Kozhikode: The motive of the Koodathayi serial killings ranges from the bid to corner property to avenging one for demanding a probe into one of the six murders suspected to be committed by prime accused Jolly Joseph between 2002 and 2016.
Police sources now reveal the claims of missing gold jewellery of one of the six victims, Sily, hint that she could have been done way with cyanide like most other victims just to seize her 40 sovereign gold ornaments.
The probe team has lately received statements that hint at Jolly's role in the vanishing of jewellery. Sily's relative, V D Xavier, told Manorama News that an investigation has to be held into whether seizing the gold jewellery was the motive behind Sily's murder in 2016.
Sily was the first wife of Shaju, who remarried Jolly, the spouse of Roy Thomas who was also killed by the accused 47-year-old woman. Her hand is also suspected in the death of Roy's parents in 2002 and 2008 and another relative Mathew Manjadiyil in 2011. The latter had likely provoked Jolly by demanding a probe into her husband's death in 2011 after autopsy revealed cyanide poisoning.
An affair between Shaju, who is Roy's cousin, is also rumoured and that too could be a motive to kill Sili. Along with Sily, her little daughter too had fallen prey in 2015 to the sinister conspiracy to eliminate members of the Ponnamattom family and their kin.
Shaju, who too is under a cloud over the likely loss of jewellery, had earlier claimed that Sily had deposited about 40 sovereigns of gold, including wedding jewellery, in the hundi (collection box) at a prayer meet. Though the relatives dubbed this as a false claim, they did not raise an issue over this. However, in view of the recent shocking revelations of serial deaths and Jolly’s role in the deaths, the relatives plan to file a complaint over this.
After the death of her toddler daughter Alphine, Sily had reportedly said that she wanted to donate the child's jewellery to a church. Relatives alleged that stories were fabricated based on this statement of Sily.
On the day of her death, Sily had attended a wedding in the Ponnamattom family. She was then wearing her gold ornaments. After the wedding, she went to the dental hospital at Thamarassery, where she fell unconscious, after she was allegedly poisoned by Jolly there.
After her death was confirmed at the Omassery hospital, the nurses there had removed the jewellery and given it to Shaju in a cover. This cover was handed over to a relative of Sily by Jolly, seeking to safeguard it. The jewellery cover was reportedly returned to Shaju on that day itself.
About 1.5 months later, Shaju had called up and said that Sily had put all her jewellery in the hundi. However, Sily's mother said that a bangle of her sister was among the jewellery and that her daughter would never give it away, Xavier revealed.
Later Shaju got married to Jolly. And one day, Shaju went to Sily's house and gave a new gold bangle of 1 sovereign, he further disclosed.
The family had even checked the wedding album to find out the ornaments Sily had worn that day. However, they couldn't find any relevant pictures to ascertain that.
