Man Dies After Coworker Poisoned His Lunch Leaving Him in a Coma
A German intern who fell into a coma four years ago after his coworker poisoned his food with mercury and other substances has died.
According to The New York Times, the young employee was 23 years old when he ingested the poisoned food that left him in a vegetative state with permanent brain damage.
After four years of suffering, the man, now 26, died this week, the German news agency DPA confirmed, per The Guardian.
The convicted killer was identified only as Klaus O. per German privacy laws.
The 57-year-old machinist was sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder in a German court last March.
Klaus O. had worked for ARI-Armaturen, a mid-sized manufacturing company in northwest Germany, for 38 years and is suspected of killing 21 colleagues during his career, according to the German news outlet Deutsche Welle.
German man dies four years after being poisoned by colleague https://t.co/ipAXpjQi6r
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) January 9, 2020
Klaus O. was arrested in May 2018 after being caught on camera sprinkling white powder on one of his coworker’s sandwiches.
After several people fell mysteriously ill, suspecting coworkers had convinced the company to install a hidden camera in the break room.
A police investigation led to the discovery of a basement laboratory in Klaus O.’s home, where he used lead, cadmium and mercury to concoct his poisonous mixtures.
German Man Who Poisoned Colleagues’ Sandwiches Gets Life in Prison – https://t.co/Z8dM2WoA5X –
BERLIN — Something was very wrong at the valve factory. A 23-year-old trainee at ARI-Armaturen, a middle-sized manufacturer in the German industrial town of Schloß Holte-Stukenbroc… pic.twitter.com/zN4UKnc5O1
— Trending Press News (@trendingpress1) March 8, 2019
“In the beginning we thought it was a misconceived prank between co-workers, and not a murder attempt,” company manager Tilo Blechinger told Deutsche Welle.
According to the outlet, a 15-member homicide investigation team is considering exhuming the bodies of other employees as part of the probe into the full extent of Klaus O.’s crimes.
According to The Times, the defendant chose not to speak in court, but a psychiatrist’s testimony revealed that Klaus O. took interest in watching the effects of the poison on his victims’ health.
“He enjoyed killing. He enjoyed causing suffering and killing. There is no other answer to that question,” Candice DeLong, a former FBI criminal profiler and criminologist, told Deutsche Welle in a July 2018 interview.
Klaus O., described by his manager as an employee who was “conspicuously inconspicuous,” allegedly has plans to appeal his life sentence.
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