Yiya Murano and the Poisoned Tea Murders

Three Women Who Trusted a Friend

The victims in this case were women who knew Yiya Murano well and had placed their money in her hands. Nilda Gamba was her neighbor. Lelia Formisano de Ayala, nicknamed "Chicha," was a friend of the family. Carmen Zulema del Giorgio Venturini, known as "Mema," was Murano's second cousin. All three died within a few weeks of one another in early 1979, between February and late March, in Buenos Aires.

Murano was born María Bernardina de las Mercedes Bolla Aponte in Corrientes province in 1930. At 23 she married a lawyer, Antonio Murano, whose surname she kept, and the couple had a son, Martín. She lived beyond her means, and by the late 1970s she was running an informal lending operation that later accounts describe as one of Argentina's early pyramid schemes. Acquaintances, relatives and neighbors handed her savings on the promise of high returns, and she signed promissory notes in exchange.

A Spring of Sudden Deaths

When the scheme ran short of cash in early 1979, Murano owed money to several of the people who had invested with her. Prosecutors later argued that she chose to get rid of her creditors rather than repay them. Each of the three women died shortly after sharing tea and pastries with her.

The first two deaths raised little alarm. Both were recorded as natural, and reporting on the case says Murano helped the families obtain death certificates that avoided an autopsy. Mema, the last of the three to die, was taken ill in the hallway of her own building. Murano later went back to Mema's home, reportedly to recover a promissory note she had signed.

A Daughter's Suspicion and an Exhumation

The case broke open because of Mema's daughter, Diana María Venturini. Alerted by a neighbor to Murano's odd behavior, she found that promissory notes were missing, linked the three deaths and went to the police. Mema's body was exhumed, and forensic analysis detected cyanide. Murano was arrested on April 27, 1979, at her home on Calle México in central Buenos Aires. The 1979 deaths earned her the lasting nickname "the poisoner of Monserrat," after the neighborhood where she moved about.

Several questions were never resolved. Investigators did not establish how Murano obtained the cyanide; police suspected that another person supplied it but never identified anyone. Accounts also differ on whether the poison was placed in the tea or in the pastries. Some reports say detectives privately suspected there could have been more victims, but only three deaths were ever part of the case, and no other killings were proven.

Acquittal, Reversal and Release

The legal path was unusually uneven. In 1982 a trial court acquitted Murano for lack of evidence, and she was released. In 1985 the national criminal appeals chamber in Buenos Aires annulled that acquittal, convicted her of fraud and of three counts of aggravated homicide by poisoning and sentenced her to life imprisonment. Murano always denied killing anyone; the only wrongdoing she ever acknowledged publicly was lending money at usurious rates.

She did not serve a life term in practice. Reporting on the case says she was freed in 1995 after sentence reductions, including Argentina's so-called "two-for-one" rule, having spent about 13 years in custody in total. One regional outlet instead puts her time in prison at 16 years with a release in 2002; the more detailed national accounts give 1995.

Celebrity, Old Age and Death

After her release Murano became a minor media personality. She appeared twice on the long-running lunch program hosted by Mirtha Legrand, arriving with pastries, and offered her version of the case to journalists in exchange for payment or a meal. Her son, Martín Murano, became her most public critic. He wrote books about her and has said she confessed to him and once came close to harming him as a child; these are his own claims and were never tested in court.

In her final years Murano was diagnosed with dementia and lived in care homes in Buenos Aires. She died of cardiac arrest on April 26, 2014. Sources differ slightly on her age, giving either 83 or 84. Her family had her buried in Chacarita Cemetery under the name Mercedes Bolla to keep away curious visitors.

Why the Case Still Matters

The Murano case remains one of the best-known criminal stories in Argentina. It showed how easily deaths among older women could be certified as natural without an autopsy, and how a single relative's persistence could reopen what had been treated as closed. Its path, from acquittal to a life sentence on appeal and then release after about 13 years under sentence-reduction rules, illustrates how far a nominal life term in Argentina could diverge from time actually served.

Interest in the case revived sharply in 2025. A five-episode drama series, Yiya, written by Marcos Carnevale and directed by Mariano Hueter, premiered on the Flow streaming platform in November 2025, with Julieta Zylberberg playing the younger Murano and Cristina Banegas the older one, alongside a companion documentary special. Earlier retellings include a 2016 stage musical. Martín Murano has objected to how the series portrays his mother.