A father has been sentenced to eight years in prison by the Landshut Regional Court after attempting to murder his young daughter by feeding her a homemade capsule laced with mouse poison. The father was accused of trying to kill his daughter to avoid paying child support.
The court found it proven that the man had wrapped a lethal dose of rodenticide in plastic film and gave it to the three-year-old girl to swallow before returning her to her mother. Judges determined that the amount of poison contained in the seal corresponded precisely to a fatal dose for a child of that age — a detail that weighed heavily in the verdict.
Inside the apartment, the girl managed to vomit up the capsule; otherwise, she may have lost her life. The most critical piece of evidence was the presence of the defendant’s DNA on the inside of the capsule, according to Bild.
The defense had attempted to shift blame onto the girl’s mother, arguing she had fabricated the entire incident and planted the capsule in the child’s vomit to frame the father. The presiding judge dismissed the theory outright, stating: “If the mother had staged the incident, she would have had to obtain vomit with appropriate contents — chicken with fries — or make the child vomit.”
The girl’s own account further corroborated the court’s findings. In one telling instance, she spontaneously told a kindergarten teacher that her father had put something in her mouth and that she had subsequently ended up in the hospital, a statement the court deemed credible.
The chamber had no doubt that the defendant intended to kill the child. The court noted the girl’s survival was purely a matter of chance. The defendant reportedly used aluminum phosphide, which can be purchased over the counter and is used to control voles and mice. The prosecutors indicated that the man conducted research on poisons for weeks and various insidious methods to kill.
Alongside the attempted murder conviction, the court also found the defendant guilty of grievous bodily harm and mistreatment of a ward. The verdict is not yet final. Prosecutors had sought a nine-year sentence and called for a preventive detention reservation; the defense had argued for full acquittal.
