The husband of one of the three women who died after eating a homemade Christmas cake believed to have been laced with arsenic is speaking out.
Jefferson Luiz Moraes, 60, whose wife, Maida Berenice Flores da Silva died on Dec. 23, after consuming the cake which was baked by her sister, said he is still mourning her loss.
“My better half is gone,” Moraes told local Brazilian outlet O Globo, per a translation. “I have to rebuild everything again. Sleeping is difficult. I didn’t want to take sleeping pills, but I think I have to. At night, there’s a hole [in my heart] that remains.”
He showed the outlet around his home — still filled with Christmas decorations — which was where his 58-year-old wife and two of her other family members Tatiana Denize Silva dos Anjos, 43, and Neuza Denize Silva dos Anjos, 65, ingested the allegedly lethal cake before their deaths.
Three others, including Zeli Terezinha Silva dos Anjos, 61, who is thought to have baked the cake, and a 10-year-old boy, also fell ill, per O Globo. The boy was discharged from the hospital on Friday, Jan. 3, but Zeli remains in the ICU in stable condition, per the outlet.
Moraes told O Globo that he recalled feeling “terror” as the family members began falling ill, but added that they “weren’t yet aware that it was going to be so serious.” He said he didn’t initially suspect there was foul play allegedly involved until his sister discovered that his sister-in-law Zeli’s husband, Paulo Luiz dos Anjos, reportedly died by food poisoning in September 2024.
“[My sister] said, ‘Oh, it could be arsenic,’ ” Moraes said, per a translation of the outlet. “And in the meantime, I think the police chief called me because he wanted to know where the rest of the cake was… I said, ‘The cake is there intact,’ I didn’t throw it away because I knew it [could be] something serious.”
Brazilian police officials confirmed Moraes’ suspicions during a press conference on Monday, Jan. 6, per CBS News, when they shared that tests showed high concentrations of arsenic in the victim’s bodies and revealed that the source of the poison was in the flour used to bake the cake.
Brazilian police official Marcos Veloso also noted that family members detected a “spicy” and “unpleasant” taste when eating the cake, reported the outlet.
Authorities arrested Zeli’s daughter-in-law, identified only as “Deise,” on suspicion of triple homicide and triple attempted homicide, O Globo reported, citing police. The outlet also reported that the suspect allegedly searched “arsenic” and similar terms on Google prior to the incident, citing officials.
The deaths of Moraes’ wife and the two other women have also prompted police to reopen an investigation into the food poisoning death of Zeli’s late husband, Paolo Luiz. His death wasn’t initially investigated because it was considered natural, O Globo previously reported.
