Kindergarten teacher Wang Yun was sentenced to death on Monday by a court in China’s Henan province for putting sodium nitrite poison into porridge served to students for breakfast. The March 2019 incident made 25 children sick, killing one of them after a protracted illness.
The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) quoted the Jiaozuo City Intermediate People’s Court condemning Wang for having “despicable and vicious” motives and acting “with no regard for the consequences.” The court furthermore noted she was accused of using sodium nitrate as poison against her husband in 2017.
The crime for which Wang was sentenced to death became a major national and global story in March 2019. According to the court, Wang slipped a toxic overdose of sodium nitrate food additives into the breakfast meal of a colleague’s students at Mengmeng Kindergarten after Wang and the other teacher “argued over student management issues.”
The children, aged three to six, began vomiting and passing out after eating the tainted porridge. One father summoned to the school because his four-year-old daughter was vomiting said he found her unconscious along with many of the other students when he arrived.
At least 20 of the victims were hospitalized for a few days, with some held for longer periods of observation. One little boy died after ten months in the hospital. The court noted Wang was aware she was feeding a potentially lethal poison to her young victims.
According to the HKFP, Wang and the manager of Mengmeng Kindergarten were both ordered by the court to compensate the families of the victims, in addition to Wang receiving a death sentence.
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