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You are listening to: The Evidence Locker.
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Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones.
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October 27th 2016: the day everyone in Jakarta, Indonesia had been waiting for over the preceding months. The gavel to gavel coverage of this high-profile case became a daily soap opera which viewers followed religiously.
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The person on trial was 28-year-old Jessica Wongso, an Indonesian born Australian resident who was accused of poisoning her best friend by lacing her coffee with cyanide.
All of this happened in broad daylight, in an upmarket café in Jakarta.
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The case divided opinion in a country where less than 20% of the population make up the wealthy upper-class. The majority of the people have low income and survive on as little as $4 a day. Jessica Wongso was part of the elite: people whose children studied abroad and spent most of their time sipping expensive drinks in posh establishments.
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The life she led was pretty much like the glamourous lives of those portrayed on TV soap operas, or Sinetrons as they are known in Indonesia. Sinetrons are similar in style to Telenovela dramas where larger-than-life characters lead luxury lives full of back-stabbing and intrigue. Often, the heroine comes out on top, fighting injustice (whether she is the actual villain or not).
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Back to real life, though… Jessica Wongso certainly did not look like a malicious murderer. She was slender with silky black hair and a bright smile. People found it hard to believe that this refined young lady could have done something so callous.
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To upper-class Indonesians, Jessica was innocent, victim of a corrupt system out to frame her, despite lacking evidence. To the average person, she looked like a rich, spoilt manipulator who tried to get away with murder.
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But it in the end it was Jessica’s bizarre smile and candid statements that made people feel uneasy about her. Throughout the trial, she smiled and laughed most of the time. It seemed that Jessica Wongso loved to have the spotlight on her. At press conferences, she looked more like a game show contestant who had just won a prize than someone accused of murdering their best friend.
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Prosecutors weren’t about to let her off the hook. They pursued the death sentence, which in Indonesia means death by firing squad.
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The nation held their breaths as the sentence was about to be passed down. When the judges read the verdict you could hear a pin drop. Jessica Wongso was found guilty of the pre-meditated murder of her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin.
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How did their friendship turn so sour, that Jessica decided Mirna deserved to die?
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Jessica Kumala Wongso was born in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1988, into a super wealthy family in Jakarta. She was the youngest of three children of Imelda and Winardi Wongso and known to be a reserved, but spoiled child.
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Her family own a large company which dealt in imported plastics, in fact, the largest distributor of plastic in Australia. Some people call Winardi Wongso the Plastic King.
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In a country like Indonesia, where the majority of people live in poverty, Jessica was one of the lucky ones. She had everything she could ever need – and much more.
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In 2005, Jessica’s parents moved to Sydney, Australia, where most of Winardi’s business interests were. The family bought a home in the exclusive harbor side suburb of Double Bay. Double Bay is one of the wealthiest spots in Sydney, plots are relatively small, but they are worth millions. Millions that Jessica’s dad, Winardi had to spare – he bought two plots of land right next to each other.
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However, the teenaged Jessica did not move with them. She stayed in Jakarta to finish high school. The Wongso household had staff to care for Jessica in this time.
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Jessica’s family members remember that she always loved playing computer games and drawing. This combination of interests lead to her decision to study graphic design. So, when Jessica finished school in 2008, she embarked on a great adventure. She joined the rest of her family in Sydney, Australia and enrolled to study at Billy Blue College of Design.
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Although Jessica’s older siblings, a brother and sister, both lived in Australia too, Jessica hardly ever saw them. She settled into student life and made many friends. Her college friends found Jessica to be goofy and bubbly and good fun to hang out with.
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It was exactly these traits that caught the attention of another Indonesian-born student at Billy Blue, called Mirna Salihin. Mirna and her boyfriend, Arief Soemarko had both gone Downunder to study, but with Arief in Melbourne and Mirna in Sydney, Mirna found herself open to making some friends.
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Mirna and Jessica hit it off straight away. They had a lot in common – both were from super wealthy Jakartan families, they loved design and had strong personalities.
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Mirna attended an exclusive international school in Jakarta. Her life contrasted from Jessica’s in that her family was close-knit. Mirna, as one of a twin, always had love and support.
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Life in Sydney was fun and Mirna quickly became good friends with Jessica’s friends too. The four gorgeous and glitzy Jakartan girls, Jessica, Mirna, Hani and Vera hung out all the time and enjoyed the routine of doing design assignments, attending lectures by day and partying by night.
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But all good things come to an end, and once she finished her degree in design, Mirna was ready to go back home with her boyfriend Arief, to start their life in Jakarta together.
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Jessica became Australian resident and stayed in Sydney, where her family was.
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By this time, Mirna and Arief had been together for eight years and were excited to get engaged. Mirna didn’t really look for work and spent some time settling into Jakarta high society as a socialite.
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In June 2015, Mirna went to Sydney for a holiday. She wanted to catch up with some of her college friends and spend some idle time in the lovely harbour city. She let Jessica know that she was in town and the two met up for dinner.
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Things turned sour when Mirna gave Jessica advice to dump her Australian boyfriend. She thought Jessica was wasting her time and could do better. Mirna felt that Jessica’s beau was into drugs and posed a danger to Jessica. Mirna was known to be quite opinionated and would speak her mind, especially to her friends.
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Throughout the conversation, Jessica was quiet. She didn’t respond to anything Mirna said. When Mirna was done talking, Jessica simply got up halfway through her meal and left Mirna in the restaurant without saying goodbye. Mirna realised she must have crossed a line, that was very clear.
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After the dinner Mirna felt uneasy about Jessica. She told her fiancé, Arief, that she didn’t want to see Jessica by herself again. She said the next time she would definitely take somebody with her. Either Arief or one of their mutual friends, Hani or Vera. But for the most part, with Mirna living in Jakarta and Jessica in Sydney, the friends didn’t have much contact anymore.
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In November of 2015, five months after meeting Jessica in Sydney, Mirna married Arief in Bali. The couple had a fairytale wedding – no expense was spared.
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But Mirna didn’t want to invite Jessica to the wedding. When Arief asked her about it, she simply brushed it off and said she didn’t feel comfortable with Jessica and didn’t want anything to potentially spoil their wedding day.
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She did, however, invite Hani and Vera, the friends she made through Jessica while living in Sydney. Mirna was beautiful and intelligent, had a doting husband and was well-liked by anyone who met her. Her life was just about perfect.
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Then there was Jessica. Things were not quite as picture perfect in her life. She was living alone in an apartment in Sydney’s bustling inner-west suburb of Leichardt. In 2015 – in the space of one year, Jessica was taken to hospital five times after failed suicide attempts or self-harm incidents.
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On Australia Day, January 26th in 2015, Patrick O’Connor, the boyfriend who was to become the trigger for Jessica and Mirna’s feud just six months later, called the police. He reported that Jessica had threatened to kill herself with a knife.
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In August of the same year, Jessica Wongso crashed her car into a nursing home, near her home at 2:20am. Her sporty red Audi A3 hit a gutter and she lost control. The car became airborne and ploughed straight through a brick wall, yards away from the bedrooms of elderly residents.
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The impact woke most of the residents and the whole area was soon a chaotic scene with confused residents mulling around, observing the car wedged into the building.
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The incident attracted a news camera crew and there was footage of an injured Jessica inside an ambulance. She had been drinking and – considering the damage caused to her car – she came off lightly. She had a couple of cracked ribs and some bruises, but that was it.
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Two months later, Jessica’s boyfriend, Patrick O’Connor called police again, telling them that Jessica had tried to poison herself with the carbon monoxide from a small barbecue inside her bedroom. Nothing happened to Jessica on this occasion, she was unharmed.
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Two weeks later, police were called to Jessica’s Leichardt apartment once more. This time, they found an empty bottle of whisky next to her bed with three letters. One letter said that Patrick O’Connor was to blame for her death. The other letters were addressed to her family and to work, suicide notes in which she said her goodbyes.
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By the end of November Patrick had had enough and he approached police to seek a restraining order against Jessica. According to Patrick, Jessica sent him multiple voice messages and text messages threatening to harm herself again. She was also constantly contacting and harassing his friends and family.
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He felt that she was unstable and feared for his own safety – and that safety of his family and friends. He stated that her behaviour was ‘escalating’.
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Patrick’s car had been vandalised and he suspected the culprit was Jessica. After further investigation, however, police proved that it wasn’t Jessica who vandalised the car. But regardless, there was enough reason for Patrick to be granted an urgent protection order.
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Jessica was due in court in Sydney in February 2017 for drink driving charges. Her downward spiral continued when she was fired from her job as a graphic designer at New South Wales Ambulance.
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This was rock bottom for Jessica. She had alienated her boyfriend, she had lost her job and there was an upcoming trial. There was nothing left for her in Sydney, so she decided to go back to Jakarta and make a fresh start.
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Later on, Jessica’s decision to go to Jakarta appeared to have had a much darker motive than simply starting over.
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Before Jessica left Australia for Jakarta, she started a WhatsApp chat group with her Design friends from Billy Blue. Mirna and Hani were living in Jakarta and Jessica wanted to see them. She sent the first message on December 5th, one day before she left Sydney.
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Mirna didn’t respond immediately; she took a couple of days to reply to Jessica. When Jessica pushed to make an arrangement to meet up, Mirna agreed that they could go out to dinner. On the 12th of December 2015, Mirna took her new husband, Arief, along to meet Jessica for dinner at a restaurant in North Jakarta.
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The dinner was quite uneventful, but Jessica said that this was where she heard about Mirna and Arief’s wedding for the first time. It must have made for awkward dinner conversation, but not much more about this evening is known.
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Jessica wanted to gather the girls for coffee and suggested they all met up in January. On the WhatsApp chat group, Jessica was the one who invited Mirna, Hani and Vera. They arranged to meet on Wednesday, January 6th at a café in the Grand Indonesian Shopping Mall.
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When the day came, Jessica was eager to confirm the coffee date. Around 1pm said: “Girls… I’ll treat you to juice – and book a table.” Mirna replied to the group, saying: “Helloooo Jess.”
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Jessica replied: “Which one do you want?”
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After a while, ignoring the question, Mirna asks where they should meet. Jessica answers: “Olivier.” Olivier is an upscale café inside the upmarket Grand Indonesian Shopping Mall.
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For wealthy socialites, this was a good place to see and be seen. Mirna replied:“Oh yeah. Delicious.” Jessica responded almost immediately: “Based on Hani’s suggestion.”
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Mirna carried on: “I love their Vietnamese ice coffee.”
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By telling her friend what her favourite drink on the menu was, Mirna effectively sealed her own fate, completely unaware that coffee wasn’t the only thing brewing that day.
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The friends arranged to meet at 5pm, but CCTV footage show Jessica Wongso arriving more than 90 minutes early. She walked around briefly, looked around a bit. Then two minutes later she left again.
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At a quarter past four, Jessica returned with three large paper shopping bags, from a bath shop, supposedly presents for her friends. Footage shows her walking around, looking for a table. Once she decided she looked up at the CCTV camera, then placed the shopping bags on top of the table. By doing that, she blocked the view of the CCTV camera directly. She went to sit down behind the bags and made sure it was a solid barrier.
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A couple of minutes later, she walked over to the bar and ordered three drinks: two cocktails and a Vietnamese ice coffee, which she paid for. She returned to her table and changed her position behind the bags.
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At 4:24pm, a waiter brought over the drinks. Jessica made sure that all the drinks were behind the shopping bags. Once the waiter had gone, Jessica moved again, to the centre of a halfmoon-shaped booth seat.
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On camera, you can see her movements. She was busy. If there had been a normal cup of coffee in front of her, you could have assumed that she was simply pouring a spoon of sugar into the cup and stirring it. But Jessica had ordered a cocktail.
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And the Vietnamese coffee… Let’s take a minute to describe the way it was served at Olivier that day: it was a bottomless coffee cup with a filter, that was placed on top of a glass of ice. The coffee would drip down through the filter onto the ice.
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There was no reason to move the top cup off the glass before drinking it. Yet, Jessica’s movements were consistent with moving the cup. Once she was done, she moved back to the side of the halfmoon-seat, leaving Mirna’s Vietnamese coffee as the centrepiece of the table.
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Mirna and Hani were fifteen minutes late, and arrived at a quarter past five, which means the drinks had been standing on the table for more than 45 minutes. When Jessica saw them, she got up and the friends hugged and said hi. Mirna’s body language showed that she wasn’t overly-comfortable with Jessica.
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The three friends then scooched into the booth, with Mirna in the middle, flanked by Jessica and Hani. Not paying much attention to Hani, whose drink was also waiting, melting away, Jessica pointed to the coffee and said: “This (coffee) is for you Mir, you said you wanted (it).”
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The very instance Mirna took a sip of her coffee, she noticed something wasn’t right. She pulled a face and said: “This is really not good, this is awful.”
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Mirna turned to Hani and asked her to try it. Hani didn’t feel like taking a gulp, but she dipped the end of her straw into the coffee, then licked the end of the straw. Hani had less than a drop of Mirna’s coffee. Mirna then turned to Jessica and said she should try it, but Jessica didn’t want to.
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The coffee remained untouched as the girls tried to work out what the problem was. Mirna waved her hand in front of her face, like she could smell something bad.
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Then, suddenly, next moment, Mirna thrusts her head back violently. Vomit foamed out of her mouth as she proceeded to have a seizure. As soon as it started, it stopped, Mirna collapsed.
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Chaos ensued with waiters and the manager rushing over to help. Hani called her name and tried to wake her up but Jessica just sat there quietly without reacting or helping.
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The manager thought perhaps Mirna suffered from epilepsy and had had a seizure. She ordered wait staff to call an ambulance and bring supportive oxygen. In a scene where tensions were high and people were screaming and crying, Jessica Wongso can be seen on CCTV footage as calm and devoid of emotion.
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As first responders rushed in to help Mirna, Jessica confronted the manager: and demanded to know what they put in the coffee? The manager felt uneasy straight away. Why was this friend going on about ‘what’s inside the drink’? The manager told staff NOT to throw what was left of Mirna’s Vietnamese coffee away and sealed it.
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Hani called Arief and said that Mirna was having seizures and that foam was coming from her mouth. Arief was shocked and made his way to Abdi Waluyo Hospital, where the ambulance was headed with Mirna, in Central Jakarta. They had only been married a couple of months, he could not lose her so soon…
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When Mirna arrived at the hospital, she had already passed on, but doctors desperately tried to revive her. It was too late, there was nothing more they could do for this beautiful woman in the prime of her life.
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Wayan Mirna Salihin was pronounced dead at 6:30pm on Wednesday, the 6th of January 2016.
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Mirna’s family and friends were in complete shock. They couldn’t understand how Mirna could have died so suddenly. When hearing about her last moments, suspicion fell on Jessica. But even so, it was hard to believe that a friend, a well-educated, upper-class young woman like Jessica could actually kill her friend. And that in broad daylight in a public place?
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Could she really have been so brazen? The manager of Olivier, handed Mirna’s Vietnamese coffee to police on the day of the incident. Three days later test results were made public: police confirmed that the ice coffee contained a lethal dose of cyanide.
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With Indonesia being a predominantly Muslim country, it is not usual practice to perform an autopsy. In criminal cases it could be allowed if the family agrees. So police, who were involved from the start, urged Mirna’s family to allow a post-mortem examination.
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Mirna’s family stood firm, they said they did not want to allow it, because they did not want Mirna’s body damaged. Investigators promised that the autopsy would be done respectfully. They reached a compromise, where Mirna’s family allowed them to take some samples, but due to religious reasons they did not want to allow a comprehensive autopsy.
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On Saturday night, the 9th of January, three days after Mirna’s death, an autopsy was performed at Kramat Jati Police Hospital and concluded in the early morning hours of January 10th.
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The results stated that there was an anomaly in Mirna’s stomach, caused by a corrosive agent. There was also a small amount of cyanide present. However, this didn’t match up with toxicology results of tests taken 70 minutes after her death. It tested negative for the presence of cyanide in gastric fluid, the bile, liver and urine.
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Mirna’s reaction after drinking the coffee was consistent with someone ingesting a large dose of cyanide. It had a dramatic and rapid onset which caused a seizure. Whereas chronic, systematic exposure to the poison would have a different, more prolonged reaction.
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Just two months after Mirna’s family and friends attended her wedding and wished the bride a life of happiness, the same group were gathered around an open casket, struggling to make sense of her death.
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Jessica was very uncomfortable at the funeral and left when an aunt of Mirna’s accused her of poisoning the young bride.
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Police had their sights set on Jessica as her behaviour on the day of Mirna’s death raised a lot of suspicion. Unfortunately in the shock and confusion of events, Jessica wasn’t searched on the day. Jessica had thrown away also the pants she was wearing on the day, saying she had damaged it while trying to help Mirna. However, on the footage, Jessica is never seen to be helping. She hovered uncomfortably in the background while Hani and café staff stepped in.
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Thanks to the manager of Olivier who had preserved Mirna’s drink, police had one solid piece of evidence: the murder weapon so to speak, a cup of coffee laced with a lethal dose of cyanide.
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The question of how Jessica had obtained the cyanide arose. Chemical supplies companies do stock it, but in order to buy it, you would need some kind of proof that it is for scientific use. The dosage supplied legally would also be limited.
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Police looked at Jessica and considered whether she had perhaps brought the cyanide into Indonesia from Australia, but thought that might have been too risky. Jessica’s friends and colleagues said that she was a determined and resourceful person, so police believed she could have sourced the poison soon after her arrival in Jakarta.
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Although Indonesia has officially banned cyanide fishing, the method is still used by villagers as an easy way to catch fish. They put a small amount of cyanide in a pond or running water, which doesn’t kill the fish, but it does ‘relax’ the fish and causes them to float to the surface. This method is often used to capture exotic fish before they are sold off to aquariums or privately owned tropical fish tanks.
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Police could not find any evidence of Jessica ever buying cyanide and she denied ever having access to the poison.
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As police investigation into Jessica Wongso heated up, media interest in the case ramped up too. And the whole country followed the drama as rumours surfaced, almost daily. The hardest part to understand was: why? What would Jessica’s motive have been to kill Mirna?
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Was the fact that Mirna had become closer to Hani and Vera – friends Jessica had introduced her to. Jessica became the odd one out. She was also the only one of the group Mirna had NOT invited to her wedding. And with Mirna married to Arief, she grew even more distant from Jessica.
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The media wasn’t satisfied, there had to be more. They desperately tried to dig up dirt. Rumours of love triangle emerged. The press speculated that Arief and Jessica had dated while they all lived in Australia. This was based on a statement that Jessica had made to a co-worker. She said that her friend (Mirna), was marrying her ex-boyfriend (meaning Arief).
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Why she said that was unclear. The truth is, Arief and Jessica only met a couple of times. Arief didn’t even study in the same city as the girls and only ever saw Jessica when he visited Mirna.
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Then there was a whole other rumour, that Arief was the mastermind behind Mirna’s death. He was reportedly seen talking to the barista at Olivier and offered him about 10,000 US Dollars to put poison in the coffee, but this could never be substantiated. The barista refuted the claim.
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The motive behind it was allegedly, that Arief stood to pocket a hefty life insurance pay-out in the event of Mirna’s death. Mirna’s family strongly denied these accusations and supported Arief in maintaining his innocence. Arief is a young and talented businessman, Mirna’s dad said: he did not have a reason to hurt Mirna.
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Indonesian police had to sort through the stories and accusations and build an evidence-based case against Jessica if they wanted to prosecute. They decided to go to Sydney to where the two women met in order to investigate Jessica’s life before her arrest.
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In Jakarta, Jessica stated that she had resigned from her job in Sydney and she had decided to relocate to Indonesia where there were more job opportunities for graphic designers. Police quickly learnt that this was not the case.
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They interviewed Jessica’s previous boss, Kristie Carter, head of media and marketing for Ambulance NSW for nine hours.
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Kristie said that Jessica was a woman with two personalities. She could be sweet and kind in the one instance, then her attitude would change into something more threatening. Kristie thought that Jessica was capable of hurting of killing another person.
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She based this on a conversation she had with Jessica when visiting her in hospital after one of her suicide attempts. According to Kristie, Jessica told her that she knew exactly how much poison to use in order to kill somebody.
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Commenting on Jessica’s attitude after driving into the nursing home and nearly killing someone. Kristie said that Jessica did not show any remorse.
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Nearing the end of her employment, Jessica threatened Kristie by saying: “You need to die and your mom has to go too.”
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Jessica was dismissed from her job and that is when she decided to go back to Jakarta. Kristie could never have imagined, that only weeks later, Jessica would be suspected of actually committing a murder.
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Just over three weeks after Mirna’s death, at 7am on Saturday January 30th, police arrested Jessica at a hotel in North Jakarta. They first tried to find her at her family’s home the day before, but she wasn’t there. Police found it suspicious that she checked into a hotel without notifying anybody.
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As soon as she was arrested, Jessica publicly denied poisoning her friend. Her calm and smiling demeanour in front of cameras was also unsettling. Police realised that there would be no confession, and that Jessica Wongso needed a psychological evaluation before they could take her to court.
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Jakarta Police psychology team conducted two days’ worth of tests in an attempt to establish a motive for the murder.
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The evaluation concluded that Jessica was a smart, calm and confident person. However, beneath the surface she had an “amorous narcissist” personality. Broadly defined, the amorous narcissist loves to be the centre of attention and is unaffected by their inappropriate behaviour. They are manipulative and have no remorse about their actions. They lie and cheat to get their way.
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Bearing this in mind, it could explain why Jessica chose poison to kill her friend, as opposed to a more blatant and openly aggressive method. It was her dirty little secret, planning the whole sordid event.
00:28:05
According to Psychology Today:
“Killing someone with poison, by its very nature, requires careful planning and subterfuge, so it comes as no surprise that poisoners tend to be cunning, sneaky, and creative (they can design the murder plan in as much detail as if they were writing the script for a play)… They tend to avoid physical confrontation and, instead, rely on verbal and emotional manipulation to get what they want from others.”
00:28:35
One report said that perhaps Jessica had a preference for same sex partners, perhaps losing Mirna to marriage was too much to bare? If she couldn’t have Mirna, neither could Arief.
00:28:46
Mirna’s dad, Edi Darmawan, disclosed information he had discovered on Mirna’s phone in a WhatsApp message from Jessica. There were several intimate, albeit one-sided, texts from Jessica to Mirna. One message read: “Mir, I want to kiss you. It's been a long time.'"
00:29:03
The allegation was that Jessica had unrequited feelings for Mirna. Once she found out that Mirna had married Arief, she exacted her revenge.
00:29:12
This whole element brought a new dimension to the case. Most Indonesians are not comfortable with homosexuality at all. A recent survey ranked the LGBT community first as the most disliked group among the country’s Muslims. The mere suggestion that Jessica could be gay, already made her guilty in the eyes of the public.
00:29:33
Mirna’s family on the other hand, defended Mirna and said that she was definitely not a lesbian and that she had had a warm, heterosexual connection with her husband, who she had dated for eight years before they married.
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Jessica adamantly denied being gay and there was nothing in her past relationships that indicated that she was homosexual or bisexual.
00:29:53
Investigators’ case against Jessica Wongso was getting stronger. But it still remained a circumstantial case. Six weeks after the murder, they handed over the case file to prosecutors, but it was returned as prosecutors felt the case wasn’t strong enough.
00:30:09
Investigators contacted their counterparts in the Australian Federal Police (or AFP) and requested a dossier regarding Jessica’s background while she lived in Australia. As Australia opposes the death penalty, the AFP agreed to co-operate, but Indonesian police had to guarantee that Jessica would not suffer the death penalty, should she be found guilty. Indonesian police agreed.
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The case file would be handed in and sent back a total of five times before prosecutors were satisfied and ready to go to trial.
00:30:45
It was the end of May by this time and Jessica had been on remand had been on remand for 118 days. The media reported on how much weight she had lost and how her detention had caused health concerns. On the 15th of June 2016, six months after Mirna Salihin’s death, the trial of the century kicked off at Central Jakarta’s State Court.
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Prosecution laid charges of pre-mediated murder against Jessica Wongso for ending her friend’s life. They sought the death penalty by firing squad.
00:31:09
The whole country was glued to TV screens as the drama unfolded in the ensuing months.
00:31:14
Prosecution had a parade of witnesses and the facts had to be crystal clear, especially after so many months of speculation and half-truths published in sensationalised press reports.
00:31:26
Mirna’s dad, Edi Darmawan, took the stand and testified that Jessica’s behaviour at the hospital on the day of Mirna’s death was very strange. He said she was calm and composed as she walked around, even though she had just witnessed her friend die. Hani, who was also present, had a more normal reaction to events, she was in shock and cried most of the time.
00:31:48
Arief Soemarko, Mirna’s husband of only two months, testified about Mirna’s relationship with Jessica. He said that Mirna was uncomfortable with Jessica and after their confrontation at a Sydney restaurant about Jessica’s boyfriend, Mirna didn’t want to meet up with Jessica by herself again.
00:32:05
He also denied that he ever had an affair with Jessica and that they only met a couple of times, when Mirna was present.
00:32:12
Mirna’s twin sister, Sendy was also called to testify and she told the court about a strange message she had received from Jessica after Mirna’s death. It was an article that Jessica forwarded to Sendy. The article was about poisonous Vietnamese coffee. Jessica’s aim was to convince her that the actual coffee was the cause of Mirna’s death, not cyanide IN the coffee.
00:32:35
Mirna and Jessica’s friend Hani testified that after Mirna was pronounced dead at the hospital on the night of January 6th, she heard Jessica mumble: “I’m Sorry”.
00:32:45
Wait-staff of Olivier testified that Jessica had chosen the table where Mirna and Hani eventually joined her, herself. Jessica also paid for the drinks immediately after ordering, which other customers found to be unusual. However, it is not uncommon to pay the bill when you order in Australia, it could have been a force of habit after living there for so long.
00:33:05
Staff did find it strange that Jessica ordered the drinks so long before her friends arrived. Even if they had been on time, the drinks would have sat out on the table for more than half an hour. In the end, the drinks stewed for 45 minutes before Mirna and Hani drank it.
00:33:20
In reviewing the CCTV footage of Jessica while she was waiting for her friends at the café, she was seen scratching her hand several times and looking around in a daze. Toxicologist and forensic expert, Nursamran Subandi, said Jessica might scratch her hand because of exposure to cyanide.
00:33:38
When evidence about Jessica’s off-the-rail life in Sydney was presented in court, it shocked everyone to learn that this wealthy socialite had 13 police reports behind her name. The urgent restraining order filed by Jessica’s ex-boyfriend, Patrick O’Connor was probably the most revealing about the dangerous personality that lurked behind Jessica Wongso’s ever-present smile.
00:33:58
Things weren’t looking good for Jessica. But her highly paid defence team wasn’t too worried, they had a couple of aces up their sleeves.
00:34:05
In September, the third month of the trial, Australian forensic pathologist, Professor Beng Beng Ong explained that Mirna's death was probably not due to cyanide poisoning. The reason he said, was that there was no cyanide found in Mirna’s gastric fluid taken 70 minutes after she died. While the 0.2 grams of cyanide in Mirna's stomach taken a few days after death was likely to have been produced post-death.
00:34:28
Forensic pathologist Djaja Surya Atmadja agreed with Professor Ong. He also explained that the cause of death could only be known by conducting a full autopsy. While, in conducting Mirna’s post-mortem examination, pathologists only took samples of tissue and fluids.
00:34:45
Jessica’s legal team made it clear that Mirna's death was not necessarily caused by cyanide. She could have suffered from an undiagnosed underlying medical condition. They also pointed out the prosecution had failed to prove where the cyanide was purchased.
00:35:00
When Jessica Wongso testified, you could hear a pin drop. The whole nation was listening to the smiling accused’s testimony. She denied poisoning her friend and begged the judges to decide the outcome of her case based on evidence, not speculation. Her manner – always smiling and calmly talking, probably did her case more damage than good.
00:35:21
On October the 5th 2016, Jessica Kumalo Wongso was found guilty of the pre-meditated murder of her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin. When the judges read the verdict, the courtroom erupted in applause and cheers of relief.
00:35:37
The judges who heard the case said that they found the prosecution’s theory to be plausible: Jessica’s motive to kill Mirna was anger at her friend for advising her to break up with her boyfriend, Patrick O’Connor. They found her behaviour on the day on the murder very suspicious: the fact that she went to the café hours before to scope it out and then returned with the large shopping bags.
00:35:58
All of her actions proved that there was premeditation to this sadistic crime and her legal team made a plea, still claiming that Jessica was innocent.
00:36:08
They were concerned about Jessica’s health in the pitiful, rat-infested cells at the Metro Jaya Police Headquarters.
00:36:15
Her lawyers ended the plea by saying: “For Jessica, Mirna was a good friend. Mirna's death is Jessica and her family's. nightmare.”
00:36:25
At the end of October, Jessica was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Because of the agreement with Australian Federal Police, she was not given the death sentence.
00:36:35
Jessica stood up and said that the trial was biased and that she would appeal.
00:36:39
And with that, the soap opera was over, with the accused promising to return and clear her name. The Indonesian nation was still divided and the coffee killing made for good dinner party conversation.
00:36:46
For the average Indonesian, looking at the über-rich members of society like Jessica Wongso and Mirna Salihin, this story brought a strange sense of comfort. Even the untouchables have their issues and things can go terribly wrong, no matter who you are.
00:37:08
An interesting thing happened in Jakarta in the wake of this, however. It seems that Vietnamese iced coffee has become one of the most popular drinks in cafés throughout the city.
00:37:21
If you’d like to read more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes.
00:37:27
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00:37:37
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00:38:29
This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!