Teacher, who poisoned class, gets death sentence

A kindergarten teacher who poisoned children, causing one death and sickening 24 others, was sentenced to death on Monday by a court in Jiaozuo, Central China's Henan province.

The Jiaozuo Intermediate People's Court gave the death sentence to Wang Yun, who was a teacher at Meng Meng Kindergarten, for putting dangerous substances into the children's food, which led to the death of one child. The court also sentenced her to nine months for intentional injury.

The court said it finally sentenced Wang to death after combining the sentences of the two crimes.

Wang sought revenge on another kindergarten teacher, surnamed Sun, over disputes when she prepared sodium nitrites and put them into porridge that was the extra meal for children in Sun's class on March 27, 2019, according to the ruling.

Wang's move resulted in a total of 25 children poisoned. All became sick and one died.

The court also found Wang put the same chemical, which she bought online, into a water bottle used by her husband, surnamed Feng, on Feb 19, 2017 after the couple had some family conflicts. Feng was poisoned and injured. 

"The defendant should be given a harsher penalty, because she knew the chemical is harmful to people's health, but still used it a second time after she saw her husband was injured in her first poisoning," the court said in the ruling, identifying her criminal motive as despicable and her criminal means as extremely cruel.

It added that Wang and the kindergarten should pay civil compensation to the victims.

Whether Wang will appeal to a higher court remains unknown.

During the case hearing in July, Wang, 37, pleaded guilty and showed her willingness to pay the victims, saying she unintentionally harmed the children and had no idea they would be ill after eating the porridge with the chemicals, according to Shanghai-based online news portal ThePaper.cn.