Like many families, Zeli Dos Anjos and her sisters had a familiar festive routine. And so it was on December 23 that the relatives gathered to share the Christmas cake the 61-year-old proudly produced each year.
Admittedly, not everyone was a fan of the seasonal treat – made from dried fruit and topped with white icing, glacé cherries and a few sprigs of holly – but out of respect for Mrs Dos Anjos, they always gave it a go.
But this year, within seconds of handing out slices of the cake, it became apparent that something was very wrong.
Almost immediately there were comments about its ‘bitter’ and ‘peppery’ taste, prompting Mrs Dos Anjos to try two different pieces herself. But when her ten-year-old great-nephew Matheus also complained, she decided enough was enough.
She placed her hand on top of the cake and announced: ‘No one eats it any more.’
Too late. Within minutes, all six of the seven family members present who’d eaten a piece of cake started to feel sick.
By 1am the following day, all were so unwell that they called for help and were rushed to hospital by ambulance.
Mrs Dos Anjos’s sister Maida, a 58-year-old teacher, was the first to die on Christmas Eve. A third sister, Neuza, 65, passed away hours later, followed by her own daughter Tatiana, 43.
Zeli Dos Anjos with her late husband Paulo. She is now on a ventilator in hospital fighting for life
The Christmas cake – made from dried fruit and topped with white icing, glacé cherries and a few sprigs of holly – Mrs Dos Anjos, 61, produced every year
Tatiana’s son, Matheus, and Mrs Dos Anjos herself, meanwhile, are still fighting for their lives in hospital. Maida’s husband Jefferson also required hospital treatment but was the least seriously affected.
As news of the deaths spread amongst relatives and friends of this close-knit, middle-class Brazilian family, grief at the scale of the tragedy quickly merged with bafflement.
Insisting there is no way Mrs Dos Anjos would deliberately harm those she loves, Maida’s sister-in-law has now sensationally suggested someone outside the family with a grudge may have been responsible.
How could a small slice of home-baked Christmas cake result in the sudden deaths of three healthy adults in the space of just a few hours?
In the days that followed it was a mystery that would first garner national and then international attention as intriguing details about the incident emerged.
Firstly, hospital officials revealed Tatiana and Maida had suffered fatal heart attacks, while Neuza died from ‘shock after food poisoning’.
Then came the bombshell. According to local police, the results of laboratory tests carried out at the hospital indicated the presence of arsenic in the blood of one of the deceased and two of the hospitalised survivors.
Arsenic is a naturally occurring element and notoriously toxic heavy metal that is highly poisonous to humans. While its sale is banned in Brazil, it is still used as a crop pesticide and also for rodent control.
Ingestion produces symptoms of violent gastroenteritis, with vomiting and intense stomach pain, followed by plunging blood pressure and death within hours from circulatory failure.
This already truly perplexing – and horrifying – story took another dramatic turn this week when it emerged that keen amateur baker Mrs Dos Anjos was a widow, and her 66-year-old husband had died just four months earlier – from food poisoning.
Again, Mrs Dos Anjos had also fallen ill and was hospitalised at the same time. But unlike her husband, said to be a well-off fisherman, she fully recovered.
At the time, Mr Dos Anjos’s death was not deemed suspicious, but detectives have now confirmed his body will be exhumed for a proper post-mortem.
The Mail has learned that the cause of his food poisoning was said to be a banana, apparently picked from a tree believed to be contaminated by heavily polluted flood water.
Mrs Dos Anjos’s sister Maida, a 58-year-old teacher, was the first to die on Christmas Eve
A third sister, Neuza, 65, passed away hours later after eating the Christmas cake and falling sick
Of course, such details are merely circumstantial and police insist they are keeping an open mind as more tests are carried out on the ingredients in the cake.
They have stressed, however, there’s no evidence of a family dispute over money or inheritances and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing. Relatives remain convinced of Mrs Dos Anjos’s innocence and told the Mail that if arsenic was present, then an unknown person must have maliciously added it to the cake.
‘You have to wonder if it is something deliberate from someone, but it won’t be Zeli,’ Isabel Moraes, Maida’s sister-in-law told the Mail. ‘I think if this is a deliberate action, it will be someone with a grudge against the family, but I have no idea who that could be – or what their motive is.’
Another theory being probed is whether the deaths could be linked to a power cut at the widow’s home in November that might have caused ingredients kept in a fridge to spoil.
‘Some of the things in the fridge, perishable foods like meat, were thrown away. But other items were re-used,’ said investigating police officer Marcus Veloso.
‘What we’re trying to confirm is if some of those items, like currants and other crystallised fruit, could have been used in the cake a month later.’
Yet, experts point out that while mouldy, rotten food can contain toxic bacteria, that wouldn’t explain the presence of arsenic. ‘Arsenic has to be there in the first place and the amount would not be increased if the fruit goes mouldy or the meat goes bad,’ Professor Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, told the Mail.
‘I just can’t think of any reason why mouldy food or food not properly stored would have more arsenic in it than it would at the beginning. And it is highly unlikely to have any to start with – unless it has been put in there.’
A quick glance at Mrs Dos Anjos’s social media pages and two of her main passions quickly become clear – her family and cakes.
‘Chocolate cake!! If you haven’t made it, you have to make it!!!,’ she writes on a Facebook post beside a photo of a sumptuous gateau. ‘This cake is truly spectacular!’
On another, dated 2021, there is a picture of a ‘bolo de natal’, or Christmas cake. Like its British equivalent, dried fruits feature heavily in the ingredients.
Judging from a photograph released by police following the recent deaths, the cake at the centre of their investigation was identical to the one she proudly pictured online. ‘Zeli makes that cake every Christmas and everyone meets up to celebrate a few days before,’ a relative told the Daily Mail.
Neuza’s daughter Tatiana, 43, was the third to die from the family
The fatal cake in question was prepared at the family’s summer house in Arroio do Sal, a beach resort about 950 miles south of Rio de Janeiro.
Zeli had not visited the house for a while because she had been dividing her time between there and her main home in Canoas, a two-hour drive inland. The property in Canoas had been damaged by devastating floods in May, which left almost 200 people dead when rivers burst their banks after days of heavy rain.
On returning to the summer house in late November, Mrs Dos Anjos discovered a foul stench, and realised the fridge had been turned off due to a power cut and all the food inside had spoiled.
Weeks later, with power restored, she set about making her annual Christmas cake.
On December 23 Mrs Dos Anjos travelled 35 minutes up the coast to the town of Torres, where her sister Maida owned an apartment, taking her cake with her.
Isabel Moraes, Maida’s sister-in-law, told the Mail what happened next.
‘That day two cakes were made,’ said Isabel, a 54-year-old psychologist. ‘One by Zeli and one by Maida, but it was only Zeli’s which was eaten. If they had eaten the other one, then perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.
‘Both were on the table and [Maida’s husband]Jefferson said it was decided they’d leave Maida’s cake and have Zeli’s because she was the one who made it every year, but as soon as they started to eat it, they felt ill.’
A short while later everyone was doubled up in agony.
It was blood tests carried out at the hospital on Mrs Dos Anjos, her sister Neuza and Matheus that are said to have found the traces of arsenic. More extensive tests are now being carried out, with authorities at the Brazilian Forensic Crime laboratory sounding a note of caution.
‘The information about the presence of arsenic in the blood of the hospitalised victims is not official and was not released by us,’ they said in a statement. ‘We emphasise that the production of scientific evidence is essential and depends on several complex analyses that are being conducted by our toxicology and forensic chemistry laboratories.’
The ingredients used to bake the Christmas cake were taken away from the house in plastic bags for forensic examination
The search of Mrs Dos Anjos’s home identified the ingredients used in the cake as well as pesticides and insect poisons.
A photograph taken at the house shows a table with a spatula surrounded by what appear to be shop-bought tubs of raisins and dried fruits.
There are also a number of clear plastic pots containing unidentifiable white powders and granular substances, including what looks like sugar and flour.
It is, of course, possible that if arsenic was indeed present in the cake, it could have been added accidentally.
‘There may have been a mix-up with an unidentified container, for example,’ said local scientist Ubiracir Lima. ‘Or a container may have been used to store arsenic and then used to store one of the cake ingredients.’
Another theory links the current tragedy to the death of Mrs Dos Anjos’s husband, Paulo. This week Paulo’s cousin Marcos Dos Anjos told the Mail how, after the flood in May, the couple dug up a banana tree from their garden in Canoas and replanted it in their summer house.
He believes the tree had been contaminated with chemicals in the floodwater – and that pots and pans Mrs Dos Anjos used to bake the Christmas cake may have also been affected. ‘When the floods came they moved all of their belongings to their other house, including a banana tree,’ said Marcos, 72.
‘Then, in early, September Paulo and Zeli were both taken to hospital after eating bananas.
‘I was told it was bananas from the tree in the garden. Then we heard that Paulo had died, but Zeli got better and was discharged from hospital.
‘They said he died because the banana had given him food poisoning. I know it seems strange, especially now with what has happened over the cake.
‘I’m sure Zeli wouldn’t do anything on purpose, we are all very close and Matheus is her nephew and he’s only ten.
‘I can only think that somehow when the place was flooded the banana tree was also contaminated and maybe so were some of the pots and pans Zeli used for the cake.’
Requesting not to be named, another relative added: ‘When the floods came through, the factories and chemical plants were badly hit and containers were washing up along the streets.
‘We were told there was no danger and everything was being properly handled by the army, but now after the cake and Paolo’s death in September from the banana, we are beginning to think there is some connection.’
Another suggestion is that tinned food donated to the family following the flood might have been bad or tampered with.
Questions over Paolo’s death are unlikely to be answered for at least a few weeks with the authorities waiting for formal permission to be granted for his exhumation.
He is buried in the Sao Vincent cemetery in the Porto Alegre suburb of Canoas where his wife’s sisters and her niece were buried on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
On New Year’s Eve, Matheus’s family released a photograph of the little boy, after he was well enough to be moved from intensive care to a paediatric unit.
But Mrs Dos Anjos’s condition continues to cause concern, with relatives worried that she cannot cope with the ‘guilt’ she feels.
‘Zeli is horrified by what’s happened,’ said Maida’s sister-in-law, Isabel. ‘She is overcome with guilt because it was her cake that caused the tragedy, but we keep telling her not to worry and that it was an accident.
‘We said she shouldn’t blame herself, but she is getting so anxious it’s not doing her recovery any good. She is getting worse instead of getting better.
‘She is on a ventilator and we don’t know when she will be discharged.’
And getting to the bottom of what happened is also likely to take some time.
As local police chief Marcos Veloso said: ‘With the evidence we have collected, we do not know whether the poisoning was negligent or intentional. So far, I have not been able to find any intentional conduct. However, other evidence that comes to light may contradict what I think now.’