Mother forced 6-year-old daughter to drink pesticide sobbing in court

With swollen, dark eyes, Loan repeatedly put her face down on the table and cried when she was brought to trial for forcing her daughter to drink pesticide.

On the afternoon of September 19, the Family and Juvenile Court, Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced Tran Le Thi Xuan Loan (29 years old) to 10 years in prison for murder.

According to the panel of judges, the defendant's actions caused particularly serious consequences. Killing a child is against morality and ethics and therefore must be severely punished.

Loan admitted all her crimes and showed remorse. Her eyes were swollen and dark, and she sometimes sobbed on the table.

Loan cried many times in court. Photo: Binh Nguyen.

Loan got married in 2009 and has a 6-year-old daughter. Two years ago, upset that her husband didn't care about her and owed many people more than 200 million VND but couldn't pay, Loan had the idea of ​​committing suicide with her daughter.

At noon on July 13, 2016, Loan took her daughter to buy pesticides and then rented a hotel room in District 2 and said she would check out in the afternoon.

She poured it into a glass and forced her daughter to drink it. While the child lay motionless, Loan texted an acquaintance that she and her child had committed suicide and asked her husband's family to use the money from the funeral to pay off their debts, then drank the remaining pills.

When the woman did not check out that evening, the hotel staff went up and found Loan having convulsions and her daughter dead. Loan was taken to the emergency room and survived.

Explaining the cause of the incident, Loan said that from the time she got married until she gave birth and raised her child, her husband did not care for her. She had to worry about milk and diapers for her child alone.

She started borrowing money when her child was about two and a half years old. At that time, her husband was not working. Later, he worked as a security guard and gave her 500,000 VND per month.

"The defendant had to borrow 5 million, 10 million at high interest rates, so the debt kept getting bigger and bigger. When it reached 200 million, the defendant could not pay it back. The defendant had to bear it all alone and could not confide in anyone," Loan sobbed.

Responding to the jury about the reason for intentionally forcing her child to take medicine even though the child struggled to push her away, Loan stammered for a while and then said that at that time, she only wanted her child to "live and die together". "The defendant did not want to die and leave her child alone with no one to take care of her," Loan said.

Below the audience, Loan's husband sat silently. His hand rested on his chin, his red eyes showing no emotion.

Invited to the court for questioning, he admitted that he was partly at fault for not being able to care for his wife and children, leading to the heartbreaking incident. He also asked the court to reduce his wife's sentence so that she could return to her family soon and did not have any further comments.

Having the last word, Loan said she was sorry towards her child and asked the court to consider reducing part of her sentence so she could return to her parents and pray for her child.

According to VNE