Kothamangalam murder: Police confirm woman used herbicide-laced energy drink to kill Ansil

Kochi: In a major development in the investigation into the Kothamangalam Ansil murder case, police revealed that the accused, Adheena, had poisoned her boyfriend using an energy drink. According to the investigation team, Red Bull laced with herbicide was served to Ansil. Corroborating this finding, police recovered empty bottles of the energy drink from Adheena’s house. After examining the call detail records, police found that the accused had phoned Ansil multiple times hours before the murder.

Ansil (38), a tipper lorry driver, and Adheena (30) had been in a long-term relationship. Ansil was married and the father of two children. It is learned that he had started abusing Adheena after suspecting she was involved with another man. Unable to bear the abuse, Adheena filed a police complaint. However, the case was dropped after Ansil allegedly lured her with money and coerced her into changing her statement in court. Despite this, he neither paid her the promised money nor repaid the ₹3 lakh he had borrowed from her on different occasions.

As the abuse continued, Adheena wanted to end the relationship, which Ansil opposed. Following this, she hatched a plan to murder him, said police.

Ansil was found lying unconscious on the road in front of Adheena’s house at Chelad during the early morning hours of July 30. Police arrested Adheena on August 1 and recovered a bottle of Paraquat, a toxic herbicide, near her residence.

Adheena had purchased the herbicide from a shop in Kothamangalam and paid via a UPI transaction. According to police, Ansil had blocked Adheena’s number following a quarrel. With the intent to kill him, she contacted him using a conference call arranged through a friend’s phone and invited him to her house.

In her statement to the police, Adheena claimed that Ansil was intoxicated when he arrived at her house around 4 am on July 30. She confessed to serving him an energy drink laced with the herbicide.

After consuming the drink, Ansil collapsed and managed to contact the police. But Adheena snatched his phone and threw it into the nearby thickets. She later phoned Ansil’s relatives and the police. While being rushed to the hospital by his relatives, Ansil reportedly told them, “She cheated me.”

Further investigation led to Adheena’s arrest.