Zurich-Oerlikon, Switzerland: a student who researched killing methods, anatomy and where to find children with ChatGPT stabbed three five-year-olds walking to their daycare; sentenced on 18 September 2026 to 15 years for multiple attempted murder

The attack. On Tuesday 1 October 2024, shortly after noon, a group of five-year-old children was walking in pairs with a daycare worker from their kindergarten to their after-school Hort in Zurich-Oerlikon, about 150 metres away, when a man attacked them from behind with a kitchen knife with an 8.5 cm blade (NZZ). One boy was stabbed in the neck and upper body with life-threatening wounds; the prosecution's indictment records that his jugular vein was completely severed. A second boy was stabbed in the heart: the pericardium and the aorta were cut, and he still ran the 150 metres to the Hort while losing a great deal of blood. The third was wounded in the ear and, depending on the account, the lung (NZZ) or the shoulder (Keystone-SDA via Nau). The daycare worker shouted at the attacker and held his arms until he dropped the knife; he then gave himself up to passers-by and police. The Oberstaatsanwaltschaft Zürich announced on 2 October 2024 that a 23-year-old Chinese national, in Switzerland for studies since summer 2023, had been arrested at the scene and had confessed.

Planning with ChatGPT, per the indictment and the court. The accused, a master's student in computational linguistics at the University of Zurich, told the court he first thought of killing children in June 2024, after months of isolation in his one-room student flat. According to the indictment as reported by NZZ, he discussed different ways of killing and their consequences with ChatGPT; Keystone-SDA reports that he researched the legal consequences of homicides with ChatGPT, and RTS specifies August 2024 queries about the legal consequences of knife killings of randomly chosen victims and about human anatomy. Blick's 8 September 2026 reading of the indictment dates three sessions: 8 August 2024 (legal consequences of variants of killing random victims by stabbing), 18 September 2024 (where and when he could find children in the city of Zurich) and 28 September 2024 (anatomical images of the head, neck, torso and blood vessels via Google and ChatGPT). NZZ reports his testimony that he could not say why he had used ChatGPT to find out when and where children could be met in Oerlikon; the Limmattaler Zeitung's pre-trial account carries the same detail. He also studied anatomy online, ordered a knife set, and bought raw beef to practise stabbing. A stabbing of a Japanese child in China on 18 September 2024 had, he said, strengthened his idea. On the morning of the attack he used ChatGPT to weigh whether to buy a dürüm or a burrito at Oerlikon station, a detail the prosecutor used to argue he could still make decisions. No source quotes the prompts or any ChatGPT reply, and nothing is recorded here about whether the model answered, warned or refused.

Trial and verdict. The trial ran on 17 and 18 September 2026 before the Zurich District Court. A forensic psychiatrist diagnosed an acute psychotic disorder, or alternatively a severe depressive episode with impaired reality testing, and considered him unable to control his actions at the time; the defence sought an acquittal. The accused testified that three weeks before the attack a male voice had told him to kill children and, shortly before the attack, 'either you die or the children'. The prosecutor noted that he had travelled to Warsaw and Prague and attended a musical in the days before, and had not mentioned voices in his first police interview. On 18 September the court convicted him of multiple attempted murder and imposed 15 years' imprisonment, treatment during custody, a 15-year expulsion and CHF 106,000 in moral damages. The presiding judge said that someone with severely diminished responsibility can still be convicted of attempted murder, that his illness was beyond question, but that he had not credibly shown the voices were so compelling that he could not resist them; she cited the 'long, meticulous planning to cause the greatest possible suffering' and the choice of defenceless children. The defence announced an appeal.

Effects on the children. The parents of one boy had a letter read in court: their son remembers 'the bad man', blames himself for not running faster to the Hort, sleeps badly for fear of his dreams and wakes almost every night; the family accompanies him everywhere; a scar on his nose is constantly remarked on. All three boys survived; the court said survival was due to chance and the adults who intervened.

Three five-year-old boys were stabbed, two with life-threatening wounds requiring emergency surgery; one boy's parents describe persistent nightmares, self-blame and visible scars nearly two years later. The court found the attack was planned over weeks, including ChatGPT research described in the indictment; the record attributes the attack to the accused and makes no causal claim about the model.

Bezirksgericht Zürich (Zurich District Court), 18 September 2026: convicted of multiple attempted murder (mehrfacher versuchter Mord); 15 years' imprisonment; ambulatory therapy accompanying the sentence; 15-year expulsion from Switzerland (the presiding judge said it applies to the whole EU area, per 20 minutes); moral damages (Genugtuung) of CHF 106,000 in total to the three boys (CHF 30,000 and two times CHF 38,000; RTS rounds to 100,000), of which the accused's parents had paid CHF 18,000 before the trial (NZZ). The court followed the prosecution's requests in full. The defence, which had sought an acquittal for lack of criminal responsibility, announced an appeal (RTS, 20 minutes); the judgment is not yet final. The accused was arrested at the scene on 1 October 2024, confessed under questioning and has been in custody since (Oberstaatsanwaltschaft Zürich release, 2 October 2024).