Wednesday, October 15, 2025 - A mum and daughter have di£d after eating a birthday cake and police are investigating a possible deliberate poisoning.
Ana Maria de Jesus, 52, and Larissa de Jesus Castilho, 21,
were rushed to hospital after eating a slice of the cake delivered to
them by a family member.
Tests conducted after they di£d have showed up the presence
of pesticides in their bodies.
Detectives have demanded the arrest and incarceration of the
family member Patricia and her partner, named locally only as Leonardo, after
going through their phones.
It was discovered that his online searches had included one
for "heart attack causes convulsions" and one of his partner’s
"Intoxication from cleaning product."
However, a judge has just refused the police request to
arrest the pair for reasons that have yet to be made public, but the
investigation is ongoing.
Leonardo was filmed arriving on his motorbike the day after
the family birthday, which Patricia's aunt missed because she had a cold, and
dropping off a slice of the cake for her which she ate the same
afternoon.
She called her daughter shortly afterwards saying she felt
ill and couldn’t stand up and ended up being rushed to Sao Paulo’s Heliopolis
Hospital where she was put on a ventilator. Larissa and a 16-year-old cousin
who survived despite also eating the birthday cake, tucked into the cake after
leaving hospital and returning home when they were told Ana Maria would be kept
in for the night.
Sao Paulo’s Secretariat of Public Security said in a
statement, confirming a police homicide unit was probing the de@ths:
“On October 8 search and seizure warrants were executed,
resulting in the seizure of cell phones, which were sent for data extraction.
The information obtained is still being analysed by investigators.”
Initial results leaked to Brazilian press, along with the
tests showing up the pesticides, have pointed to incriminating searches on the
phones of the two people at the centre of the ongoing police probe. Leonardo
says he was simply helping a friend and Patricia,
whose Google searches from her phones also included one with the
words "FBI persuasion manual" has reportedly told cops she doesn’t
remember making them.
Police are thought to have been investigating the de@ths of
Ana Maria and her daughter since the end of July when Larissa's mum lost her
fight for life in hospital, although the results of their probe so far have
only just been made public. Brazil has been rocked by a string of poisoning
scandals over the past year.
News of the mum and daughter de@th comes after a law student
in Brazil who allegedly tested rat poison on
10 dogs was accused of k!lling four people in a five year
long killing spree.
Police claim Ana Paula Veloso Fernandes, 36, was helped by
her twin sister Roberta Cristina Veloso Fernandes and friend Michelle Paiva da
Silva, 43, who is the daughter of one of the alleged victims.
Police investigating the new poisoning case have been told
Ana Maria, who lived in the Sao Paulo neighbourhood of Ipiranga, regularly lent
money to her niece and her partner and a debt could be linked to what
subsequently happened.
Also, a Christmas cake poisoning in December last
year in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul which left three
people and three others fighting for their lives, made headlines around
the world.
Teacher Maida Bernice Flores da Silva, 58, another sibling
called Neuza Denize Silva Dos Anjos, 65 and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana Silvia Dos
Santos, 43, di£d within hours of eating the cake late on December 23.
Maida’s sister Zeli dos Anjos, who baked the cake later
found to have been contaminated with arsenic-laced flour, survived after a long
hospital stay. The victims also included a 10-year-old boy. Zeli’s
daughter-in-law Deise Moura dos Anjos was arrested over the horror crime but
hanged herself in prison in February after being remanded in custody.
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