Probe revealed Kempamma aka Cyanide Mallika had killed about 8 women between Nov 1, 2007 and Dec 18, 2007. There were many similarities in the deaths, including the link to places of worship and the use of cyanide. Retired cop SK Umesh believes that though she was convicted in 13 murders, Kempamma may have committed more.
After each killing, Kempamma would promptly change her identity to avoid suspicion.
In the second half of 2007, the death of multiple women under mysterious circumstances in the outskirts of Bengaluru, mainly in places connected to temples, resulted in panic among the public. Curiously enough, the bodies had no wounds or signs of assault. The absence of any leads and the fact that most of the bodies were in a decomposed state when found meant that the police could hardly get to the bottom of the matter. Some of these cases were filed as ‘unnatural deaths’, but it took nearly a decade for the department to zero in on the culprit – K D Kempamma alias Cyanide Mallika, India’s first convicted woman serial killer.
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.
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