Student held after poisoning 2 roommates

A female student has been arrested after poisoning two girls in her college dormitory in south China’s Nanning City, the Guangxi Daily reported on its website.

The two art academy students fell ill last month after drinking water that had been contaminated with nitrite, the report said.

Their roommate, surnamed Cao, claimed she had accidentally dropped the chemical into a water dispenser, as she was preparing a concoction she planned to use to commit suicide.

The 19-year-old native of Jiangsu Province told police she bought 500 grams of nitrite powder in 2012 to use in the making of an hourglass. When she entered the academy last September, she took the chemical with her.

Cao told police she planned to kill herself on the evening of January 13. As she was trying to fill a bottle of water from a dispenser, she spilt some of the nitrite powder she was holding into the machine and onto the floor, the report said.

After taking a sip from the water mixed with nitrite, Cao said she changed her mind about suicide and emptied the bottle. Feeling dizzy, she went to bed without cleaning the dispenser or sweeping up the spilt powder.

She did not tell her roommates about the incident because she didn’t want them to find out she had contemplated suicide.

The following morning, one of Cao’s roommates became unwell after drinking water from the dispenser. She fainted and was sent to the school clinic. When the young woman’s condition failed to improve she was sent to hospital.

The second student used water from the dispenser to make oatmeal, but threw it away because of its salty taste after eating only a few spoonfuls. She later suffered diarrhea and went to hospital where she was told she had nitrite poisoning.

Cao said that although she knew the chemical was poisonous she did not mean to poison her roommates.

One of the two was her best friend, she said.

The woman told prosecutors that she had once consumed nitrite by mistake, but immediately took some vitamin C tablets, which eased her discomfort.

Cao said she has been depressed and became suicidal after an embarrassing incident in which her roommates took a photograph of her bathing.

She was arrested last Friday and charged with putting dangerous chemicals into the water.

Nanning People’s Procuratorate said that though Cao spilt the chemical by mistake, she was still responsible for not warning her roommates of the potential health risks.

In April last year, a student at Shanghai’s Fudan University was poisoned to death by a fellow student.

Huang Yang died after drinking water into which his roommate, surnamed Lin, had injected chemicals he stole from a university laboratory.