Mystery deaths in Koodathil mansion: Court clerk kept Kerala cops on toes till a forensic journal flipped the script

A cop-turned-court clerk, Ravindran Nair, had Kerala police run in circles for almost a decade before he was arrested on Tuesday for the alleged murder of Jayamadhavan Nair, the last legal heir of Koodathil family at Karamana in Thiruvananthapuram. The family, which owned vast swathes of land at prime locations in Thiruvananthapuram, was battered by a series of deaths between 1991 and 2017. All the deaths were passed off as ‘natural’ by cops until Jayamadhavan was allegedly murdered on April 1, 2017.

No brainer turns hard puzzle
For the police, it seemed like a slam dunk case. The autopsy report showed blood stains on the left side of the body. There was a contusion on the left side of forehead and abrasions on nose and right forearm. Ravindran Nair's statements on timing of the incident, mode of death and transportation to hospital, crumbled as contradictions kept popping up. Little did police realise that his three decades of experience in handling murder case files in court and his brief stint as a policeman earlier in his career had honed his counter-narrative skills.

During hours of interrogation, Ravindran Nair didn't bat an eyelid. "His expression said it all. It was like, I am not going to confess, if you have it in you, you can prove the crime. We knew he was lying about everything, but without a confession, we couldn't move ahead," recalled retired Crime Branch ACP M K Zulfikar, who had probed the case. "He had told us that the day after Jayamadhavan’s death, he had dropped off his daughter at a tutorial. When we checked with the principal, he said it was a holiday. Ravindran still stuck with his statement," said Zulfikar.

Any report filed in the court would be met with a counter affidavit busting the case painstakingly built by the police. His rich network of contacts gave him easy access to police reports in the court and he was always ready with responses. The Crime Branch report filed in the High Court noted that it was clear that the investigation team has been blocked using several delaying tactics by Ravindran who filed trivial suits time and again. He was well-versed in law and has garnered experience as a court staff for several years, the report said.

When the Crime Branch took over the case in 2019, Ravindran Nair also faced a parallel case of cheating. A family member had filed a complaint against him saying that he had bequeathed 33 cents of land from Jayamadhavan using a forged will. This sparked further suspicion that all the previous deaths in the family may have been executed as part of an organised murder plot. "We could prove that the will was not executed in the presence of Jayamadhavan. One of the witnesses to the will was Leela, the housemaid, who didn't even know how to read and write," Zulfikar said. When the police got an order from the court for a forensic examination of the will, Ravindran filed an objection in the High Court saying that it be examined at the Central lab instead of state lab only to delay the process further. The court then ordered examination of the will at the FSL, Thiruvananthapuram, and it was proved that the will was forged.

Technology comes to help
The legal battles wouldn't stop. Eventually, a casual reference of an international forensic journal by an investigator opened up possibilities of forensic biomechanics which proved that death of Jayamadhavan was a homicide. Forensic biomechanics uses principles of mechanical engineering, biology and forensic science to understand nature, pattern and severity of injuries. "It hadn't been used in Kerala before. We got to know it from an article on Medwin publishers and thought of using it in this case. It is generally used by foreign agencies in accident investigations," said Viju N, former ACP, City Crime Branch, who now serves at the Intelligence HQ.

The police approached the Department of Bioscience and Engineering at NIT, Calicut. "We had to prove if Jayamadhavan had a free fall or a forced fall. It was told that he fell off the bed and hurt himself. We tried a simulator and later used a software to prove that the injury was not because of a natural fall," Baiju G Nair, Associate Professor, Department of Bioscience and Engineering, told Onmanorama. The report submitted by Baiju along with Amith Singh and Ilanko of the Mechanical Engineering department showed that the injuries were analysed using simulation techniques of the head impacting on flat surfaces and established that Jayamadhavan's injuries cannot result from a fall.

Ravindran still proved a tough nut to crack. He had denied consent for a polygraph and narcoanalysis. The police mounted pressure on him in the court and he agreed to brain mapping -- which records brain activities emitted in response to images or words to find out a person's involvement in a case. Dr Divya Gopinath, Director, Forensic Science Lab, Karnataka where Ravindran was subjected to brain mapping in May 2025, said that in this process different scenarios related to the crime are displayed on monitor to the person. "The brain signals are then processed and the instrument will give a final information. This is certainly not a conclusive or confirmatory evidence but it gives a definite edge in investigation especially when the suspect doesn't cooperate," said Divya.

Arul R B Krishna, Thiruvananthapuram Commissioner, told Onmanorama that brain mapping report on Ravindran showed he had experiential knowledge of the incident.

Justice pending
Advocates Biju and Suraj Kumar, who were closely associated with the progress of the case as the legal representatives of Prakash P, a Koodathil family member, said that Ravindran's arrest was a significant step in the case. "When we filed the writ petition demanding a CBI probe, the Crime Branch report convinced us that the probe was on the right track," said Suraj Kumar. In his petition, Suraj Kumar had cited alleged conspiracy and illegal occupancy of properties.

Former officials believe that, at least one death which happened prior to Jayamadhavan was a murder. "One family member Jayaprakash died in 2012 after a fall from the stairs. We can't say much about the other deaths but we had reasons to believe that last two deaths in the family were murders. There is still a lot to be probed in this case," a retired official who had supervised the investigation said. Advocate Biju also said justice is still pending as there is a long pending battle over the property and unauthorised ownership. The Crime Branch investigation under ACP M I Shaji and Sub Inspector Bipin Prakash will now focus on gathering additional material evidence and detailed interrogation to shed light on previous deaths in the family.