Police arrest daughter-in-law of woman who baked 'poisoned' Christmas cake for triple murder

Police have arrested the daughter-in-law of a Brazilian woman who baked a Christmas cake that resulted in the deaths of three of her relatives.

61-year-old Zeli Terezinha Silva dos Anjos had prepared a 'Bolo de Natal', a traditional Christmas cake, for a family gathering on 23 December.

Family friends said that making the cake and having family round to eat it was a tradition for them, but with seven of them together, three were soon dead and another three required medical treatment.

Zeli herself ate two slices and was hospitalised along with two other family members, while her sisters, Maida Berenice Flores da Silva, 58, and Neuza Denize Silva dos Anjos, 65 died along with her niece Tatiana Denize Silva dos Anjos, 43.

Tatiana and Maida died of cardiac arrests while Neuza died of 'shock after poisoning', and a police investigation found traces of the poisonous substance arsenic in the bodies of Neuza and two of the family members who survived.

The cake in question, which left three dead and three more in hospital (Divulgação/Polícia Civil)

Police launched an investigation into the matter, searching the house and even making plans to exhume the body of Zeli's husband Paulo Luiz who had died of food poisoning earlier in the year.

A police spokesperson said they were going to check Paulo's body to see whether or not he had been poisoned, while their search of the house found a number of 'expired products in the residence'.

Now, however, the Mail reports that the daughter-in-law of the woman who baked the cake has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

She is married to Zeli's son and the Mail reports that Torres police chief, Marcus Vinicius Veloso, told them she had been arrested at her home on Sunday (5 January), saying: "The woman was arrested for triple homicide and a triple attempted homicide.

"She was taken initially to a police station at Canoas, then to Torres police station and is now in the women’s jail in the city, at this moment we cannot say anything else."

The cake was a family tradition, something they would often eat together during the festive period. (Getty Stock Photo)

A police spokesperson had previously indicated that the investigation had not yet turned up any evidence of inheritance disputes or fallings out among the family members.

Of the family members who ate the cake, there were complaints of it tasting 'bitter and peppery', and soon afterwards they were vomiting and having to call an ambulance to take them to hospital.

Isabel Moraes, the sister of one of the men who ate the cake and was hospitalised, said: "The whole family is shocked. We just don’t know what to say, someone who is so close to us, we never imagined it."