The Elanthoor Murders: A Criminological and Psychological Autopsy of a Ritualistic Folie à Trois

Elanthoor, Kerala: Two Women, One House, No Verdict Yet

In 2022 two women who sold lottery tickets on the streets of Kochi were taken to a house in Elanthoor, a village in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district, and killed. Police say they were murdered in a ritual meant to bring a couple money. Three people are charged: Muhammed Shafi, Bhagaval Singh and Singh’s wife, Laila. All three have been in judicial custody since October 2022. Their trial opened on March 9, 2026, at the Ernakulam Additional Sessions Court before Judge T. Madhusoodanan. As of October 2026 it is ongoing and no verdict has been reported. Everything below that concerns guilt is the prosecution’s case, not a finding of any court.

Kochi: The Victims

Padma, 52, had moved from Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu to Kochi, where she lived alone in a single room and sold lottery tickets to support her ailing husband and two children back home. Police say Shafi lured her with an offer of ₹15,000 for sex work or a larger sum to act in a film.

Roslyn, 49, also sold lottery tickets. She was from Thrissur district and was living in Kalady after her marriage broke down, apart from her family. She disappeared in June 2022. Her daughter did not report her missing until mid-August, and that case went nowhere for two months.

Kochi: How the Case Broke

The case began with Padma. Her family in Tamil Nadu noticed she had stopped making her daily call home, and a missing-person complaint was filed at Kadavanthra police station on September 26, 2022. Her phone records pointed police to Shafi. CCTV footage showed her getting into a white Scorpio SUV with him. Mobile tower data traced the vehicle from Kochi to Elanthoor and to the Singhs’ house.

Police say that under questioning Shafi and then the Singhs confessed to Padma’s killing and disclosed an earlier victim, Roslyn. Dismembered remains of both women were dug out of several pits on the Singhs’ property. Two cadaver dogs brought to the property earlier had not found them. Both women were identified by DNA.

Elanthoor: The Prosecution’s Account of the Killings

According to police and the chargesheets, Roslyn was killed on June 6, 2022, and Padma on September 26, 2022. Prosecutors say Shafi told the Singhs the first ritual had failed and a second was needed. Police describe both women as bound, tortured and sexually mutilated with knives, then strangled or garroted and their throats cut. Padma’s body was reportedly cut into 56 pieces before burial.

Police also said they were investigating a strong possibility of cannibalism, and the Padma chargesheet cites utensils suspected of being used to cook human flesh. The accused later denied the claim to reporters. It remains an allegation for the trial court.

Kerala: The Three Accused

Muhammed Shafi

Police call Shafi the prime accused and describe him as a habitual offender. He ran a small roadside eatery and had about ten earlier cases of rape, theft and attempted murder. In a 2020 case he was accused of raping a 75-year-old woman and mutilating her genitals, and he was out on bail in that case in 2022. Police say he contacted Bhagaval Singh through a fake female Facebook profile, “Sreedevi”, learned of the couple’s money troubles, and then introduced a tantric practitioner called “Rasheed”, who was himself.

Bhagaval Singh

Singh, then about 60, was a traditional healer and masseur, known locally as mild-mannered and polite, a social worker and a poet who posted haiku on Facebook. Neighbors said he had grown more religious after his second marriage, to Laila. Prosecutors say financial gain was the motive.

Laila Singh

Prosecutors allege Laila Singh took a direct part in the violence, including strangling Roslyn, and say financial gain was her motive. In January 2024 the Kerala High Court dismissed her bail plea. Justice Sophy Thomas called the alleged offences “really shocking and beyond human imagination” and urged the trial court to proceed without further delay. Refusing bail is not a finding of guilt.

Ernakulam: Charges and Trial

A Special Investigation Team ran the probe, including re-enactments with dummies to test the confessions. By January 2023 it had filed two chargesheets. The Padma chargesheet runs about 1,600 pages, with 166 witnesses and 147 pieces of evidence. The Roslyn case rests more heavily on circumstantial and scientific evidence. The charges include murder, rape, criminal conspiracy, abduction, destruction of evidence, theft and disrespect to human remains.

The trial began with the Padma case on March 9, 2026, when her younger sister, Palaniamma, testified as the first witness. The Roslyn case followed. Special Public Prosecutor V. Ajakumar leads for the state.

Kerala: Why the Case Hit So Hard

Kerala prides itself on literacy and progressive politics, and the case punctured that. It brought renewed calls for anti-superstition legislation like the law already in force in Karnataka, and criticism of police for their slow response to the two missing-person reports. Opposition parties claimed Bhagaval Singh had links to the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the party denied it.

The phrase “folie à trois”, a shared delusion among three people, has been attached to the case in commentary. No court or examining psychiatrist has made that finding, and it should not be read as a diagnosis.

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