This story out of Brazil reads like something straight out of a true crime docuseries, but it’s horrifyingly real—and heartbreakingly tragic. A mother and daughter are now dead, and the simple act of accepting a slice of birthday cake may have been what sealed their fate.
It all began when Ana Maria de Jesus, 52, and her 21-year-old daughter, Larissa de Jesus Castilho, accepted a piece of cake delivered to their home by the husband of Ana’s niece, Patricia. It was a seemingly kind gesture—Ana had missed a family birthday celebration because she was under the weather, and the cake was brought to her the following day. But what happened after that is raising chilling questions.
Shortly after eating the cake, Ana felt violently ill and called her daughter, saying she couldn’t stand. She was rushed to the hospital, placed on a ventilator, and later died.
Larissa, along with a 16-year-old cousin who had tasted the cake earlier, ate more of it after visiting Ana in the hospital. Larissa also became gravely ill and later died. Tests revealed pesticides in their bodies. Not food poisoning. Not bad frosting. Pesticides.
Now, police are treating this as a full-blown homicide investigation. And here’s where it gets really unsettling: when detectives examined the phones of Patricia and her partner, Leonardo, they reportedly found some disturbing search histories. One was searching “Heart attack causes convulsions.” Another had “FBI persuasion manual” in their recent Google searches. You can’t make this stuff up.
Despite these eyebrow-raising details, a judge has—at least for now—denied the police’s request to arrest the couple. No explanation has been made public yet, but that hasn’t stopped speculation from swirling. Ana had allegedly lent money to Patricia and Leonardo, and the possibility that a debt might be connected to this deadly cake delivery has only intensified public outrage.
If that’s not enough, this case comes amid a bizarre surge in poisoning-related deaths in Brazil. Just this year, another woman is accused of going on a five-year poisoning spree, allegedly killing four people with rat poison—including a former romantic partner. Another case involved a Christmas cake laced with arsenic that killed three people from the same family, including a 10-year-old boy.
That’s three major food poisoning cases—just in the last year—all pointing toward premeditated, cold-blooded attempts at murder using food as a weapon.
What’s terrifying here isn’t just the method, but the intimacy of it. Birthday cake. Stew. Holiday desserts. The kinds of meals meant to bring people together are now being twisted into murder plots. And in the case of Ana and Larissa, it’s the betrayal that’s hardest to stomach—this wasn’t delivered by a stranger, but by family.
The investigation in Sao Paulo is still ongoing, and pressure is mounting on authorities to act. The community wants justice. And in a country suddenly plagued by what feels like a rash of quiet killers hiding in plain sight, every unturned stone is one too many.
