide from Praji Kumar, who exchanged the cyanide for Rs 5000 and two bottles of alcohol. However, Mathew and Praji said that Jolly had asked for cyanide to kill rats at her home.

• The local police then shared that Jolly used to give cyanide to her parents-in-law by adding cyanide to their food. She did the same with her husband and other relatives who had died.

• The Kozhikode police also shared that Jolly hated girls and had two abortions as she was expecting a girl child. In the murder case, Jolly, along with Mathew and Praji, were arrested by the local police. ^[6]Gulf News

• In 2020, while she was in prison, she allegedly tried to commit suicide. She was then admitted to the Medical College in Kozhikode. ^[7]The Indian Express

• In 2019, the cyanide murder story was depicted in episodes 100, 101, and 102 of the popular Hindi TV series ‘Crime Patrol Satark.’ The series was aired on Sony TV.
  

  A still from Crime Patrol’s episode

• In the same year, a Malayalam TV serial titled ‘Koodathayi’ was aired on Flowers TV which was based on Jolly’s case.
  

  Koodathayi

• On 7 September 2020, Jolly’s story was narrated by the Indian journalist Sashi Kumar in an English podcast ‘Death, Lies & Cyanide.’ The ten-episode podcast was streamed on Spotify.

• Later, her neighbours were interviewed by a few media persons. In the interview, her neighbours shared that Jolly used to be a very talkative and well-mannered child. She regularly visited her nearby churches. The neighbours also shared that Jolly was beaten badly by her father and that even her arm broke for stealing money from her home and stealing a gold bangle from one of her classmates in college. ^[8]Gulf News

• In 2023, Jolly’s advocate BA Aloor filed a Jolly’s discharge plea in the high court as she had remained suspect for a few years without any evidence. However, the court rejected the plea. The court stated that the materials on record were sufficient to take the prima facie view that her involvement in the murder could be suspected.

• On 22 December 2023, a documentary series ‘Curry & Cyanide: The Jolly Joseph Case’ was released in six languages on Netflix.
  

  Curry & Cyanide- The Jolly Joseph Case