Brazilian bakers in a three-way relationship who killed a woman and baked her flesh into pastries to sell to unsuspecting neighbours have been sentenced to more than 20 years each in prison.

Jorge Beltrao Negromonte da Silveira, his wife Isabel Cristina Pires and his mistress Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva killed three women in the city of Garanhuns in the north-east of Brazil. Silveria was sentenced to 23 years, and the two women to 20 years each.

The trio also confessed to the murders of two more women, for which they have yet to be sentenced.

Prosecutors say they lured the women to their house with promises of nannying work.

According to writings that investigators found at their house, the killings and cannibalism were part of a ritual that was meant to purify the trio’s souls.

But they also sold the pastries to neighbours, passing them off as non-human meat, as well as feeding it to a child who was living with them.

They were first arrested in 2012, and officers said they confessed to the crime.