Koodathayi: Jolly Thomas granted bail in a case

Kochi: Jolly Joseph, the accused of murder of six of her family members was granted bail by the High Court on Thursday.

However, Jolly will not be released from the jail as she was denied bail in other cases charged against her.

The accused is granted bail in on executing a bond for Rs. 1,00,00 with two solvent sureties each for the same amount. Jolly shall appear before the trial court as and when required and shall not directly or indirectly make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him from disclosing such facts to the court or to any police officer.

Advocate B A Aloor appeared for Jolly Thomas.

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 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.

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