Nick Squires
Rome: The wife and daughter of a former Italian mayor who were thought to have died from food poisoning are now at the centre of a possible murder mystery.
Antonella Di Jelsi, 50, and her 15-year-old daughter, Sara Di Vita, fell ill after a pre-Christmas lunch on December 23 in their home town of Pietracatella, in the southern region of Molise, and later died in hospital.
Doctors first thought that the pair had succumbed to a particularly virulent form of food poisoning, originating from either mushrooms or fish.
But tests later found ricin, a rare, highly potent poison for which there is no antidote, in their blood. It can be deadly if eaten, inhaled or injected. Symptoms include fever, vomiting and rapid organ failure.
Di Jelsi’s husband, Gianni, 55, who is the former mayor of the town, had similar but less serious symptoms. He was taken to hospital but recovered.
The couple’s other daughter, Alice, 19, did not attend the meal and had no health problems.
No suspects have been publicly identified, but police are investigating whether any of the family’s relatives had reason to harm them, according to Italian media reports.
Prosecutors have opened a double-murder investigation and are trying to establish who is responsible for the alleged positioning and how it occurred.
The mother and daughter were taken to hospital in the town of Campobasso, but initially sent home by doctors.
They returned to hospital on several occasions between December 24 and 26 as their conditions continued to deteriorate, and they died within hours of each other.
‘It is one of the most potent poisons that exists in nature. It is not easy to get hold of.’
Italian pharmacologist Gianni Sava
Five doctors were placed under investigation for potential negligence.
The autopsy on December 31 provided no clear answers. But three months after their deaths, toxicology tests conducted in Italy and Switzerland revealed the presence of ricin in their bodies.
‘The whole thing is so strange’
“The whole thing is so strange. We are all offering our support,” Pietracatella’s current mayor, Antonio Tomassone, said.
The alleged use of ricin prompted the Italian media to draw parallels with TV series including Breaking Bad and Law & Order, in which the toxin features, and The Interview, a 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 beef Wellington murders in Australia, in which Victorian woman Erin Patterson was found guilty of murdering three relatives with slices of beef Wellington stuffed with toxic death cap mushrooms.
In September, she was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years. Patterson is appealing.
Gianni Di Vita is well known in the local community. As well as serving as mayor, he was the regional treasurer of the Democratic Party, the centre-Left bloc that is now in opposition to Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition.
Deadly poison ‘isn’t easy to get hold of’
Ricin is one of the deadliest poisons in the world.
Italian pharmacologist Gianni Sava told La Repubblica newspaper: “To kill a man who weighs 70 kilograms, you need just 14 milligrams of ricin.
“It is one of the most potent poisons that exists in nature. It is not easy to get hold of.”
It was extremely hard to make at home, he said. “It requires very dangerous and complex chemical processes. And if you inhale it, it can kill you.”
The toxin occurs naturally in castor beans, and is made from the material left over from processing them. It can take the form of a powder, mist or pellet.
In the 1940s, the US experimented with using ricin as a weapon, and it may have been used in Iraq in the 1980s. The Soviet Union is also known to have possessed weaponised ricin.
