A 17-year-old boy has died and eight family members were taken to hospital after being poisoned during a New Year’s dinner in Brazil, following a fatal family Christmas dinner in the same country
A New Year’s dinner poisoning has left a 17-year-old boy dead and three relatives fighting for their lives, with detectives investigating in Brazil.
Another five members of the same family ended up being hospitalised after tucking into the donated New Year’s Day fish meal. The people who gifted them the food were due to speak to detectives later today, although there is no evidence at this stage pointing to a crime having taken place.
Officers said they had gone to the authorities themselves and the victims had eaten the fish but left the rice they were given. Manoel Leandro da Silva, 17, died in an ambulance as he was being rushed to hospital in Parnaiba in the north-east Brazilian state of Piaui.
Police initially said a two-year-old relative had also died although they subsequently corrected the information. The other family members said to have needed hospital treatment have been identified as Manoel Leandro’s two sisters, his three nieces, his stepdad Francisco de Assis Pereira da Costa, 53; and Maria Jocilene da Silva, 41, and her two-year-old son.
Piaui’s Civil Police have described Manoel Leandro as the uncle of two children who died last year after eating poisoned cashew nuts. Ulisses Gabriel da Silva, eight, lost his fight for life in November after nearly three months in hospital. His brother Joao Miguel da Silva, seven, had died on September 12.
Local reports said a neighbour named as Lucelia Maria da Conceicao Silva, 52, had been charged with double homicide, after the second boy’s death. She was accused of giving them the sack of nuts which had been laced with an insecticide called Terfubos used on corn and sugar beats – and was remanded in prison pending an ongoing criminal probe after appearing before a judge.
Police claimed Lucelia had been involved in several conflicts with neighbours and had been accused of poisoning animals in the neighbourhood where she lived. There is not thought to be any link between the children’s deaths and the new poisoning horror involving the family.
The three relatives said to be in a “very serious” condition at a state hospital called Heda and a nearby annex hospital called Nossa Senhora de Fatima are understood to be two adults and a child. One of the adults has been identified as Francisca Maria da Silva, 32, the mother of Ulisses and Joao Miguel who died last year.
Earlier today, two of the nine people affected were released from hospital. Antonio Nunes, from the Piaui State Forensic Medicine Institute, said tests were being carried out on blood and urine samples from the poisoning victims as well as genetic material from the dead teenager’s stomach.
Another forensic team has gone to a family home on the outskirts of Parnaiba where the fish was consumed and taken other food they had eaten to determine if it contained toxic substances. Local police chief Abimael Silva said earlier today: “The people who delivered the food came forward and will be heard by the police this afternoon. The rice consumed by the victim family was prepared by the family themselves the day before.”
They didn’t eat the rice donated by the people, only the fish that came in the hamper which was an anchovy-type fish called Manjuba. Heda hospital director Carlos Teixeira told Brazilian media: “The patients’ symptoms were basically the same: below normal heart rate below normal, intense sweating, lowered level of consciousness. We are still carrying out tests to find out the source and the poisoning material. We are giving priority attention to the children in extremely serious condition.”
Meanwhile, a mystery Christmas cake poisoning in the southern Brazilian city of Torres ended with the deaths of three members of the same family. Zeli dos Anjos, 61, prepared the traditional ‘Bolo de Natal’ festive treat for a family meal on December 23.
She remains in hospital on a ventilator, although the other survivors who were hospitalised have all now been discharged. Zeli was one of six family members – including a 10-year-old child – who ended up in hospital with food poisoning. Her sisters Maida, 58, Neuza, 65, and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana, 43, all died shortly after eating the cake.
Traces of the toxic metal arsenic were reportedly found in the victims’ bodies, although further tests are ongoing. In the wake of the Christmas horror, it emerged Zeli’s husband had died from suspected food poisoning in September. Zeli’s family have since revealed he ate bananas suspected to have been contaminated by chemicals following a flood in their home city.
Torres-based police chief Marcos Vinicius Veloso said earlier this week of the Christmas drama, as it emerged the poisoning could be linked to the use of contaminated foods following a power cut: “With the evidence we have collected, we do not know whether the poisoning was negligent or intentional.
“So far, I have not been able to find any intentional conduct. However, other evidence that comes to light may contradict what I think now. This is an investigation that requires great caution.”
Isabel Moraes, sister-in-law of Maida Bernice Flores da Silva who was among the three women who died, told MailOnline: “Zeli is horrified by what’s happened. She is overcome with guilt because it was her cake that caused the tragedy, but we keep telling her not to worry and that it was an accident.
“We said she shouldn’t blame herself, but she is getting so anxious it’s not doing her recovery any good. She is getting worse instead of getting better. She is on a ventilator to help her breathe and we don’t know when she will be discharged.” She also claimed it could be linked to food donations Zeli and her husband were given in May after devastating floods forced them to move from their home city of Canoas a two-hour drive inland to a holiday home nearer Torres where the cake was eaten.
Isabel added: “They lost everything, and they were given a lot of donations like everyone else. They had food and pots and pans and maybe somehow the ingredients they were given had already been tampered with by some bad person, it’s possible but we can definitely say it wasn’t Zeli. Maybe it was someone who was mentally ill, maybe someone was being cynical and put the poison in the ingredients and then donated the food.”
