A Ugandan-American man, Christopher Okello Onyum, has been sentenced to death after being convicted of stabbing four young children at a kindergarten in Kampala, Uganda.
A Ugandan-American man who killed four young children by stabbing them at a kindergarten in the capital of Uganda was given the death penalty on Thursday.
On April 2, Christopher Okello Onyum was apprehended while attempting to escape the Kampala daycare facility where he had killed children between the ages of 15 months and 2.5 years.
Onyum, who is a citizen of both the US and Uganda, admitted to the crime, according to the prosecution, because he thought the “human sacrifice” would make him wealthy. However, he ultimately entered a not guilty plea in court.
The judge dismissed an insanity claim, stating that the crimes’ “accurate and precise manner” demonstrated their premeditation.
To applause from the crowd, she declared, “I hereby sentence him to suffer death.”
The court heard that Onyum had looked up nearby schools with young children and Islamic State beheadings online, but it was unclear whether the act had a political or religious motive.
It had previously heard terrifying testimony, including that of a Ggaba Early Childhood Development Center employee.
At the beginning of the trial, she told the court, “At first, I thought he was beating a child. When I asked him why he was beating our children, before he responded, I saw Kaisha (one of the victims) against a wall in the pool of blood.”
“With a knife in his hand, he leaped to his feet and quickly snatched another child. I grabbed one of the kids’ bikes and hurled it in his direction.
He abandoned the child and began after me after I threw the bicycle at him. I ran, but then I stumbled. I discovered he had cut the second child when I got up.
The parents of the victims also testified, recounting their final morning with their kids before dropping them off at kindergarten, the phone call that alerted them to the attack, and the bodies’ discovery at the hospital.