The police in Brazil have arrested a woman who allegedly poisoned a family by serving them a cake containing arsenic on Christmas Eve.
Three people died and three others were hospitalized after the incident, which occurred in the city of Torres, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. According to police, there were seven people in the room when the cake was served.
At a press conference, the Civil Police of Rio Grande do Sul confirmed that the daughter-in-law of one the victims is the main suspect.
One person did not eat the cake, but the other six who did were all hospitalized. Three women, sisters Maida and Neuza, and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana, later died.
The suspect, arrested Sunday, is the daughter-in-law of Zeli dos Anjos, 60, who made the cake, according to CNN Brasil. Police told CNN the suspect had disagreements with her family for more than two decades.
She has been charged with triple homicide as well as three attempted homicides.
Dos Anjos is currently in the ICU, according to police, along with her 10-year-old great-nephew.
Police said large amounts of arsenic were registered in the bodies of the three women who died, with expert analysis showing high levels in their urine and stomach samples.
“The arsenic levels in these samples are so high that they are considered toxic and lethal. And that explains the cause of death,” Marguet Mittmann, director general of the General Institute of Expertise, a public security body working with the police, said at the press conference.
