Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65 and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana Silvia Dos Santos, 43, died after eating the cake, laced with arsenic, before Christmas
A man whose wife died after eating a Christmas cake believed to have been laced with arsenic said he “sensed it tasted bad” as he tucked in.
Brazilian police are continuing to investigate the circumstances around the deaths of three women who ate the festive slice. Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65 and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana Silvia Dos Santos, 43, died within hours of eating the cake late on December 23.
As tradition dictated, the family gathered before Christmas and two of the sisters made cakes for everyone to enjoy. Maida made one, as did her sister, Zeli dos Anjos. However, Maida’s remained untouched and it was the latter’s whose proved fatal for the trio.
Jefferson Luiz Moraes, Maida’s husband, told local network G1 : “When I ate it I also sensed a bad taste, but because the cake had sugar on top it hid [the bad taste] a little bit. Neuza ate the cake, and then was going to eat again and [someone] said ‘don’t eat it because it’s not good’
“After that Zeli went across the corridor to vomit. It was three or four minutes, no more than that. After that Zeli passed out.
“Half of my face is gone. I have to rebuild everything again. Sleeping is difficult. I didn’t want to take sleeping pills, but I think I have to. At night it’s a hole that remains.”
Police arrested Zeli’s daughter-in-law, Deise Moura dos Anjos, 42, on suspicion of poisoning the flour used to make the cake. The investigation continues.
Margaret Mittman, Director of the Rio Grande do Sul General Forensic Institute which covers Torres, revealed tests on nearly 90 food samples had shown the source of the arsenic was flour. She said: “We analysed 89 samples and of those 89 samples we found one sample of flour contained extremely high levels of arsenic.
The level of arsenic in the flour reached the level of 65 grams per kilogramme of flour, which is around 2,700 times more than the concentration found in the cake.”
Tests on the victims’ urine and blood samples as well as the contents of their stomachs had revealed “fatal levels” of arsenic up to 350 times higher than those which would be regarded as naturally occurring, she said, adding: “They were such high levels they were considered toxic and lethal.”