‘Prof’ a dead ringer

Fake teach held in 6 slays

Jolly Joseph appeared to be a distinguished professor and devoted churchgoer in the small Indian village of Koodathayai.

But when she wasn’t supposedly giving lectures or attending Catholic church services, the 47-year-old slipped fatal doses of cyanide into her family’s soups, snacks and beverages, Indian police say.

Joseph confessed to killing six relatives between 2002 and 2016, including her first husband, his parents and a 2-year-old niece, police said. She murdered them in order to inherit her in-laws’ real-estate holdings and other assets, authorities told the New York Times.

A court in the state of Kerala in southwestern India rejected Joseph’s bail request Saturday, along with those of two alleged accomplices, including a goldsmith accused of supplying the poison, according to the Gulf News. Both suspects have denied the charges.

The woman, previously known as Jolly Thomas, was busted Oct. 5 in connection with the 2011 murder of her first husband, Roy Thomas, with whom she had two sons. They were wed in 1997. She’s since admitted to killing his mother, Annamma Thomas, in 2002, and his father, Tom Thomas, in 2008, police say.

The three other victims — Roy’s uncle, the wife of the man who would become her second husband, Shaju Zacharias, and the niece — all died in 2014 or 2016.

The victims’ remains have been removed from the family tomb to be examined for traces of poison.

Only Roy Thomas’ body was autopsied at the time of death, but Joseph managed to keep the results — that he died of cyanide poisoning — hidden for years.

The case broke open when a dispute with a sister-in-law about family property led to a lawsuit in January.

That case forced Joseph to turn over the autopsy report.

The family then appealed to police, who reopened the investigation — leading to Joseph’s arrest.

During the investigation, cops discovered that Joseph, who diligently commuted each day supposedly to a technical university in Calicut, had faked her professor credentials and was not employed there.

JOLLY ‘KILLER’: Jolly Joseph (above and, top left, dining with her first husband, Roy Thomas) is accused of murdering him and five of his relatives by putting poison in their food.