Colombia investigates if woman accused of poisoning 2 girls with raspberries is a serial killer

Bogotá.- Colombia’s Attorney General, Luz Adriana Camargo, stated this Tuesday that the agency is investigating whether the case of businesswoman Zulma Guzmán, accused of the murder of two girls in Bogotá in a case of poisoning with thallium in chocolate-covered raspberries, is linked to other similar episodes, which opens the possibility that it is a case of serial murder. “What the team of investigators has discovered is that the episode in which Mrs. Zulma Guzmán is allegedly involved would not be an isolated episode“, Camargo said in statements to the press, revealing that there are indications that point to a possible repetition of the same criminal pattern of Guzmán, who is detained in the United Kingdom. A Bogota guarantee control court issued an arrest warrant against Camargo in December, which indicated that the events occurred on April 3 and 4, 2025, when the minors Inés de Bedout, 14 years old, and Emilia Forero, 13, ingested raspberries contaminated with thallium in a house in the north of the Colombian capital. One of the girls died the same day and the other passed away on April 9, while a 21-year-old young man and another teenager survived, although they continue to be treated for the serious damage caused by the substance. The Prosecutor’s investigation established that the poisoning was not accidental and allowed the identification of thallium, a highly toxic, colorless, and tasteless metal, whose trace led to a food product purchased days before the events and which allowed the case to be directed towards Guzmán.

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Regarding the new lines of investigation, the prosecutor indicated that the accusing entity has found “certain evidence” of at least another case that occurred approximately a year ago involving a relative of Guzmán and in which the same poisoning method would have been used. As explained, technical and forensic analyses have identified similarities in the characteristics of the events, which “suggests that we may be facing a serial murder episode,” he added. Guzmán has been detained in the United Kingdom since last January and remains awaiting the finalization of her extradition to Colombia. In that sense, the prosecutor explained that her confinement in the Bogota prison of El Buen Pastor has been proposed, while the conditions required by the United Kingdom to authorize the extradition are evaluated.