Death sentence for carer who murdered pensioner
A caregiver found guilty of killing an elderly woman in her care in order to receive her salary early — and who claimed to have killed seven more — was sentenced to death yesterday by the intermediate court of Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province.
He Tiandai, 46, admitted murdering her client, a 70-year-old woman, Xinhua news agency said.
According to He, the salary agreed was 2,500 yuan (US$384.75) per month, and she was told that she would be paid for the full month even if she quit early, prosecutors said.
On December 16, 2014, after only four days of looking after the elderly woman, He fed her broth spiked with sleeping pills and toxic chemicals, injected the lethal cocktail into her belly and buttocks, and finally garrotted her with a nylon rope, prosecutors said.
Police said she was suspected of killing seven other elderly people by the same means between June 2013 and December 2014, adding that there were also two failed attempts. However, due to a lack of evidence, no charges were laid despite her confession, Guangzhou Daily reported.
Not long after the elderly woman’s death, He called the deceased’s son and daughter-in-law, who called the police after they found that her bankbook and earrings had disappeared, and suspected that He had stolen them, the court heard during an earlier trial in December last year.
After they were called in, police found insecticide, sleeping pills, syringes and rope among He’s belongings. They also found strangulation marks on the victim’s neck and needle punctures in her hip, prosecutors said.
He told the court: “I didn’t specially prepare them. I carried dichlorvos (insecticide) because I would poison cockroaches or sanitize the home. I have carried it since 2008 or 2009. I took sleeping pills, and I used the rope to bundle up my clothes.” She did not explain why she had syringes.
He said she would not appeal her death sentence, Xinhua reported.
There are deep demographic challenges in China, where holes in the social safety net have left many of the country’s aged, and their children, desperate for assistance.
China now has more than 212 million people over age 60.
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