Lab tests after Italian meal spark murder probe

Months after the jailing of an Australian woman who poisoned her in-laws with a beef Wellington, a deadly meal in Italy is under investigation.

Authorities in the small town of Pietracatella have opened a murder investigation after the death of a mother and her 15-year-old daughter, initially thought to have been caused by food poisoning from a Christmas Eve lunch.

Italian media reports say laboratory tests of their blood, carried out in Italy and Switzerland, subsequently detected the presence of the deadly poison ricin.

Police say they do not have a suspect in the poisoning deaths of Antonella Di Ielsi, 50, and her daughter Sara Di Vita.

The two were hospitalised before being discharged when initial tests suggested their infection was due to fish or mushrooms.

But the conditions of the mother and daughter worsened and they were re-admitted.

The teenager’s father Gianni, a former local mayor, was also hospitalised but recovered while the family’s eldest daughter was not present for the meal.

A judge in Victoria sentenced Erin Patterson to life in prison with a non-parole period of 33 years in September for the murder of three members of her estranged husband’s family, and attempted murder of a fourth, by serving them a lunch of beef Wellingtons laced with toxic death cap mushrooms in July 2023.