A woman has been arrested after the deaths of three family members in Brazil, who were poisoned after eating a cake laced with arsenic on Christmas Eve.
Three others were in hospital after the incident, which occurred at a family Christmas gathering in the city of Torres, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
At a press conference today, police revealed a woman, the daughter-in-law of one of the victims, had been arrested in connection to the incident, CNN reports.
Police said seven people were in the room when the cake was served, with one not eating it.
The six who ate the cake were taken to hospital, which was where three women, sisters Maida and Neuza, and Neuza’s daughter Tatiana, died.
Police said "lethal" amounts of arsenic were found in the bodies of the women who died.
“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, said.
Mittmann said the victim who registered the lowest amount of arsenic still registered 80 times more than the amount allowed in food. The victim with the highest had 350 times the permitted amount.
“These concentrations are so high that it’s impossible to consider it a natural contamination.”
The woman arrested yesterday is the daughter-in-law of 60-year-old Zeli dos Anjos, who made the cake and was one of those who fell ill. The daughter-in-law was charged with triple homicide and three attempted homicides.
According to CNN, police said the suspect had been in previous disagreements with her family.
Police also confirmed the poison was mixed into the flour during preparation, ruling out the possibility of food poisoning.
Analysis of the samples found the arsenic found in the flour was 2700 times higher than the permitted limit.
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