Francisco de Assis Pereira da Costa has been arrested on suspicion of murder after four victims died from eating rice and beans laced with rat poison on New Year’s Day
Police probing the food poisoning deaths of four people including two young children have arrested the youngsters’ stepfather.
Francisco de Assis Pereira da Costa was held this morning on suspicion of killing one-year-old Igno Davi da Silva, his three-year-old sister Lauane, his 32-year-old partner Francisca Maria da Silva and Francisca Maria’s 18-year-old brother Manoel.
The four victims died over seven days after eating a New Years Day rice and beans dish laced with rat poison. Detectives in Parnaiba in the north-east Brazilian state of Piaui confirmed earlier this week they had launched a murder probe and said they believed someone put a pesticide used to kill rodents in the rice deliberately which Francisca and eight relatives including her partner ate with donated fish.
The 53-year-old suspect was also hospitalised briefly before being discharged. Lauane’s four-year-old sister is still serious in hospital in Teresina near Parnaiba. Police have not yet revealed a possible motive for the horror poisoning but are expected to offer more information later today at a press conference.
Francisca Maria’s death in the early hours of yesterday morning meant even more lives were lost than in Torres 2,500 miles south when three family members were killed and another three hospitalised after they ate a Christmas cake laced with arsenic.
Deise Moura, the daughter-in-law of Zeli Dos Anjos who made the cake, has been arrested on suspicion of three murders and three attempted murders and remanded in custody for 30 days while a police investigation continues.
Cake baker Zeli’s teacher sister Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, another sibling called 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.
Tatiana’s 10-year-old son Matheus, Zeli’s great nephew, was also taken into intensive care and only released from hospital last Friday. Maida’s husband Jefferson was the other relative hospitalised along with Zeli, who ate two slices of cake and is said to have been exposed to more of the arsenic it contained.
Regional security minister Sandro Caron said at a press conference on Monday: “We have very strong indications that the person who has been arrested is the perpetrator. Some details cannot yet be disclosed so as not to hinder the continuity of the investigation, but we have obtained very good information pointing to the person who was arrested yesterday being the perpetrator and acting maliciously.”
Brazilian media later reported the key evidence against Zeli’s daughter-in-law consisted of online searches for arsenic found on her phone. Deise’s shock arrest on Sunday has led to heightened speculation about whether Zeli’s husband’s food poisoning death last year could have been a crime, despite it being categorised in the immediate aftermath of his passing away as ‘non-suspicious.’
Paulo Luis, 68, died last September after eating mashed bananas which relatives last week suggested could have been contaminated by chemicals following flooding in the couple’s home city of Canoas a two-hour drive inland from their holiday home nearer Torres where the Christmas cake was eaten.
Officials had already confirmed his body was going to be exhumed as part of the ongoing probe into the festive season poisoning and earlier this week it emerged the exhumation will take place tomorrow.
Deise, 42, broke her silence yesterday to insist she had done nothing wrong.
Her lawyer Cassyus Pontes, speaking for the first time on behalf of his client, said: “Everything’s all very preliminary. There are still questions to be answered. What is the causal link between the poison and Deise? There is no explanation of how the flour ended up in Zeli’s house, or where or how it was acquired. These are minimal questions to indicate the authorship of the facts. Instead, all we have are the accounts of some family members and a supposed extraction of data from a mobile phone.”
Referencing an apparent 20-year-old dispute between Zeli and other members of her family which detectives have alluded to as a possible motive, Mr Pontes added in comments to local media: “Deise never hid the fact that she had disagreements with her mother-in-law. She had already mentioned it to the Civil Police in a statement. I was surprised by the preventive custody request.”
