Mystery as mayor’s wife and daughter ‘poisoned with ricin’
Nick Squires
Rome: The wife and daughter of a former Italian mayor who was thought to have died of food poisoning are now at the center of a possible murder mystery.
Antonella Di Jelsi, 50, and her daughter Sara Di Vita, 15, fell ill after a pre-Christmas lunch on December 23 in their hometown of Pietracatella, in the southern region of Molise, and died later in hospital.
Doctors initially thought the two women had succumbed to a particularly lethal form of food poisoning caused by mushrooms or fish.
But later tests found their blood contained ricin, a rare, extremely powerful poison for which there is no antidote. It can be fatal if eaten, inhaled or injected. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, and rapid organ failure.
Di Jelsi’s husband, Gianni, 55, the town’s former mayor, had similar but less severe symptoms. He was hospitalized but recovered.
The couple’s other daughter, 19-year-old Alice, did not attend the dinner and did not suffer from any health problems.
No suspects have been publicly identified, but police are investigating whether any of the family’s relatives had a reason to harm them, according to Italian media reports.
Prosecutors have launched a double murder investigation and are trying to determine who is responsible for the alleged positioning and how it happened.
Mother and daughter were taken to hospital in the town of Campobasso, but were initially sent home by doctors.
As their condition continued to deteriorate, they returned to the hospital multiple times between 24 and 26 December, dying within a few hours of each other.
‘It is one of the most powerful poisons existing in nature. It’s not easy to catch him.’
Italian pharmacologist Gianni Sava
Five doctors were under investigation for possible negligence.
The autopsy on December 31 did not provide a clear answer. However, three months after their deaths, toxicology tests conducted in Italy and Switzerland revealed the presence of ricin in their bodies.
‘Everything is so strange’
Pietracatella’s current mayor, Antonio Tomassone, said: “It’s all very strange. We all offer our support.”
The alleged use of ricin prompted the Italian media to draw parallels with the TV series. Breaking Bad And Law and Orderproperties of the toxin and ReportA 2014 comedy film in which journalists are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un with ricin.
The case also has parallels with the Wellington cattle killings in Australia; In this murder, Victorian woman Erin Patterson was convicted of murdering three relatives with slices of beef Wellington stuffed with poisonous mushrooms.
He was sentenced to 33 years in prison without parole in September. Patterson looks attractive.
Gianni Di Vita is well known in the local community. Besides his mayoral role, he was regional treasurer of the Democratic Party, the centre-left bloc currently in opposition to Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition.
Deadly poison ‘not easy to capture’
Ricin is one of the deadliest poisons in the world.
Italian pharmacologist Gianni Sava told La Repubblica The newspaper: “You only need 14 milligrams of ricin to kill a 70-pound man.
“It is one of the most powerful poisons that exists in nature. It is not easy to catch.”
He said it was very difficult to make at home. “It’s very dangerous and requires complex chemical processes. And it can kill you if you breathe it in.”
The toxin occurs naturally in castor beans and is made from the material left over from their processing. It can be in the form of powder, mist or pellets.
In the 1940s, the United States attempted to use ricin as a weapon, and it may have been used in Iraq in the 1980s. The Soviet Union is also known to have weaponized ricin.
