Tragedy struck the Zeli Dos Anjos family in Brazil when they tucked into a traditional homemade Christmas cake – now believed to have been poisoned after three family members died
Three family members died after eating Chrismas cake believed to have been poisoned, just months after another relative died in unusual circumstances.
Zeli Dos Anjos, 61, prepared a traditional “Bolo de Natal” for a family afternoon coffee gathering in Torres, a town near southern Brazilian town Porto Alegre, a couple of days before Christmas on December 23.
Just a few hours after tucking into the sweet treat, she was hospitalised while her two sisters, Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, and Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65 and Neuza’s 43-year-old daughter, Tatiana Silvia Dos Santos, were all dead.
Ms Dos Anjos is still fighting for her life in hospital nearly two weeks after the incident, while her great nephew Matheus, 10, has been treated and released from hospital. Police have since revealed they found traces of deadly poison arsenic in the family’s bodies, and have arrested her daughter-in-law, Deise Moura, partner of Zeli’s son Diego Dos Anjoson, on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
Marcus Vincius Veloso, the Torres police chief, revealed the mum-of-one is now being kept in a women’s jail. He said: “The woman was arrested for triple homicide and a triple attempted homicide. She was taken initially to a police station at Canoas, then to Torres police station and is now in the women’s jail in the city, at this moment we cannot say anything else.”
The suspected triple homicide comes after Zeli Dos Anjos’s husband, Paulo Luis, 68, died from ‘food poisoning’ caused by eating a contaminated banana several months prior. Investigative sources told MailOnline that police planned to exhume his body on Thursday, with further analysis due to take place.
Doctors who examined him at a Torres hospital initially ruled that he had died from food poisoning, with Ms Dos Anjos having also fallen ill after eating the mashed bananas, which were grown at their property and may have become contaminated after flood waters swept through the area in May last year.
Heartbreakingly, it has since been reported locally there were two cakes the family could have eaten, and if they had chosen to cut into the other, all their lives could have been saved. More information from the scene has revealed the family members were left in agony as the poison took hold, mere minutes after they had eaten the cake.
According to the Hospital Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes de Torres, Tatiana and Maida both died from cardiac arrest, while Neuza reportedly died due to “shock after food poisoning”. Meanwhile, Brazilian police investigating the circumstances around the deaths of three women have claimed a long-standing family feud could be behind the incident.
Reports from Brazil claim that police are set to further investigate what they believe was behind the poisoning with Deise Moura and her mother-in-law Zeli Dos Anjos having allegedly had a dispute in the past. However police previously said they were “not aware of any disputes within the family.”
A family member previously claimed they believed the cake was poisoned by an outsider who held a grudge against them, according to reports. Relative Isabel Moraes, 54, previously explained how the cake baking was a family tradition. She added: “Every year Zeli baked the cake and every year everyone meets up for a family get together to celebrate Christmas and be with each other, we are all extremely close.
“That day two cakes were made. One by Zeli and one by Maida, but it was only Zeli’s which was eaten. If they had eaten the other one then perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.
“Jefferson (Maida’s husband) told me that within a few minutes they were all saying it had a bitter sour taste and by this time Zeli had eaten two slices but as soon as everyone started to complain she said ‘Stop, no one eat any more.'”