Three first-graders at a school in Alaska have been suspended after they were caught plotting to kill a fellow student by poisoning their lunch, Cosmopolitan reports.
The three students at Winterberry Charter School in Anchorage were caught after a fellow student overheard the plan and notified a member of the school staff, according to Cosmopolitan. The students had gotten ahold of some silica gel packets—you know, those little white packets you find in everything from handbags to beef jerky—from part of their lunch, and believing they were toxic, planned to put them in another student’s food, Winterberry’s school principal explained in a letter parents. The students never carried out the plan, as school officials intervened before anything could happen.
“The age is one of things that is most surprising to people who were hearing about this. The kids are at such a young age,” an Anchorage School District spokeswoman, Heidi Embley, told the Alaska Dispatch News. “Without revealing any information as to what occurred during the investigation, there are a lot of conversations to get an understanding of what actually happened, how the students were feeling.”
No criminal charges were filed, according to the Alaska Dispatch News, and the students are expected to return to school after their suspension, KTUU reports.