Nanny sentenced to death for fire that killed mother and her three young children

The woman deliberately started the fire, planning to put it out to curry favor and money from her employer

An infamous former nanny was sentenced to death on Friday for setting a fire, aimed at securing funds to fuel her gambling addiction, that killed a mother and her three young children in Hangzhou last year.

Mo Huanjing had planned to win her employer’s favor by intentionally setting the fire inside of the family’s apartment and then quickly putting it out — making herself into a hero. Instead, the fire spread out of control.

The woman was originally from Guangdong province. Heavily in debt, she left her hometown to find work elsewhere, becoming a nanny to the family in September 2016.

While working at the household, Mo continued gambling and continued losing. In order to pay off her heavy debts, she began to steal items from the family’s apartment, pawning them off for more than 180,000 yuan in total.

She also borrowed 114,000 yuan from the mother Zhu Xiaozhen, lying to her that she needed the money to buy a home in her hometown.

Instead, she lost it all. On the evening of June 21st alone, she gambled away 60,000 yuan.

It was then that Mo began formulating a plan to more endear herself to Zhu, so that the woman would lend her money again. According to cell phone records, that night, Mo began to look up information related to arson.

Early on the morning of June 22nd, she used a lighter to ignite some books, curtains, and a sofa inside the apartment. Unfortunately, she was not able to control or extinguish the flames and fled the apartment at around 5:00 am, leaving behind the sleeping mother and her three young kids.

Zhu and her children — aged 6 to 11 — died from smoke inhalation. The father Lin Shengbin was away for work at the time.

Despite the fact that the family’s apartment was one of the most expensive in Hangzhou — reported to be worth more than 20 million yuan — its fire safety equipment and protocols were found to be lacking. The building’s water supply system did not provide enough pressure and there was no place where a fire engine could park and reach the top floors of the high-rise.

It took firefighters more than two hours to finally reach the family. By then, it was too late.

However, the intermediate court in Hangzhou said that the building’s inadequacies in no way excused what Mo had done, calling the motivation for her crime “despicable,” its consequences “extremely grave” and its social harm “severe.”

Along with being sentenced to death for starting the fire, Mo was also given a five year prison sentence and fined 10,000 yuan for theft. It’s not yet clear if she will try to appeal her sentencing.

During the final hearing earlier this month, the husband Lin was ordered out of the court after he threw his thermos cup and microphone stand at his family’s killer, missing her and accidentally hitting a police officer instead.

After the verdict was announced on Friday, Lin made a post on Weibo.

“The demon has finally been punished by the law, death penalty,” he wrote. “I have been suffering day and night for more than 200 days. Today, the trial has finally come to an end. I am grateful to the impartial judgement of the Hangzhou Intermediate Court.”

Lin added that he was now preparing to file civil lawsuits against other parties responsible for what had happened to his family. “My opposition is very strong, very tough. I know it will be difficult. There will be much resistance, but I can press on,” he wrote.

At this time, Lin’s post has received more than half a million likes and over 66,000 comments with net users from across China voicing their support for Lin and the court’s decision to dole out the death penalty to the woman that killed his wife and kids.

“Your opposition is very strong, very tough, but you have us,” reads one comment with 86,000 likes.