Husband of Kerala cyanide killer Jolly seeks divorce

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 31 : The second husband of 49-year-old Jolly Thomas, who eliminated six people in her family using cyanide many years ago, on Tuesday filed a petition seeking divorce from her at a family court in Kozhikode.

It was in October 2019, the police arrested Jolly and her two accomplices who are currently in jail, and registered separate cases in each of the deaths.

Jolly married Shaju Zachariah in 2017 and in his divorce petition he has said he feels scared to continue as her husband because she has a very deadly mindset, therefore wants a divorce.

Incidentally in the numerous cases against Jolly, Shaju is a witness and presently Jolly is cooling her heels in a jail at Kozhikode.

The first in the Thomas 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, in 2014. The last one in the extended family to die was Sily in 2016.

Police have found out that while Jolly used cyanide in eliminating five of the six, in the case of her mother-in-law Annamma, she used the poison normally given to kill rabid dogs and sourced it from a veterinary clinic on the grounds that she wanted to eliminate her dog.

Police began the probe into these deaths in 2019 after Roy Thomas' brother, Rojo, now settled in the US, approached the Superintendent of Police and voiced his suspicions about the series of mysterious deaths and exhumed all the bodies.

On October 5, 2019 the police arrested Jolly and her two accomplices who are currently in jail, and registered separate cases in each of the deaths.