A woman accused of killing three members of her family with an arsenic-laced Christmas cake was found dead in her prison cell in Brazil.
Deise Moura dos Anjos’s body was lifeless when guards burst into her cell at the jail in Guaiba, near the city of Porto Alegre.
The 42-year-old was alone when the incident happened this morning and police have since confirmed her death is being treated as a suicide.
It came a month after she was arrested over the poisoning of six people, three of which died and the others hospitalised.
Her family tucked into the cake during a family gathering on Christmas Eve with the first casualties reported a short time later.
Deise was remanded in prison on January 6 on suspicion of three murders and three attempted murders.
Her mother-in-law Zeli dos Anjos, 61, had baked the cake, which was later found to have been contaminated with arsenic-laced flour.
Zeli was herself hospitalised but survived the poisoning. Her teacher sister Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, another sibling Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65 and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana Silvia Dos Santos, 43, died within hours of eating it.
(L-R) Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65, and Tatiana Silvia Dos Santos, 43, all died after eating the cake baked by Zeli Dos Anjos (insert) (Picture: Jam Press/Facebook)
Tatiana’s 10-year-old son Matheus, Zeli’s great nephew, was also taken into intensive care and spent several days in hospital.
Maida’s husband Jefferson needed hospital treatment too.
Deise protested her innocence but police branded her an alleged ‘serial killer’ after her arrest, arguing that the evidence they had against her was ‘robust.’
Forensic experts confirmed after Deise’s arrest early last month the cause of the deaths of victims was arsenic poisoning.
Margaret Mittman, director of Rio Grande do Sul General Forensic Institute, said: ‘The source of the arsenic poisoning was the cake eaten by the victims and the source of the contamination of the cake was the flour found in Zeli’s house in Arroio do Sol.’
She revealed 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.’
Deise was remanded in prison on January 6 on suspicion of three murders and three attempted murders
‘Extremely high levels of arsenic were found in the tests done on the three people who died,’ she later added. ‘They were such high levels they were considered toxic and lethal.’
Police were also probing whether Deise killed her father-in-law Paulo Luis dos Anjos, who died last September after eating bananas mixed with powdered milk she had taken him.
Local police chief Marcus Vinicius Muniz Veloso spoke after her arrest to describe Deise as the only person who had upset the ‘harmonious’ family relationship that existed between the poison victims.
‘The family relationship was harmonious but there were disagreements caused by only one person and that person was investigated and we were able to build up evidence pointing to her committing three murders and three attempted murder,’ he said.
‘I can tell you those differences I’m talking about date back 20 years. They were very minor. The family told us about those disagreements.’
Police and prison authorities will now carry out separate investigations into Deise’s jail cell death.
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