From Australia's Mushroom Murders To Kerala's Cyanide Killings: An Eerie Parallel

On Friday, an Australian court ruled that Erin Patterson was guilty of three murders, caused by meticulously planned and deliberate poisoning of her victims through their meals. This verdict marked the end of Patterson's bid to overturn her convictions. The case drew eerie parallels with a similar incident that took place in Kerala, India, thousands of kilometers away.

In October 2019, Jolly Joseph, a 47-year-old woman, was accused of poisoning six family members over a span of 14 years through the addition of cyanide to their food. It all began in 2016 when the police became suspicious of her involvement in the deaths, which all occurred after consuming meals she had prepared. The first victim was Jolly's mother-in-law, who passed away in 2002 after eating mutton soup prepared by her daughter-in-law.

The deaths of Jolly's father-in-law and husband were also attributed to the poisoning in 2008 and 2011, respectively. Jolly allegedly went on to poison her husband's uncle with cyanide-laced coffee in 2014 and later killed the two-year-old daughter of her dead husband's cousin and the cousin's wife in 2016, only to subsequently marry the cousin.

The Patterson case and the Koodathayi cyanide killings share the same chilling modus operandi – calculated acts of poisoning through food, leaving behind a haunting question: how can an ordinary family meal be the setting for such extraordinary crimes?