Easter Special: Beware the Eggs

A gift-wrapped package. A note that read "With love, Happy Easter." A family who had no idea what was inside.

In this special Easter episode, Chelsea covers the case of Jordélia Barbosa — a Brazilian woman who allegedly traveled hundreds of miles in disguise, spiked a box of chocolate eggs, and had them couriered to her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend. What followed was one of the most disturbing acts of jealousy-fueled violence in recent memory.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm Chelsea and I'm Jenny. And this is Death and Gardening. Alrighty, so on the theme of Easter, we're going to go back to only last year. The year of 2025. Okay. Very recent. So because it's very recent, there are going to be some allegedly near the end. But otherwise, evidence that had been found isn't really all that alleged. It's just kind of like a the motive is alleged. Right. But there's a motive? Oh yeah, there is a motive. Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Alright, let's dive on into it. I also titled this one uh Beware the Eggs because I thought it was funny. So the day is April 16th, days before Easter of 2025, in Imperatrice, Brazil. Hopefully I pronounced that right. Forgive me if no. A motorbike quarrier arrived at the residence of Miriam Lira and her children, seven-year-old Louis Silva and 13-year-old Evelyn Fernanda. Okay. The quarrier delivered a couple of chocolate Easter eggs. They were a luxury Easter egg. From the image I saw, it looked like just a black flat container with just like chocolate halves in each. And sprinkles and stuff. So yeah. Yeah. And then little spoons that you could kind of like eat it with. It was cute. Yeah. There was a note attached that read, with love to Miriam Lyra, Happy Easter. And Miriam even received an anonymous phone call from a woman after the delivery to confirm that the package had arrived. The caller responded with, You'll know you'll know who I am. Oh no. Yeah. So right there, that's just a red flag. Yeah. I just set the eggs aside at that point. Be like, mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. On Wednesday the 16th, Miran shared the chocolate treats with her children. Lewis fell ill within like minutes to the hour, like immediately.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah. And unfortunately, after being rushed to the hospital in yeah, the Imperator's City Hospital, he did end up passing. Oh. Evelyn also fell critically ill, and Miriam did as well, and they were in the hospital in critical condition. Unfortunately as well, Evelyn's health immediately deteriorated in a drastic pace, and she too passed. Oh. Okay. Evelyn's death was ultimately by vascular shock that was linked to the failure of multiple organs.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah. And though Lyra herself was also in the hospital in critical condition, she at least remained stable.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah. I mean adult versus children.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

And adult versus children, also depending on how much she even had. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, who could have done such a thing? Well, that answer came from Mirian Lira's new boyfriend. Authorities questioned him and he pointed them in the direction of his ex. Jordelia Barbosa. Oh my gosh. With this tip, police launched an investigation. Jordelia was arrested on suspicion of murder whilst taking a bus back to her hometown of Santa Inace following a hotel stay 200 miles away in Imperatis where the victim's family lives.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Mmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

So quite a distance from home. Uh-huh. And strange coincidence that you're just in town. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

But they got her on the bus.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Love that for her.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, right. Where do you think you're going? Officials found receipts linked to her purchase of the eggs. Upon further investigation, police reviewed CCTV footage from the store where the eggs were purchased, and they claimed, allegedly, but also the stills that you see of the CCT footage. It's her. Okay. Um, but she is wearing a black wig and shades, sunglasses to conceal her identity. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Which is a farther like length that than most people go to. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah. Some people don't even think that far and they just go and they're like, no, it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

As if there aren't cameras everywhere. Right. Yeah. So uh she confessed to buying the eggs, but denied anything to do with poisoning them, because of course.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Officers also seize two wigs in her possession, which are suspected to have been used for disguises, some of the leftover remaining chocolate, uh, scissors. I saw one article saying medicines, another saying drugs. I feel like probably within the same realm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Like pharmaceutical. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Uh bus tickets that were bought just two days before the victims received their package. And then one of the articles also mentioned like a funnel kind of device for what would allegedly be putting the poison into the chocolate. But I only saw one saying that. Yeah. Okay. Um, furthermore, investigators allege that this is the second attempt on Lyra's life by Barbosa. Oh. Allegedly sometime earlier. I couldn't find specific like timeline for that one, but Barbosa had been to Lyra's workplace under a guise of offering chocolate tastings to co the workers there, the employees.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Did it say where she worked? Like that this would be a normal thing?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Uh, not the specific store. Or if it did, I totally glazed over that. Yeah. But she worked for like um a supermarket. Okay. Oh, okay. That I did find. So. Yeah. So yes, it would be, but also props to the store for following up on regulations. When Barbosa was questioned for what company work she worked for and any details on it, she couldn't provide any. Right. So she was sent away.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

You don't just walk into a store here, taste this chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Wild. I mean, we will have. I will say we do get customers that come in so often they hand out chocolates, which I have taken them. Yeah. It's usually just an innocent old lady or older gentleman if around like Christmas or holiday time. Right. Also reading this, I'm like, man, I could have died so many times.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah. Yeah. Had a few instances like that also. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So when she did inevitably get turned away from the store, she instead tried to turn to handing out chocolates to the employees in the parking lot. Yeah. Okay. Uh Lyra, however, wasn't around. She wasn't there. And it's unclear if any of Lyra's co-workers were harmed by this event. Hopefully they weren't. Hopefully none of them took any of it. Also, that's a really wide net you're casting. If you're going after one person, you just hand it out to all of her co-workers.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Right. Unless she just had like a couple of specific ones that she had set aside, like all the time.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

To make it less suspicious, yeah. Yeah. I could see that. Uh, it is alleged again by officers that this is a crime fueled by jealousy and revenge. Yep. Yep. That makes sense.

unknown 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

The charges she is facing if convicted are both homicide and attempted homicide. And one article that I found said that she will probably, as long as she is found guilty, which the evidence that they have so far is pretty substantial. Yeah. Including the chocolate and being able to match that. Mm-hmm. That's kind of like, yeah, they got you there. Yeah. Um, but she will probably be facing full term for both of those charges because both of the victims that did die are under 14. Yeah. Like they're the minors of minors, but yeah, like children. Yeah. Yeah. And a poisoning case. So yeah. I did have to do some digging to figure out what exactly the poison was that they put in there. And this is it's not as far of a stretch from gardening because people do use these, but it's not a plant this time, necessarily. Though I'm sure you can find a link to a plant. Um it's believed that chumbin hall, a banned granular pesticide, was used to lace the eggs. Huh. Yeah. Which also, if the funnel claim is correct, would make sense because you would have to funnel it in. You wouldn't want to touch it. So yeah. It's this particular pesticide is illegally commercialized as a household rodenticide in Brazil and has the main ingredient of carbamate, insecticide, aldicarb, which is incredibly toxic, obviously, from what we just discussed today. Right. Can kill within a day depending on the amount consumed. Yeah. Um, and is banned. Yeah. But yeah, still got a hold of it, and I'm sure there's yeah, it's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Because I mean, I don't know how big these chocolate eggs were, but if it's that I mean, it's obviously that toxic if it's in chocolate eggs that yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

It's yeah, no, it's it's pretty bad. Uh it and disguised with like sprinkles and stuff, yeah. It would be even harder to see that there's anything kind of amiss with that. Yeah, yeah. Uh so because of how recent this particular case is, she is still awaiting trial from what I found. I searched so many different keyframes to be like, is she does she have a trial soon? Is she still away? She is still awaiting, but she is in prison. I mean, she's not out and about, at least, but I would hope so. Yeah. And then in conclusion, I just have the I just after receiving a phone call like that in the beginning, as I already previously mentioned, I would have thrown away the chocolate. That was way too suspicious. I can understand having a benefit of doubt and being like, oh, maybe it's fine, but also just you'll know who I am is a little ominous for me. So ominous. Yeah. Immediately in the trash. Yeah. Like it's not that important. I will toss it. They will have something else chocolate and fun. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah. Even if they're like crying, begging, I'm like, okay, we'll go to the store right now and get something else. This is not okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah, this is a little yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

And a side note for people out there who don't partake in gardening or do partake in gardening, pesticides are very finicky and are not to be just kind of messed with. They're incredibly toxic. Like this one.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

You gloves, don't touch it, wash your hands, make sure it doesn't get on anything that you're gonna be really wearing. Make sure your pets aren't going to get into it.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It's yeah. I don't even use pesticides in gardening. I and all of my gardens, yeah. Do I ever get a head of cabbage because of all the the cabbage worms? No, I don't, but I don't use pesticides.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So I would rather lose granted, we're also a lot further as civilization now than we used to be, but I I would rather lose crop than risk using pesticides. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Fortunately, we live in an area where the the stores have all of the things we don't rely on it. It's a absolutely a hobby for me to just garden and hopefully save money at the store. But for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

And it is understandable that people that live in food deserts, for sure. The circumstances are different.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, very different.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah. But if you are gonna use them, for the love of God, just be careful. Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Because yeah, it could be the last thing you do, right? And I'm like, uh, we have so many squirrels and deer that love my garden, and I don't want them to die either.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

So as much of a pest as they are. Yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of a having a garden and figuring it out sort of thing. Yep. Yeah. And like you you have marigolds growing, yeah, so that hopefully you can deter the deer that keep eating all of your food.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah. I'm also going to plant the deer a kale garden of their own so they can stop eating the the ones that I want.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

And I'm gonna find the eggs really quick. Because yeah, they look, they're so interesting. I hadn't actually seen anything that kind of looked like this. You would think like chocolate eggs are just like the little foil-wrapped eggs. Cambberry eggs that I've got to do. Yeah, which is what it keeps showing that too every time. And I'm like, that's not what they are, though. And they're like, oh yeah, these little candies. It was like, no, it's it was a sweet treat from what it looks like, but it was not uh the little candy that people keep pointing to. Yeah. It's a whole dish, it's luxury for sure, and I'm sure she spent a decent amount of money on it to kill her ex's new girlfriend, and yeah, it is it's also incredibly just like one cruel, but two unfortunate that the target was Miriam. The victims who actually passed from it were her children.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah. Which is yeah, like Yeah. Which, yeah, sending something like that to someone that has kids, it's almost a given that the kids are going to have some absolutely so yeah, it's yeah, it's very sad and crappy.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

And obviously now she has to deal with it because she's stable. So yeah. Yeah, so it looks like this. Okay. So yeah, just like a little tray with like what looks like two halves of eggs, yeah, spoon sprinkles.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Definitely something you would find in like a specialty, like candy, you know, store bakery type thing. Very, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

So that is that story. I know it's a short one. It's also Easter, so it's on theme. Uh, but yeah. Hopefully, they have compiled enough evidence that she is truly found guilty of it. In my own personal opinion, she seems pretty guilty. Yeah. It's uh too much of a coincidence that she was 200 miles away from her home, staying in a hotel. Right. Near her ex's girlfriend, the woman, the ominous woman calling to make sure the package had been delivered, the alleged claims that she had been to her ex's girlfriend's place of work previously to hand out chocolates. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

And the wigs that they found on the CCTV footage, video, and photos, and the wigs that they literally found on her.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Right. I know. I can just imagine them presenting a wig as evidence in the courtroom, like, yep, and here is the wig that was used to disguise her.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

You know, it's just I haven't looked at cases on it, but I feel like I don't know. Would it be possible for them to be like, and we would request that you try on this wig and then cross-reference the photo to her?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

You know, I don't know if they would allow that. Okay. Just I don't really know. I don't know that I've seen anything like that. Because I don't know what they can make the wit or like the defendant do in that situation that might be infringing on some rights to not be seeming guilty.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah. Granted, my brain just goes to my cousin Vinny in the whole courtroom case of her explaining the traction and the everything. So like, I don't know what they can do, and I guess if she'd be willing to put on the wig, but alas, yeah, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. It's also a different country, so who knows? I am not familiar with that court system.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

So, yeah, unfortunately, rest in peace, Lewis, Infernanda, yeah, Evelyn. Yeah. That's so sad. And condolences to Mirian and having to deal with that now, probably. As long as she truly does leave the hospital well enough, anyway, to leave the hospital. Stable condition still means you can be worse for where. Oh, yeah. You're just not dead. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

There could definitely be some very long-term issues. For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Yeah. And uh happy Easter. Yeah. We will catch you in the next one. It'll be Jenny's turn to present. Yay! Yay! Take care, everybody. Have a good one and see you next one. Bye. Bye.