Brazilian police have arrested a woman facing charges of triple homicide after several members of her family were poisoned by an arsenic-laced Christmas cake, police said Monday.
Her identity was not revealed by the police, but Brazilian media reported she was the daughter-in-law of the woman who prepared the cake.
G1 reported that the woman researched about arsenic on the internet before the incident, officials confirmed to RBS TV.
Veloso said the family members had noticed a “spicy” and “unpleasant” flavor to the cake.
As for the motive behind the deadly cake, Veloso said the family had a “very harmonious” relationship but with long-standing “differences” that could explain the origin of the crime.
Police in Brazil said Monday that they had arrested a woman who is accused of triple homicide after an arsenic-laced Christmas cake poisoned several members of her family.
On December 23, during a family gathering in Torres, a small coastal town in southern Brazil, three women died and three other family members became ill after consuming the cake.
There was “strong evidence” that the arrested family member was guilty, according to Marcos Veloso, the investigating police official, who spoke at a press conference on Monday.
According to Brazilian media, she was the daughter-in-law of the woman who made the cake, but the police did not disclose her identity. According to G1, officials told RBS TV that the woman had done online research on arsenic prior to the incident.
Arsenic, a naturally occurring and highly toxic element, was found in high concentrations in the victims’ blood, the remaining cake slices, and the flour used to bake it, according to expert analyses.
Veloso claimed that the cake had a “spicy” and “unpleasant” flavor that the family had noticed. They were told to stop eating the cake by the woman who made it, but it was too late.
Six family members were admitted to the hospital. Within hours of one another, two sisters, ages 58 and 65, as well as the oldest sister’s 43-year-old daughter, passed away.
The most recent medical update indicates that the third sister, who made the cake, is still in the hospital in stable condition. She is sixty-one years old.
When police searched the woman’s home, they also reportedly discovered a number of expired food items, according to BBC, a partner of CBS News.
One of the sisters’ husbands has since been released, as has a 10-year-old boy whose mother and grandmother were among those killed.
Local media reported that police asked for the exhumation of the late husband of the cake maker. According to the BBC, police at the time declared his death from food poisoning in September to be natural.
The three victims had “very high concentrations of arsenic,” according to Marguet Mittman, director of forensic police in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. “.”.
35 micrograms is sufficient to kill a person, to give you an idea. She stated that one of the victims had a concentration that was 350 times greater.
Veloso commented that although the family had a “very harmonious” relationship, there were long-standing “differences” that might have contributed to the crime’s inception.
According to the National Institutes of Health, many food products contain very low levels of both organic and inorganic arsenic. Because mildly increased levels of either form can result in symptoms like nausea, diarrhea, cramping in the muscles, numbness, and vomiting, testing is necessary.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that inorganic arsenic is more harmful to humans than the naturally occurring form of the mineral, and exposure to it can have more detrimental health effects. S. . the Food and Drug Administration. Inorganic arsenic has been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a carcinogen, or a material that causes cancer.
