‘Bleach Mum’ Sentenced To Death After Poisoning Her Two Children For Social Media Donations

A mother that doctors nicknamed "bleach mum" has been sentenced to death in Thailand after being found guilty of poisoning her two children in an attempt to solicit donations on social media for their medical treatment.

The shocking incident came to light when the accused mother, Nattiwan Raakunjet brought her four-year-old son to the Thammasat University Hospital near Bangkok, complaining of a stomach ache and vomiting blood, which she claimed was the result of a seafood allergy.

However, doctors soon realised that the boy was suffering from a severe stomach infection and not an allergic reaction.

A further investigation revealed that the mother had been lacing the boy’s meals with a corrosive substance for two years. Doctors also learned that the woman’s daughter had died in 2019 after exhibiting similar symptoms.

Prosecutors told the court that Rakkunjet had fed her four-year-old daughter food laced with mildly corrosive liquid since adopting her in 2015.

The girl tragically died in Aug. 2019, due to complications related to internal hemorrhaging—bleeding in her digestive tract, high blood pressure, and kidney failure. Doctors didn’t rule her death as suspicious at the time.

Less than a year after her adoptive daughter’s death, Rakkunjet admitted her biological son to hospital with similar symptoms.

According to medical experts, both the children had suffered from bleeding in the digestive tract, vomiting blood and stomach inflammation due to the ingestion of corrosive substance.

The court heard that the mother had been lacing her son’s meals since Sep. 2017 and would post images of her sick children on Facebook, asking for public donations to cover medical expenses.

Rakkunjet was arrested in May 2020, and a police investigation revealed a total of 20 million baht ($54,000) across two of her bank accounts, believed to have been earned from the public donations.

The court ordered Rakkunjet to return 42,000 baht ($1,100) and confiscated the cellphones that she had bought with the money. The boy was placed in a shelter, reports said.

During interrogation, she reportedly confessed to human trafficking by using her children to solicit donations, murder and attempted murder.

However, Rakkunjet’s confession was not a mitigating factor in her sentencing, as she only did so after overwhelming evidence was presented against her, the court said during the sentencing.