Solving Crime: How India’s ‘first woman serial killer’ Cyanide Mallika evaded police eye for nearly a decade

To this day, the very mention of her name evokes a sense of fear in the police and public alike, notwithstanding the fact that she remains behind bars. Eventually convicted of six murders, much mystery continues to surround Cyanide Mallika as some officials, like retired police officer S K Umesh, continue to believe that she has killed more than 13 people. There appears to be much that remains uncovered, yet no police officer is purportedly willing to take her into custody.

Kempamma before she became ‘Cyanide Mallika’

Born in the 1970s in Kaggalipura, a village now considered part of Bengaluru’s outskirts, Kempamma did not attend school much and soon after married a tailor living in Bengaluru, the police said. The couple had two daughters and a son. Kempamma, who always dreamt of making it big, started a chit-fund scheme near her house but incurred huge losses. Before long, her husband abandoned her and moneylenders started doing the rounds of her house.

Left with no choice but to make money, Kempamma began to work as a domestic help which helped her steal valuables from homes. Once, the Bidadi police arrested her in a theft case and she spent six months in jail. Later, she worked with a goldsmith for a few days and was for the first time introduced to cyanide, the highly toxic chemical which she eventually began to use on her victims. Goldsmiths use cyanide to extract and polish gold, besides for gold-plating. Kempamma quit the job later as she did not get payment as expected.

Holy water and then death

Even when she was out of a job, Kempamma did not stop scheming her way to riches. She began to follow a calculated routine, visiting the temple daily and observing those who appeared to be suffering. It was only a matter of time before she positioned herself as a divine figure, offering them solace and a promise to resolve their troubles through a special ritual called ‘mandala pooja’. She asked them to wear their most expensive clothes and adorn themselves with jewellery as part of the ritual.

Inviting her victims to an unfamiliar temple on the outskirts, Kempamma would instruct them to close their eyes and pray. Little did they know that this act of faith would be their last. She would then serve them “holy water” or theertha laced with cyanide. This became her modus operandi, Umesh says.

In what is believed to be her first murder, Kempamma targeted Mamatha Rajan, a wealthy 30-year-old woman, in 1998. Subsequently, many of her victims were the elderly or those going through difficult circumstances, such as a woman seeking relief from asthma or a 59-year-old longing to find her missing son. After each killing, Kempamma would promptly change her identity to avoid suspicion.

In 2000, she was arrested for stealing valuables and spent six months in prison but Kempamma’s killing spree resumed after she was released. Fuelled by greed and a desire for financial gain, with each victim she aimed to fulfil her insatiable ambitions, showing no remorse for the lives she ended.

The police report on the murder of Bengaluru resident Renuka, whose body was discovered in a guest house in 2006, mentions the murderer as Jayamma. Eventually as the investigators connected the dots, Jayamma turned out to be among the several aliases used by Kempamma herself. Even as the police were on the lookout for ‘Jayamma’, Kempamma was closing in on her next victim Nagaveni, a childless woman who sought her help.

Among her other victims include Elizabeth, Yashodhamma, Muniyamma and Pillamma. Umesh, who first exposed Kempamma’s role in the killings, however, believes she may have committed more than 20 murders. In some cases she worked as a domestic help to target women of the household and in others she befriended neighbours. Interestingly, even after the murders, she went back to work at a few houses and somehow no doubts were raised, said a retired police officer who was part of the probe.

The last murder is believed to be that of Nagaveni who was killed on December 18, 2007. At the lodge where Kempamma stayed at the time, she had given her name as ‘Mallika’ – the name that grew to be synonymous with her deeds.

How the police closed in

While the murders of Bengaluru women were taking place outside the city, mainly in shrine towns, some of the cases were closed after filing Unnatural Death Reports (UDR). Umesh says that as cyanide was used, the bodies of the women decomposed at a faster rate. Besides detecting the presence of cyanide, the police had no leads. There was no forced entry, no injuries on the body and, in many cases, investigators even assumed it to be suicide. Little effort went into probing further.

Umesh, who retired as a superintendent of police (SP), recalls that he was an inspector at Kalasipalya police station in December 2007 when he read a newspaper article on one Yashodhamma whose body was found in a lodge in Maddur. He was traveling back to Bengaluru from Mandya at the time. “I still remember… The news reporter had articulated it very well, raising suspicion and also connecting a few old mysterious deaths that were reported in other parts,” he says.

“Sub-inspectors Harish, Manoj and Imtiyaz Patel worked with me (at the time). I asked them to look into the case. Yashodamma was working as a priest at the Kempamma temple in Hebbal and we thought of visiting the place. When we went near her house, they said she had received an incoming call from a number twice. When we traced the location of the number, we found that the call location was from Lakshmi temple in Tumakuru. We went to Tumakuru and found out that Yashodhamma had received a call from a mobile phone which was stolen from an elderly lady who had a stall near the temple.

Umesh says, “But then we did not link Yashodhamma’s number and the old lady’s contact number because we never anticipated it. But tracking the mobile phone through the IMEI number continued and we discovered that the person had changed the SIM card and had called the number of a company which was located in Hoskote, Bengaluru Rural. We went to the firm and found out that the call was attended by a man who worked as a cab driver for the company. We started recording his calls. In one of the calls, a woman asked him to come near a private bus stand in Bengaluru. We followed the man and the next day around 7 am, a woman came with a bag and we arrested the man and the woman.”

At the time they had no clue that they had arrested one of the most wanted women in India, Umesh says, “But as we opened the bag, we found some of the jewels and cyanide in it.” Probe revealed that the jewels belonged to one of the victims – proving to be the crucial link that helped them trace it all to Kempamma alias Cyanide Mallika.

“We found that her son was unaware of the murders. Kempamma’s daughters were married and were not in touch with her. Only her son contacted her and she had bought him an Indica car. We then interrogated her, leading her to spill the beans. She said she got the cyanide from the jewellery shop where it was used to dissolve gold. She also knew that it could kill a person in seconds. In her confession statements, she admitted to killing many women, but also misled us many times,” shares Umesh.

Further probe revealed that Kempamma had killed about eight women between November 1, 2007 and December 18, 2007. There were many similarities in the deaths, including the link to places of worship, the use of cyanide for the murder and the fact that all the victims faced personal issues.

Fear looms among cops too

After the Bengaluru city police announced the arrest of Kempamma alias Mallika, the media was quick to latch on to the name ‘Cyanide Mallika’. “Though she did not co-operate with the probe, the victims’ family members started to come to us as they knew about her association with the victims,” he adds.

“One night in 2008, my staff called my residence saying that she attempted to die by suicide. We shifted her to a private hospital and she was saved. Since then, police officers began to shy away from taking her into custody for investigation fearing that they would face charges in connection with custodial death if she attempted suicide again and succeeded. What if she manages to get cyanide? There will be no chance to save her,” Umesh says.

“In my entire career, if I have not been able to fully get to the bottom of any murder case, it will be Mallika’s. While she was charged with 13 murder cases, she was convicted only in six. I believe she has committed more murders,” he opines.

The convictions

The police filed charges in all the murders and in 2010, the court awarded death penalty to Cyanide Mallika in the Muniyamma murder case. She was the first woman convict in Karnataka to get the death penalty. In 2012, another court awarded the death sentence to her in the Nagaveni murder case, but it was later commuted to life imprisonment.

Currently in her 50s, Cyanide Mallika is now lodged at Parappana Agrahara Central Prison. In 2017, when former AIADMK secretary V K Sasikala, who was a close aide of the late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, was lodged at this prison in connection with a disproportionate assets case, Kempamma was in her neighbouring cell. In fact, she was reportedly ‘friendly’ too. However, prison officials were always on their toes as they did not completely rule out the threat posed by Kempamma.

Cyanide Mallika, a film based on the serial killer’s life, was released in 2021 but it turned out to be a dud at the box office.