THE woman accused of murdering three relatives with an arsenic-poisoned Christmas cake has been found dead in her jail cell.
Deise Moura dos Anjos, 42, was found in her cell at a women’s prison in Guaiba, near the city of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, this morning.
Jam PressZeli Terezinha Silva dos Anjos baked a cake that it is believed Deise had poisoned[/caption]
NF/newsXMaida Berenice Flores da Silva, 58, was one of the three who died[/caption]
Jam PressThe Christmas cake thought to have been spiked with arsenic[/caption]
Cops said they believe it was suicide.
Deise was taken into prison last month on suspicion of three murders and three attempted murders.
She always insisted she was innocent, despite police branding her a “serial killer” after her arrest.
Local cops had said that the evidence they had against her was “robust.”
Her mother-in-law, Zeli, baked the cake eaten by the relatives who fell ill – and Deise was suspected of having contaminated it with arsenic-laced flour.
The dessert had been baked at Zeli’s home before it was brought to a Christmas gathering in Torres on December 23.
Zeli, 61, was rushed to hospital but survived.
Zeli’s 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, all died within hours of eating the cake.
The chilling case rocked Brazil over Christmas, and Deise was arrested on suspicion of murder after a “whitish liquid” was found at Zeli’s house.
In a shock twist, arsenic was also laster discovered in the body of Paulo Luiz Dos Anjos, Zeli’s husband, who died in September.
The family horror began when the family tucked into a cake Zeli had baked – as she did every Christmas time.
According to one of the investigators, the cake had an odd “spicy” and “peppery” flavour, but this didn’t put them off.
Seven people ate the cake in total, and they all began feeling ill soon afterwards.
Jefferson Luiz Morales, 60, survived the deadly bake, and told Brazilian news channel G1 it was no more than “three or four minutes” until people began feeling ill.
Paramedics rushed to the apartment but three of the seven were too sick to be saved.
In the wake of the ordeal, a suspicious family friend had raised the alarm about a rumbling family feud, telling cops that three days before the incident Deise threatened the family in a heated argument.
Police opened a murder investigation and seized Deise’s phone, where they found searches for “poison for the heart”, “arsenic poison”, and “poison that kills humans.”
After Deise’s arrest, suspicion began to mount about the death of her father in law, Paulo Luiz Dos Anjos, Zeli’s husband, who died in September of suspected food poisoning.
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