I was poisoned and went to heaven… there is no ‘darkness’ when you die. What I witnessed in the afterlife completely transformed how I see God

By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR

Published: 15:49 EDT, 12 October 2026 | Updated: 15:49 EDT, 12 October 2026

A wife and mother in California claims that a murder plot by her husband led to a divine encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed her perception of heaven.

Ana Christina told the Daily Mail she filed for divorce from her husband, ‘Sam,’ in December 2008 but had forgotten to cancel her million-dollar life insurance policy.

Ana Christina, who changed her and her children’s names to protect their identities, believed this was the motivation that drove Sam to attempt to kill her weeks later.

Before moving out of their Irvine, California home, Sam allegedly began lacing Christina’s coffee with rat poison, which caused her to grow increasingly sick until she woke up paralyzed on January 9, 2009.

As she lay sick, Ana Christina, who was 49 at the time, said Jesus arrived in the bedroom to escort her spirit into the afterlife, reuniting her with her late sister Nadia in heaven. Nadia had died by suicide at the age of 35.

Seeing her sister was like a sigh of relief, as Christina had always wondered where Nadia would end up because of the Catholic Church’s teachings about suicide.

‘Because at church, they tell you [if] you commit suicide, it’s a sin, it’s an unforgivable sin, and I discovered that it’s not,’ said Christina.

Christina claims that when she returned from the afterlife hours after the attack began, she was miraculously cured of the poisoning. This shocked Sam, she said, and motivated him to quickly flee the US after police chose not to investigate her claims.

Ana Christina told the Daily Mail she returned from what she considered the afterlife healed after she was allegedly poisoned by her ex-husband

‘I believe it’s a blessing in disguise that he just left the country,’ Christina told the Daily Mail.

‘Because if he had done time for an attempted murder… he would have gotten about 10 years. And then, he would be out in the streets, taking revenge. But him fleeing the country and being away, I don’t have to live watching my back.’

Christina was the breadwinner of the family when she and Sam agreed to amicably divorce in 2008.

However, Sam was the beneficiary of the life insurance policy Christina forgot to cancel when they filed the paperwork to end their marriage.

While Sam stayed in their home for three more weeks while the divorce was finalized, Christina claimed he began to slip rat poison into her coffee, causing her to gradually become deathly ill.

‘I believe he started putting it in my coffee every day. Little by little, that’s how I didn’t notice, and that’s when my body started to break down. I started getting sick, and I had to stay at home for a long time,’ Christina said.

After receiving a call in early January 2009 that her brother overseas had fallen ill, Christina booked a flight for an extended visit, but she alleged that before she could leave, Sam prepared her favorite meal and laced it with a massive dose of poison.

Christina said she met her late sister (left) who had died by suicide in the afterlife, changing her view on what the Christian faith teaches about self-harm

By that night, Christina said the poison left her fully paralyzed in bed, comparing the pain she felt in her body to a sledgehammer breaking her bones.

That is when she said she heard a clear divine voice, telling her she was dying but this would not be the end.

She claimed that Sam found her in the bedroom the next morning unable to move, powerless to stop him from forcing Xanax down her throat through her locked teeth.

As Christina said she felt her body die while being suffocated, she told the Daily Mail it was like removing a heavy coat as her spirit left her body on the floor.

There was no darkness or sense of an ending, Christina continued, revealing that she then saw Jesus, who extended his hand to escort her into the afterlife.

Later she was reunited with her parents and Nadia.

‘You know, God is a very compassionate God, a very loving God that understands what we go through and does not judge us the way we judge each other. He’s a very compassionate Lord, and he knew what Nadia was going through,’ Christina said.

Christina (left) claimed she also encountered her mother (right) during her near-death experience

Her family urged her toward a banquet she had seen in the afterlife, but she said she would be pulled back to Earth before she could join them.

Still in shock, Christina claimed she could not speak but used hand gestures to signal to Sam that she knew what he had tried to do.

‘The look on his face was just priceless. You can just imagine. This man thought he finished me off. I’m done. I think it took him about eight hours to finish me off, and here I am, as strong as a horse in front of him,’ Christina recalled.

Christina revealed that she and her children have moved on from the incident, and Sam left the US within a year of the alleged attack and their divorce.

Although she was a Christian before her near-death experience, she said the experience completely changed her relationship with God.

‘I was actually a born-again Christian before my encounter. But I was nothing like what I am now,’ Christina explained.

Her experience even spurred her to set up her own ministry in Africa, with all the proceeds of the book she wrote about her encounter, My Sweet Encounter With Death, going to support that church.

Christina’s claims about the incident were met with skepticism, even from her own children, leading authorities to side with Sam and call for a psychiatric evaluation for his alleged victim.

Christina said the near-death experience was a blessing. Her ex-husband fled the country, allowing her and her daughters to carry on with their lives

However, two months after her January 2009 near-death experience, Christina said she underwent a full forensic hair analysis that found dangerously high levels of the rat poison ingredient barium in her body.

The levels were up to 2,700 times higher than the medically safe limit, she said. Christina believed God left that amount in her body as a sign that her claims were factual.

Christina said she took the results to the Irvine Police Department, asking them to open an investigation, but was turned away.

The Irvine Police Department has told the Daily Mail it is looking into the circumstances that led detectives not to pursue the case.