A 27-year-old Brazilian woman, Fernanda Silva Valoz da Cruz Pinto, was walking through the city center of Maceió when an elderly woman approached her and offered to read her palm.
According to reports, the woman told Fernanda she only had “a few days to live.” Before leaving, she handed her a packaged chocolate.
Fernanda was hungry, and the chocolate appeared normal, so she ate it.
Within hours, she began feeling seriously ill. In messages sent to her family, she described frightening symptoms, saying her heart was racing, she had vomited, there was a bitter taste in her mouth, her vision was blurry, and she felt extremely weak.
Her final message was especially chilling. She wrote that she believed the sickness began after accepting and eating the chocolate given to her by the elderly woman in the city center.
Fernanda died the following morning.
Two months later, toxicology tests reportedly found lethal levels of two agricultural pesticides in her body: sulfotep and terbufos. Investigators came to suspect that the chocolate had been deliberately poisoned.
What first appeared to be a strange street encounter soon became the focus of a homicide investigation.
But by the time police moved forward with the case, a crucial piece of evidence was already gone. CCTV footage from the area had been deleted before it could be fully used to identify the suspect.
As a result, the person believed to be responsible was never identified, and the case remains effectively unsolved.
Fernanda left behind a 9-year-old daughter with special needs, making the tragedy even more heartbreaking.
The case continues to stand as a disturbing reminder that what seems like a harmless moment with a stranger can sometimes hide something far darker.