Victim Dies 4 Years After His Sandwich Was Poisoned

A young man in Germany has died four years after he fell into a coma when a co-worker poisoned the sandwiches he brought to work for lunch, the AP reports. The state court in Bielefeld, which convicted the suspect in the case last year, confirmed the death on Thursday, German news agency dpa reported. It said the 26-year-old's parents spoke about their son's suffering during a trial last year. A 57-year-old man, identified only as Klaus O. for privacy reasons, was sentenced to life in prison last March after the court in Bielefeld, 205 miles west of Berlin, found him guilty of attempted murder.

The defendant, who has appealed the verdict, had peppered the victim's and other co-workers' food with mercury and other substances (including lead acetate, per the BBC) over several years, leaving one in a coma with severe brain damage and two others with serious kidney damage. He was arrested in May 2018 after surveillance video showed him putting a suspicious powder on a colleague’s sandwich at their workplace in the town of Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock. (More poisoning stories.)