Man Kills Wife By Injecting Cyanide Into Her Saline IV Drip Bottle At Hospital

A man has been arrested for allegedly killing his wife by injecting a lethal cyanide solution into her saline IV drip bottle while she was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Ankleshwar town, Gujarat, India nearly a month ago.

Jignesh Patel, 32, has been accused of introducing a fatal cyanide solution into the saline IV drip bottle of his wife Urmila Vasava, 34, after she was admitted to a private hospital due to chest pain. Vasava reportedly died a day after she was admitted to the hospital under mysterious circumstances. A case of accidental death was subsequently registered and her samples were sent to the forensic science laboratory (FSL) by the police, India Today reported.

The incident reportedly came to light when the police received the FSL report on Friday, Aug. 6, confirming an outrageous amount of cyanide in the victim's bloodstream and ascertaining that Vasava died of lethal cyanide poisoning.

"When the victim was undergoing treatment, the accused stealthily took out a cyanide tablet and made a solution out of it. He then injected the solution into the drip bottle attached to her using a syringe when the doctors and other hospital staff were not present there," authorities said.

Police speculate that Patel murdered Vastava as the couple has been struggling with marital issues. The couple reportedly got married some seven years ago.

Patel may have procured the cyanide solution used in the crime from a factory in Ankleshwar, where he worked, according to Times of India.

A murder case has been registered against Patel under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He was arrested on Saturday, Aug. 7.

In a similar but unrelated incident, a 47-year-old woman allegedly murdered her husband, parents-in-law, and three other members of their extended family by lacing their food with cyanide over a period of 14 years in Kerala, India.

The woman, Jolly Joseph, who hails from Koodathai village in Kozhikode district of North Kerala, confessed to all six murders. The killings that spanned over 14 years finally came to light in 2019, Indian Express reported.

The murders reportedly came to light after Joseph was arrested for the murder of her husband, Roy Thomas, 40, in which autopsy reports from 2011 revealed the presence of cyanide in his body.

“We have found that five others in the family had died under the same circumstances. In all of these situations, we noticed the presence of the woman, Jolly Joseph. She has confessed to the killings,” said KG Simon, Kozhikode Rural Superintendent of Police, who oversaw the investigation.

Joseph reportedly told the police that she had also planned to kill her late husband Thomas' sister, who lives in Ernakulam.