Kannur, Apr 26 (The Hindu): The late-night arrest of a 28-year old woman from Padannakkara, near Pinarayi, on Tuesday solved the mystery behind the death of her child and parents over the past four months.

The arrest of Vannathan Veettil Soumya followed her confession that she had administered rat poison to her daughter Aishwarya, 9; her mother V. Kamala, 65; and father V.V. Kunhikannan, 76, this year. Though her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter Keerthana had died in 2012, the police said the medical records showed it was apparently a natural death.

The police on Wednesday took Soumya to her house at Padannakkara at 3 p.m. as part of evidence collection. Thalassery Circle Inspector K.E. Premachandran said she was produced before the Magistrate at Thalassery in the afternoon. The police will seek her custody on April 26. The police said the accused had confessed to poisoning her daughter as the child had been a witness to her extramarital relationship. She also confessed that she had poisoned her mother and later her father in a similar fashion so as to have a ‘free life’.

The accused had submitted a complaint to the local authorities a few months ago that the groundwater well at her house was contaminated. She had got herself admitted in a hospital showing similar symptoms. The police suspected that she had lodged the complaint to concoct a story that would help her to claim later that the ‘mysterious’ deaths were caused by the ‘contaminated’ water.

Though she had confessed that she had given a single dose of rat poison to all the three, the police said that it required further investigation to see if the poison was administered to the victims in small doses on several occasions. Estranged from her husband, Soumya had been living with her parents at the house at Padannakkara. During the interrogation, Soumya claimed that her estranged husband had tried to poison her years ago.

The police had questioned a few people having links with Soumya but could not find any evidence to establish their involvement.

Meanwhile, the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court at Thalassery sent her to police custody for four days on Wednesday. She was produced after she was taken to her house at Pinarayi for evidence collection.