A Taiwanese woman has been sentenced to 11 years and two months in prison for attempting to murder her alleged former romantic partner, Brisbane student Alex Shorey, by slipping rat poison into his food and drink.
The brief verdict issued by the Taipei District Court on Wednesday brings to a temporary close a three-and-a-half-year ordeal for the Shorey family.
Mr Shorey was a 23-year-old University of Queensland student in Taiwan on an exchange in 2023, when he met Yang Chin-ping, a woman around 20 years his senior, on Facebook.
Prosecutors say the two began seeing one another regularly, until Mr Shorey informed Ms Yang in March he planned to leave Taiwan early and go back to Australia the next month.
That’s when prosecutors say Ms Yang decided to slip the rodenticide super-warfarin into grape juice and gave it to Mr Shorey, in an attempt to force him to stay in Taiwan under her care.
Mr Shorey soon fell ill with vomiting, nose bleeds and diarrhea, but was unaware of why, and doctors did not initially suspect he had been poisoned.
After Mr Shorey’s father arrived to care for his son and bring him home, prosecutors say Ms Yang’s intent turned to murder, and she poisoned Mr Shorey again, this time so seriously that he was put into intensive care.
While Mr Shorey’s parents attempted to crowdfund $178,000 for a medical evacuation flight, Ms Yang continued to poison Mr Shorey during her hospital visits, prosecutors said.
Eventually, according to court documents, Mr Shorey’s mother discovered a vial of rat poison in Ms Yang’s apartment and told doctors, who then stopped allowing Ms Yang to give food and drink to Mr Shorey.
The young man was safely evacuated to Brisbane in May 2023.
Ms Yang was charged with attempted murder in late 2024.
She has maintained her innocence and says the rat poison was intended for herself.
Her sentence can be appealed.
The Shorey family’s lawyer, Chen Liang-ting, told Sky News outside court that he was satisfied with the verdict, but added that the legal battle was likely not over yet.