School Drink Suspect Poisons Self

[george]

School drink suspect poisons self

SAMUT PRAKAN: -- A female teacher was hospitalised last night after drinking poison two hours before police arrived to arrest her on suspicion of mixing insecticide into chocolate drinks at a kindergarten in Samut Prakan last week, causing 37 students to be hospitalised, police said.

Armed with a warrant, police raided the house of Thanyaya Hommak at 8pm yesterday, suspecting her of poisoning students at Suan Praeksa Kindergarten on June 28.

The teacher was not at home, however. Neighbours said that two hours before police arrived, they saw Thanyaya vomit and fall unconscious after drinking milk, which was later determined to have been mixed with a chemical powder. They sent her to Muang Samut Hospital, where she was being treated in the intensive care unit last night and had not regained consciousness, police said.

Samut Prakan provincial police chief Maj-General Suwira Songmetta, who led a search of Thanyaya's house, said officers found many books about murder and violence in the home. They also found seven tablets of a drug that had yet to be identified. Neighbours said the teacher often complained about the stress she was under at work.

Suwira said that after questioning 16 people, police had identified Thanyaya as their main suspect in the school poisoning case. "The suspect gave conflicting statements to police,'' he said.

Police issued the warrant for Thanyaya after their investigation revealed that the insecticide could not have been mixed into the drink during the manufacturing stage. No insecticide was found in the containers of the drink's three ingredients - sugar, milk powder and chocolate.

Most of those poisoned at the kindergarten were third-year students, but four second-year students who had lined up ahead of the third-year students were also sickened. No other students from the second year fell ill, however, Suwira said.

"This shows that the suspect mixed the insecticide into the drink as it was being distributed to students,'' he said.

-- The Nation 2004-07-06