But she denied ever shaking her employers' daughter. 'Not once,' she insisted.
Ms Sugandi was cleared after Mr Justice Colin Jackson directed the jury to acquit in the light of conflicting medical evidence over the death of the two-year-old.
Speaking through an interpreter, the 26-year-old Indonesian, who had spent almost a year behind bars before being set free, spoke to the Sunday Morning Post of her deep regret.
'Why has she gone so fast? I have asked myself many times but can't come up with an answer,' she said.
Until November 28, 1999, Chan Tsz-ying was a healthy and happy girl enrolled in kindergarten. Two days later she was dead from what doctors suspected was shaken-baby syndrome.
Ms Sugandi says she never believed the doctors. 'I believed I would be freed and I could go home. I felt that I didn't commit any crime or do anything wrong.'
Her only regret about the events on that fateful Sunday is that she failed to dial 999 for an ambulance.
'I was in such a panic I couldn't remember the number,' she said. 'If she was still here, I would like to sing with her, to take her to school. She was pretty, not naughty. She was a very clever girl. I will miss her forever.'
Singing the girl's favourite songs was one of her duties. 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Old McDonald had a Farm were her favourites.'
Ms Sugandi's job with the Chan family was her second position overseas. She came to Hong Kong in the hope of making 'big money', but her life was turned upside down on that fateful afternoon.
'Tsz-ying was vomiting and convulsing when I found her. I cleaned her up but her condition did not improve,' she said.
She stands by the version of events she gave police - that she scooped up the toddler and rushed out for help, bumping her head on the door by accident.
The girl had surgery to remove blood clots on her swollen brain, but she died two days later.
Life in jail, where she was known as prisoner 15503, was boring rather than hard. She overheard inmates gossiping about her being 'that Indonesian girl on trial' and had Cantonese lessons from an officer. In turn, she taught the officer some Indonesian.
The worst thing about imprisonment, she said, was being strip-searched whenever she returned from court. 'It was unnecessary. I had been guarded to and from court,' she said.
Her thoughts now are of home. 'I miss my parents and I just want to go home. The trial is the worst thing in my life. My marriage is the next worst.'
She wants to divorce her 35-year-old husband of five years, whom she claims failed to support her during the ordeal and spent all the money she sent back on alcohol and women.
When she flies out today, she will take a photograph of herself with the little girl she took care of for six months.
Tsz-ying's parents, Chan Yik-hak and Ng Kuen-wai, refused to comment.
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