The death of a family, helped along by a ‘murder’: 9 years later, Kerala Police say have a case

A family wracked by seven deaths over 26 years, a lonely bachelor, and an attendant biding his time.

The story of the end of the prominent Koodathil family – owners of large tracts of land and properties worth an estimated Rs 100 crore, in and around Thiruvanananthapuram district – has taken a twist. On October 13, police arrested a man who had long worked as the family’s helper, Raveendran Nair, for allegedly killing its last surviving member, Jayamadavan Nair, in 2017.

As per the Crime Branch of the Thiruvanananthapuram City Police, Jayamadavan was killed as he had decided to get married. Raveendran reportedly feared the 63-year-old would have an heir, spoiling his plans. By then, Raveendran had allegedly forged Jayamadavan’s will.

Raveendran, now 60, retired as a non-judicial officer from the state subordinate judiciary. He lived with his wife and two daughters near the Koodathil family home in Karamana, on the suburbs of Thiruvananthapuram.

Raveendran Nair, who was arrested for killing Jayamadavan Nair in 2017, arrested this week

Police say that with all the men in the Koodathil family – which once had close ties with the erstwhile Travancore royal family – staying unmarried, Raveendran made himself indispensable to them, starting around 2005. After his last relative died in 2012, Jayamadavan came to lean on Raveendran more and more, with the latter allegedly calling the shots.

The string of deaths in the family started with the death of Jayasree, the daughter of Koodathil Gopinanthan Nair, seen as the family patriarch, in 1991. She died of an ailment, and the next five deaths were also ruled as natural. “There was no FIR or inquest or postmortem in any of the deaths from 1991 to 2012, and there is no reason to suspect these were not natural,’’ said an officer of the probe team.

Given his familiarity with court work, police say, Raveendran planned meticulously to transfer the family property to himself. Since it was unpartitioned, he allegedly first forged a document in the name of Jayamadavan, then filed a plea in court saying Jayamadavan wanted the assets divided, and lastly, submitted another petition in Jayamadavan’s name which said the family had reached an agreement on how to share the property.

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Accordingly, 33 cents of land comprising the Koodathil traditional house and another 1.5 acres were transferred in Jayamadavan’s name. After that, in 2016, Raveendran allegedly forged Jayamadavan’s will.

So when he got to know that Jayamadavan had decided to get married, Raveendran, who had allegedly rebuffed other marriage proposals that came for his employer, was “shocked”, police say.

As per officials, on the night of April 1, 2017, there was a scuffle between Raveendran and Jayamadavan over the issue. Raveendran allegedly hit Jayamadavan on the head, and he fainted. But Raveendran took him to hospital only the next morning, where he was pronounced dead.

A case of unnatural death was registered on Raveendran’s complaint, who claimed he had discovered Jayamadavan unconscious.

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As per police, distant relatives of the Koodathil family suspected something untoward when Raveendran pressed for the last rites to be done fast. Weeks later, when Raveendran went to court to probate the will of Jayamadavan, those suspicions grew stronger.

The first to go to police was Prasanna Kumari Amma, who was once married into the family and whose son is an heir in the family property.

R Anil Kumar, a native of Karamana, next filed a complaint. “I knew them from childhood. When Jayamadavan died, there was an attempt to cremate the body even before the relatives came. Months later, I saw construction of buildings on the family land and the cutting down of trees,” he says, explaining his suspicions.

In 2018, Kumar wrote to then Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the state police chief seeking a probe into the series of deaths in the Koodathil family, and alleging that vested interests wanted to take control of the property.

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580 km away, a car with blood stains

The Crime Branch began its probe in October 2019, and registered a murder case against Raveendran in early 2021.

Raveendran tried to block police attempts to put Jayamadavan’s will through a forensic examination, but his plea was rejected by the High Court. “Once it was proved that the will was forged, it was a major breakthrough as it gave us a motive,” a police officer said.

Another lead was the finding that Raveendran had lied about using an auto-rickshaw to take Jayamadavan to hospital. Suspecting that he used a car, police looked closely at all his acquaintances, and zeroed in on Raveendran’s close friend Anil Kumar.

But Kumar was found to have sold the car used to take Jayamadavan to hospital. An officer said they managed to track the car down in 2024, to Kasaragod in the north, around 580 km away. “Forensic experts found blood stains in the car.”

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Police made both Kumar and his brother-in-law Saju, who allegedly drove Raveendran to the hospital, accused. While Kumar was long dead by then, Saju managed to flee abroad.

Other discoveries raised more questions, like Raveendran’s account that Jayamadavan possibly fell off his cot at night and got injured. An examination established that the head wound had been caused by a blunt object.

Raveendran allegedly also failed a brain electrical oscillation signature profiling test (a neuro-psychological interrogation technique), suggesting that he had “significant experiential knowledge about the killing of Jayamadavan”.

With Raveendran charged with forgery to usurp the property of the Koodathil family, police had already frozen his and his family’s accounts.

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A family, a house in decay

A dilapidated house at Kulathara junction near main Karamana, surrounded by weeds, stands as a fading reminder of the once-aristocratic Nair family’s power and prestige in the region.

Having lived in the area for nearly 50 years, a local says the Koodathils kept to themselves. “They allowed only a few into their house. Earlier, in the joint family, Gopinathan Nair, Jayamadavan’s uncle, had the last word. But while he was college-educated, others in the family did not even pursue studies,’’ the septuagenarian who doesn’t want to be identified says.

What was sad was how the family let their fortune go to waste, including their land, even as they confined themselves to the house, he adds. He believes this was also the reason they developed illnesses, hastening their deaths.

Prasanna Kumari, who retired as Under Secretary in the state Secretariat, got married to Gopinathan’s elder brother Unnikrishnan in 1971. The first complainant in the case against Raveendran, she says: “It was not a house suitable for living. Wealth alone does not make your life happy. Gopinadan was inhumane. When things became very difficult, I walked out in 1977, six years after my marriage.”

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With Raveendran in jail, her and Unnikrishnan’s son Prakasan may be the sole inheritor of the family property. The 85-year-old is aware of it. “We do not know the extent of the property,” she says. “The real battle is yet to start.”