S03E14: THE MURDER OF MIRNA SALIHIN

AJ: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.

A frantic phone call to Mirna's husband, Arief Sumarko, from her friend Hani said that Mirna was experiencing seizures and foam was coming out of her mouth. Jessica is then seen on this footage sitting down and placing her three shopping bags on the table. Moving and arranging them ever so slightly, which perfectly obscures the view of this other security camera.

Katie: Because you mentioned that she was afraid of Jessica. Why was she afraid of her? Was she afraid for her life? She wasn't afraid enough to let Jessica sit with her and drink for an hour.

AJ: He's asking her, "Where did the Cyanide come from? Or do you know how it got in there?" She is answering his questions, but she's almost smiling and she doesn't seem shocked or anything. She's just very smiley and there's pictures of her, any press conference she's at ,she's very much loving the attention.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crime Family. I'm your co-host AJ and I'm here with my two sisters, Stephanie and Katie. In this episode, I'm going to be telling you about the Mirna Salihin case. This is a case that actually happened overseas back in January of 2016. It was a pretty high profile case in Indonesia where it happened and it was actually called their trial of the century. So I would probably compare it to the Casey Anthony Case, or maybe even the OJ case. In Indonesia, that's what it was like, you know, huge press attention and everyone was watching the trial as it was happening. So Olivier was a cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia, located inside an upscale shopping mall, and it was a popular spot for locals and tourists alike. On January 6th, 2016, it was here where Wayan Mirna Salihin met two of her best friends for a coffee date. However, that day it also became a crime scene. So not long into her meeting with her two friends, Mirna loses consciousness suddenly at the table and the ambulance has to be called. A frantic phone call to Mirna's husband, Arief Sumarko, from her friend Hani, said that Mirna was experiencing seizures and foam was coming out of her mouth. The manager of the restaurant says in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, that she thought Mirna was having an epileptic seizure or something. That's what it just looked like objectively, but Mirna had no known history of epilepsy. Mirna is rushed to a local hospital and unfortunately dies before she arrives. Immediately, the investigation into Mirna's cause of death begins. The question initially was how could somebody be completely fine one minute then all of a sudden lose consciousness and have a violent seizure the next, without any explanation. At first, there was no foul play that was suspected. Perhaps there was a medical explanation for what happened, like maybe an underlying health condition or just a random medical emergency that just isn't immediately explainable or preventable. However, there are a lot more sinister details at play in this case than is immediately clear.

So that's the initial scene that sets into motion this investigation into Mirna's death. I'm going to take you back a bit into Mirna's earlier life. This was a life that was filled with promise and adventure years before she tragically took her final breath inside the Jakarta cafe. Born on March 30th, 1988 alongside her twin sister, Sandy, in Jakarta, Mirna had a pretty typical upbringing. She grew a passion for design and decided to move to Sydney, Australia to study after high school. She began attending Billy Blue Design College in the fall of 2007. It was during this time in Australia where she met the two friends that she was at the cafe with that day Hani Juwita Boon and Jessica Wongso as well as her eventual husband Arief Sumarco. All four of them were from Indonesia and they were all studying in Sydney at this school and they all became incredibly close throughout their four years at college. So Mirna, it was her first time in Australia, she was new there, she immediately set out to find other people from Indonesia that she could connect with and get to know the city and just grow her little community there. The four of these people became really, really close. After graduating three of them, Mirna and Arief who was then her boyfriend and Hani returned to Jakarta. Jessica Wongso stayed behind in Sydney in hopes of becoming a permanent resident. So the three of them moved back and they still kept in pretty regular contact. But Jessica was the only one that stayed behind in Australia. They lost a bit of contact with Jessica at this time, you know, just drifted apart or just weren't seeing her all the time. Mirna actually didn't see Jessica again in person for a few years, until 2014. She was on a trip to Sydney and she decided to visit Jessica. After not seeing each other for three years, they began to realize that they just drifted apart and that they were maybe different people now than they once were. They just weren't compatible really as friends anymore. In this one meeting that they had in 2014, it resulted in an argument between the two after Mirna told Jessica that she didn't approve of her new boyfriend. Apparently it was so bad that Jessica just went silent and then she got up and left the restaurant and left Mirna there to pay for the whole bill. In an interview with 60 Minutes Australia, Mirna's husband Arief explains that Mirna was very honest and frank with her friends. She was the type to tell it like it is. She would sometimes offer tough love advice to her friends and while she definitely meant well, he admits that sometimes it could come off as a bit harsh. So maybe she was using a little bit of this tough love charm on Jessica and Jessica just wasn't really perceptive of it on this particular day. This argument between the two of them did not end well. So after this encounter, their friendship was pretty fractured. In fact, Arief claims that Mirna became fearful of Jessica after this incident. She said that she was scared to meet up with her alone. There was just something about Jessica in that moment, that struck fear inside of Mirna.

Katie: What could she have said that would make their relationship turn so bad so quickly? I wonder?

AJ: Yeah. I don't know. In the interview with 60 Minutes, Arief says that in his mind he played out what the conversation could have been like. " How could you be so stupid? He's not good for you. You need to dump this guy." I guess she was just being really harsh. But if that was her demeanor, she would've been like that the entire time they knew each other, so Jessica shouldn't have been surprised by this. For whatever reason, it really did fracture their friendship. I guess that they were drifting apart a little bit already. Like I said, they had gone three years without seeing each other and, you know, Mirna was close with the others and Jessica just fell out of touch with the group. And for Jessica specifically, this encounter with Mirna was a major disappointment and it sent her on a downward spiral. In 2015, Jessica was hospitalized five times for attempting to commit suicide. In one incident, in August of that year, she drove her car into a nursing home and she only missed the bedrooms of several of the residents by mere feet. So it was a pretty close call. She didn't hurt anyone, but it was a very close call. She suffered two cracked ribs and an injury to her chest. And the police believed that she was intoxicated at the time of the incident. There were other friends of Jessica's that did report that she was beginning to abuse alcohol around this time. In addition to this, her friends Mirna and Arief tied the knot in Bali soon afterwards, and Jessica was not invited to the wedding. Arief says that this was because of the fear that Mirna had towards Jessica and they just decided it would be best if she wasn't invited to the wedding. To make matters worse, Jessica was fired from a graphic design job shortly after the wedding. So by all accounts, Jessica's life was completely falling apart and Mirna's was flourishing. She lost her job, her two best friends are getting married, she's not invited, and she's starting to abuse alcohol. So it's very different than Mirna's life who moved back to Jakarta. She just got married and she has a really good life. In an attempt to run from all of these new found troubles in her life, Jessica decides to leave Australia and return home to Indonesia. There's a YouTube channel that covers this case. It's called A Coffee House Crime. In this video, they're talking about the case. They describe alleged text messages from Jessica to another friend. In these text messages, Jessica says, " I could use the money to have an epic holiday rather than giving money to those ignorant police blank." Then she also says in another text, " I'm being pushed again and again. I'll break." Jessica was fined as a result of her car crash earlier in the year, the one where she crashed her car into the nursing home. So she did end up getting charged and fined for that. She did owe a bit of money in that case. This was the money that she's referring to saying that she could use that money to have this epic holiday rather than paying the fines that she owed. Jessica eventually does decide to leave Sydney after several years and she returns home to Jakarta. Only two days after returning to Jakarta, Jessica reached out to Mirna and invited her out for coffee at Olivie, which is the cafe that Mirna dies in just days later. So Mirna reluctantly agrees to meet up in attempts to patch this rift between them. Because she was still fearful of Jessica, it was her husband who suggested that she take another friend with her to the cafe just to be safe. Mirna invited Hani who was their other mutual friend who they met in Sydney as well. The three friends agreed to meet at Olivie at 5:00 PM on January 6th, but CCTV cameras captured Jessica arriving at the cafe 90 minutes before their scheduled meeting time. So she enters the cafe at about 3:30 PM. Then shortly after this, just a couple minutes later, she leaves and returns about 45 minutes later at 4:14 PM with three shopping bags. Inside each shopping bag was a small bottle of liquid hand soap. Now Jessica claims that she left the cafe to buy gifts for her two friends that she was meeting with. She comes back with little bottles of liquid hand soap. So, I mean, that's a weird gift. I don't know. They were small bottles, but each one in a separate bag, which seems excessive. They're small enough she could fit them all into one bag. So it's a little bit weird, those details. Her story was that she went early, she scoped out the restaurant. Then she went and did her shopping and came back after. So when Jessica returns at 4:14 PM, she can clearly be seen on the security footage, looking around the cafe, she's looking at the ceiling, looking at the walls and looking in the direction of the security cameras. So it's almost as if she's scouting out the positions of the cameras and the distance from her table. According to 60 Minutes Australia, there were two security cameras that could have captured her table. One was obscured by some greenery in one corner of the cafe, but the other had a clear, direct shot of the table. Jessica is then seen on this footage sitting down and placing her three shopping bags on the table, moving and arranging them ever so slightly, which perfectly obscures the view of this other security camera. Then in another suspicious occurrence, Jessica texts Mirna and Hani and insists on pre-ordering their drinks for them so they'll already be at the table and ready to drink when the pair arrives. Mirna and Hani push back and they say, "No it's fine. We'll just order them when we get there. There's no big deal", but Jessica insists. So after sitting down and arranging her shopping bags, Jessica orders, an iced coffee and two cocktails, which are brought to the table at 4:24 PM, which is still a full 36 minutes before their scheduled meeting time. Mirna and Hani arrive at Olivie at 5:16 PM. By this time the drinks have already been on the table for 52 minutes. Within seconds of sitting at the table, Mirna can be seen on the security footage, taking a sip of the iced coffee. And it's clear from this footage, that something isn't quite right with the drink. It has a strange taste. She's seen fanning her hand around her mouth after sipping the iced coffee, like what you do if something tastes gross. That's the motion that she's making on the security footage. She even asks Hani and Jessica to smell the coffee. Hani agrees that something seems off, but neither she or Jessica take a sip of the coffee. Within minutes Mirna's head slips back and she begins seizing with foam coming out of her mouth. As I described earlier, Hani calls Arief in a panic saying that she's convulsing, there's foam coming from her mouth and the ambulance is then called. Security footage shows Jessica looking on, seeming confused, but not panicked at all. The manager of the cafe actually recalls in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia that Jessica asked her almost instantly, " What did you put in the coffee? That's why I saved the drinks." This accusation puts the manager on her guard about the whole situation almost instantly. Because of this comment by Jessica, the manager decides to keep the ice coffee, which proves vital to the whole investigation. So for whatever reason, that comment by Jessica, it's in the moment. Mirna's having a seizure. It looks like a seizure. Everyone doesn't really know what's going on and no one's really thinking that possibly the iced coffee is the cause for this. So the fact that Jessica was the one that brought it up, struck the manager as weird. Because of that comment, she thought, " I'll just save this coffee just in case, because it's probably going to lead to some type of investigation." like I said before, Mirna dies on the way to the hospital. Coroners do an autopsy on Mirna's body and find traces of Cyanide in her stomach. Additionally, the police are able to confirm three days after her death that the ice coffee, which was kept by the cafe's manager contained a lethal dose of Cyanide as well.

Stephanie: I mean, I've seen other cases where people drink Cyanide but I thought it was tasteless.

Katie: I'm pretty sure Cyanide is pretty bitter.

Stephanie: Oh, okay. I, I just thought it was tasteless.

AJ: I did look it up online. I just typed in, "What does cyanide taste like?" or "Where do you get cyanide?" One of the things says that it has a smell of bitter almonds. And so I assume if it smells like that, it probably has some type of taste.

Stephanie: So those soap bottles that she bought were probably not even soap. They could have had Cyanide in them.

AJ: She did go to Bath and Body W orks. That's where the, the soap was from. She did have the Bath and Body Works bags. She did buy soap from there. So instantly they were able to put together that the ice coffee, there were traces of Cyanide left in the cup that Mirna drank from. They also had traces of Cyanide in her system. There was stomach bleeding in Mirna's body as well, caused by the Cyanide of course. Immediately after the coroner's report and the discovery of the Cyanide in the coffee, police focus on Jessica Wongso. Jessica was not searched on the day of Mirna's death, so she was able to walk away out of the cafe without any suspicion. But after the cause of death has been determined and the ice coffee Mirna drank from was tested, Jessica was suspect number one. It's believed by police that Jessica intended to murder Mirna when she arrived at the cafe that afternoon. They alleged that Jessica plotted to poison her former friend. Arriving at the cafe early, insisting on pre-ordering their drinks and placing shopping bags on the table in such a way that the actions taking place at the table by Jessica and the move-ins that she makes cannot be easily detected. Looking at her behavior on the CCTV footage from that afternoon, seems to heavily align with this theory. So the 60 Minutes Australia episode about this case and on YouTube, there is footage of the CCTV cameras it does seem to fall in line with that theory. She walks in she's scouting around looking in the direction of the cameras and picks the one table that is only visible by two cameras. One of the cameras is a little obscured by some greenery that they have at the corner of the cafe. There's only one camera that has a direct shot. She puts the bags to obscure that specific camera. That's what the police are theorizing at this time. Remember that job that Jessica was fired from shortly before she returned to Jakarta. While during the course of the investigation into Jessica's past, the police interviewed Kristie Carter. She was Jessica's former boss at New South Wales ambulance. During the course of a nine hour interview with her Kristie admits that she has no doubt that Jessica is capable of killing or harming someone. She also admits that Jessica once told her that she knew how to use poison to kill and Jessica even once threatened to kill Kristie and her mother a couple of weeks before she left Sydney. So those are huge red flags as well. This was a nine hour long interview where they got lots of information about what Jessica was like according to her former boss. These were all things that came up in this interview. Definitely not, a great look for Jessica. For her to be saying these things, she's threatened to kill her boss, I don't know necessarily in the context of how that happened, if it was a comment that she just threw out there, or if it was something more direct. What ended up happening, was that she threatened to kill Kristie and her mother. Police initially worried that because Jessica was a permanent resident of Australia that maybe she would flee Indonesia and go back to Australia so they really did have to be quick in their initial investigation to get all these pieces together. They did arrest Jessica on January 30th, 2016 for the murder of Mirna Salihin. This would've been only 24 days after the initial incident. So it did happen pretty quickly, but I'm surprised that she didn't try to flee in that three week time period. She could have went back to Australia. I mean, I'm sure they still could have caught her, maybe extradited her back, but they were worried that that would be something that would be hard to do. So they just really wanted to make sure that they arrested her before she had the chance to flee. Police believe that Jessica had the motive, intent, and opportunity to poison and murder Mirna that day. Mirna's sister Sandy believes that Jessica was so jealous of Mirna's successful life compared to her own that she decided to murder Mirna because of it. Do you guys have any thoughts so far, about any of the CCTV footage or Jessica herself or...

Katie: Yeah. One of my first questions was I thought there was CTV footage, so wouldn't they see her poisoning the drink, but you already said that she had placed the bags in a way that would've hidden that. And now I'm thinking that obviously this was planned out because it's not like she could have just gone to the mall or Bath and Body Works, and picked up some Cyanide. She probably had that with her the entire time and was thinking this whole plan through. So it wasn't just a spur of the moment, it was planned from even before she invited her out. So that's a meticulous plan.

AJ: Mm-hmm yeah. That was one of the main things for me too. In order to poison somebody with Cyanide, you have to go get Cyanide first, which you can't just go to a store and buy it. You have to, I don't even know where you get it. Probably on the black market somewhere. They obviously don't sell it in stores, but...

Katie: They probably sell it for certain things like rat poison. I don't know. It's not just something you could just buy pure Cyanide off the shelf.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. So like you said, for her to even do it, she would've had to have had that in advance, which obviously shows premeditation.

Katie: You mentioned that she was afraid of Jessica. So what was she afraid of? Was she afraid for her life with her? Was she just afraid that I don't know, they would make a scene in public, it'd be embarrassing. She wasn't afraid enough to let Jessica sit with her drink for an hour. You know what I mean? So I I'm thinking she wasn't that afraid of her.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what her husband Arief, he doesn't go into detail about nature of what she was scared of. He didn't say she was afraid that Jessica was gonna kill her or anything like that. He just said that she was afraid to be alone with her, or she was afraid to meet with her alone. So for whatever, I guess having that other friend there would be like a good buffer. So obviously she didn't necessarily fear for her life. If there's someone that you fear for your life being around them you're not going to go with them. You're also not going to let them be with your drink unattended for nearly an hour. That's also in 60 Minutes. They say that it was very unlike Jessica to offer to pre-order. She had never really done that before. It would've been a new thing. Obviously Mirna and Hani thought it was weird, but they just let her do it. They shouldn't have done that. What were they thinking? But also you're not necessarily thinking that that's going to happen.

Katie: Yeah. I guess if you are afraid for your life, you're not going to try and reconcile that relationship. You're probably just going to let that relationship die. That is a good point. She wasn't afraid for her life. She would've probably not even met up with her at all, like you said.

AJ: Yeah, she's not going to try to reconcile with somebody who she's afraid is going to kill her. That's not really a relationship that's worth salvaging. So it probably wasn't that deep or it wasn't that intense, but...

Katie: Also if she was afraid that Jessica could hurt her in some way, she probably felt safer that her friend was with her, but also that they were in a public place. So she probably felt that Jessica wasn't going to be able to get violent with her in a place like that. She probably wasn't even thinking. Obviously you're not going somewhere thinking someone's going to poison your food. That was probably off the table, and she was feeling safer that they were in public.

AJ: Yeah, that's a good point. And I think that probably Mirna or her husband, or Hani didn't know the extent of what Jessica was going through back in Sydney. I don't think they knew that she was struggling with alcohol or that she had been fired. She was on a downward spiral, so it's not like they could see that maybe she was losing it a little bit. She was scared, but not scared enough to avoid her completely. You're also not thinking that somebody's going to poison your food. They may not have known that she was at the restaurant that early.

Katie: What time did they text her? She texted them and asked what kind of drinks they wanted. How early was that?

AJ: In the 60 Minutes episode they show little bubbles come up on the screen that show the text and those bubbles showed 1:00, so I'm assuming that was the accurate time. They didn't just make that up. They planned to meet at five. Maybe when they were hammering out the details of when they're going to meet they were, "Let's meet at five." Then maybe Jessica asked, "What do you guys like to drink? I'll pre-order it for you?" That was at 1:00. It was still four hours before they were supposed to meet, so I don't think they knew obviously that Jessica was going to get there that early.

Katie: I guess it doesn't matter how early she was there. She could've been 10 minutes early and she still would've been sitting alone with their drinks. It just seems weird that four hours early, she'd text them asking what drinks they want. She knew she was going to be early, knew she was going to have to sit there and wait for them and have their drinks sitting there. So that's weird. I feel like maybe if you happen to show up early, you can order their drinks, but you already knew that was going to happen.

AJ: Yeah. Or sometimes if you're running late, your friend will say, "Oh, I'll just order your drink. Get it started. Then it's here for you." That's a natural, normal conversation.

Katie: And especially if you're ordering an ice coffee and it's sitting there for an hour, it's going to be all melted and warm by the time you get there, it's not even going to be good anymore.

AJ: Yeah. I doubt she would've wanted it if she knew it was sitting there for 52 minutes. I would've been, "No I'll order a new one."

Katie: I want a fresh coffee.

AJ: I don't want this gross, luke warm coffee.

Katie: Watered down because all the ice melted.

AJ: Yeah.

Stephanie: And you know how sometimes if something tastes funny, you ask your friends to taste it too. The fact that Jessica didn't want to. Did anybody ever do that?

AJ: Yeah. Hani, her other friend didn't either. She smelled it, but she didn't actually take a drink of it.

Stephanie: Yeah.

AJ: But neither did Jessica. The whole situation is very weird. That would be a red flag for me. Maybe not if it was someone you were on really good terms with, who's your best friend. Still three hours in advance is a little bit weird, but especially if it's somebody that you've had a falling out with, you're not on the best terms with. That should allow for even more red flags to come up, I feel along the way.

Stephanie: For someone who does research for crimes a lot we see a lot of red flags. So for someone like Mirna and her friend, they wouldn't see those red flags. I'm just saying it's easier for us to see these things than for someone like them.

AJ: Yeah. I know sometimes it is hard to say what's normal, because if you're really into true crime and you watch all these docs, then you're not going to do that. That's weird. But for someone who's not even thinking that at all and who isn't even in tune with the true crime world or anything like that these small things might not seem big. But to me, I still feel like that is weird. At the very least, not that you're thinking it's weird that she's going to put poison in it, but I still feel like it would raise alarm.

Katie: It is weird, but also maybe she's thinking that she's not going to make a big deal out of it because she wants to patch up their relationship. So she's not going to make this huge deal about it. What she's thinking is maybe that Jessica is just trying to make a nice gesture. Even though it comes off as weird to us looking in, but she could be thinking that she's actually making steps forward to be a good friend, and this is her small way of trying to do that. She wasn't going to be, "No, I'm not drinking that." She was, "Okay, this is nice. Let's just try and get along."

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And I think your mind doesn't necessarily jump to this person is capable of killing someone. This person might be a little bit weird or maybe she's a little bit impulsive or she can sometimes get angry really quickly, but you're still not going to jump to, I think she's capable of killing someone. You think what's the worst that can happen. The mind's not going to go to poisoning right away. You're thinking the worse that can happen is that she's going to attack me in a public place. She's not going to do that.

Katie: And I think again, the public place probably comes into play as well. You don't think someone's going to do something like that with a large public audience around. Right? So you feel like you are a little bit safer.

AJ: Yeah. If she had invited her over to her house where no one else was going to be and then said, "I'm gonna make you some food before you come." Then maybe. But the fact that it was a public place might have not been that intense for her. Police allege that in the time between the drinks being delivered to the table and Mirna and Hani arriving at the cafe, Jessica poured a lethal dose of Cyanide into the drink. In interviews with her former boss, Kristie Carter, she mentions that Jessica even once told her that if she wanted to kill somebody, she knew the exact dose. I guess that was in the context, they show a reenactment of the interview on 60 Minutes. They don't show the real footage, but I believe it's still quotes from what she said. She says Jessica was hospitalized and she was telling her boss, " I want to go home. They're treating me as if I killed someone. If I was going to kill someone, I know exactly how to do it. I know the exact dose to use." Those were the words that she used. Obviously put up next to what happened to Mirna that obviously seems very incriminating or very suspicious. Additionally, the police also learned that there was a restraining order that was allegedly placed against Jessica by a former boyfriend, back in Australia, after she allegedly vandalized his car after their breakup. Which shows a violent and obsessive history that Jessica was exhibiting. I don't know if that's the same boyfriend that Mirna had warned her about before that caused their split. But there was a boyfriend that she allegedly vandalized his car.

Katie: Who admits, "Oh, I didn't murder anybody. But if I did, I would know exactly how." Why even put that little tidbit in there?

AJ: Yeah. That's very, very weird. Of course it wasn't a direct, necessarily a direct quote from Jessica. It was just this boss telling police that Jessica said that. So who knows the exact wording that she used, you know, everyone kind of has their own interpretation. Then when they retell a story later, they're kind of putting their own spin on it, or however they remember it. So who knows what she actually said? The highly publicized trial of Jessica Wongso then begins on June 15th, 2016. It is one of Indonesia's most high profile cases. It was one of those ones where, you know, it was all over TV. Commentators are speculating on it, like day after day of the trial. Like I said, similar to the Casey Anthony Case, or maybe the OJ one where it's so highly publicized. During the course of all the legal stuff that was happening in the trial, there was an agreement that was reached between Indonesian and Australian authorities. Jessica was a permanent resident of Australia. The agreement was that Australia would share information with Indonesian authorities on the promise that they would not seek the death penalty in the case, which they agreed to. The information that was shared by Australia was about Jessica's history during her time there. Things such as legal records or medical records. It was on the one condition that Indonesia had to agree to not give the death penalty to Jessica if she was convicted. A crime like this in Indonesia would probably be given the penalty of the death sentence by firing squad. Jessica hired a really good defense attorney and during the trial, his main argument was that there was absolutely no Cyanide found in any other organ in Mirna's body other than her stomach. He argues that it is impossible for there to be no traces anywhere else, but obviously nobody just happens to have Cyanide in their stomach and also have Cyanide in the drink that they just drank from and not have there be some correlation. Obviously if there's Cyanide in the drink and there's Cyanide in her stomach that's a logical conclusion, but he's saying, because it was only found in her stomach, none of the other organs, like her brains or lungs or anything else had traces of Cyanide which apparently is not possible in his argument anyway.

Katie: But that doesn't make any sense. It's just injected into her stomach.

AJ: How did it get there? It has to get into your stomach, obviously.

Katie: But I feel like that makes sense, to me anyway, because it happened so quickly that she died and her body didn't have time to digest it anyway. So it sat in her stomach, she died and your body's not going to continue to work. Right? So there is no reason it would be anywhere else.

AJ: Also, in the Coffee House C rime YouTube series and also looking online about Cyanide, the main thing that it does is it stops your cells from accepting oxygen. That's simplifying it.

Katie: We talked about that in the Jim Jones episode about Cyanide.

AJ: Yeah, so that's basically what it does. There was bleeding in her stomach because obviously it's going to go right through your stomach and cause your stomach to bleed. But what was the cause of her death? The bleeding stomach, or was it because it is affecting your brain if she was convulsing? So it would've been in her brain, wouldn't it have been?

Katie: Maybe it was just her brain wasn't getting oxygen because the cells stopped absorbing oxygen and that's what made her seize.

AJ: Oh yeah. It happened within a matter of seconds from the moment she took the sip to the time that she starts convulsing. It's not even a minute or maybe two, but very, very quickly. Prosecutors do admit that they don't know how Jessica got the Cyanide and there's no actual footage of her placing Cyanide in the drink. An Indonesian news anchor named Timothy Marbun, who was heavily following the trial and was reporting on it throughout the duration of the trial, he says to 60 Minutes Australia, that she can clearly be seen touching the drink and moving the drink once it's on the table, but there's no actual footage of her placing anything into the drink. So, you know, perhaps this is all obscured by the three large shopping bags that she placed on the table minutes earlier. He says you can clearly see, which you can, there is some movement behind the bags. You can see her moving the drink, but moving a drink doesn't equal poisoning it. I guess, because they didn't have that actual footage of it it wasn't as incriminating as it could be. There was room for some sort of defense. If there was footage of her putting it in there, you can't dispute that, but because there was no actual footage of her doing it, there was room in there for the defense to come up with something else.

Katie: I would assume though, that the coffee house workers would have cameras behind there too, so it's not like you can accuse somebody back there of putting it in because they probably would've been monitored the whole time, right?

AJ: Yeah. They do show footage on 60 Minutes of the drink back in the kitchen, after it's taken from the table, when that manager preserves it. She takes it and puts it in the back and it shows footage of it in the kitchen area. There were cameras there and also in the Coffee House Crime YouTube series, they say that there was only 10 other vietnamese ice coffees that were served that day. No one else had any other reaction to it, other than her. The defense isn't able to dispute the fact that there's Cyanide in that ice coffee that Mirna drank, which killed her, but there's no actual evidence that Jessica's the one who put it there. There are arguments that someone else did it. Some disgruntled cafe employee put it in her specific drink seems far fetched. As it turns out, Jessica's comment to the cafe manager about what was in the coffee is actually what made them save the drink for inspection later. Think about it. If she hadn't said that, it's very likely that they wouldn't have necessarily kept the coffee and this key evidence that ties the Cyanide in Mirna's stomach to that ice coffee would not have existed. So I guess if Jessica was trying to divert suspicion she didn't do a very good job, because at the time that it happened, it was immediately as it's happening Jessica says to the employee, "What did you put in the coffee? That's why I ordered them early. That's why I saved them so that this wouldn't happen." No one was thinking that it was the coffee.

Katie: What! I ordered them early so that you wouldn't poison them. Is that what she means? What does she mean?

AJ: The manager, they interview her on 60 Minutes and she was saying, again it's not a direct quote from Jessica, it's the manager retelling it. She says, "Yeah, almost immediately, she turns to me and says, "What did you guys put in the drink? That's why I saved the drinks." Meaning that's why I got them early so that you wouldn't put anything in it. A very strange thing to say, because at the time, no, one's thinking it's the drink.

Katie: Yeah.

AJ: They're just thinking she's having a seizure, you know?

Katie: Yeah. Exactly. Like you were saying, they probably wouldn't have even thought about that until it was too late and the drink was already thrown out.

AJ: Yeah. If she had said nothing, they wouldn't have thought of the drink, they would've just put it in the back. They would've probably thrown it out and did the dishes, and then there would've been no evidence. Right? So Jessica, if she was trying to make it less suspicious, she definitely didn't help herself by saying that. That's what made the manager save that? That puts it in her mind. Maybe it was the drink so I'll keep it just in case they need to check it later, which they do. So I got a little more information from the Coffee House Crime, YouTube series, that covers this case. So the defense makes the argument during the trial that the Australian authorities should have never shared information with Indonesian authorities and that they should never have allowed the external information to be used as evidence in the courtroom. That was their argument, but the prosecutors rebutted this and said that this external information that was provided by Australia only confirmed what was already obvious about Jessica Wongso's unstable violent and dangerous behavior. They were saying it just added to our argument, it didn't form our argument basically. The defense was trying to get it thrown out by saying it shouldn't be admissible in court because it's an external document, which also seems like a very weak argument to be making. Throughout the course of the trial all of Jessica's suspicious behavior from that afternoon is described in court in great detail. Everything from her arriving early at the cafe, her looking around in search of the CCTV cameras, pre-ordering the drinks so long before her friends were scheduled to arrive, her placing the bags on the table. She buys three small bottles of soap in three separate bags, which seems excessive.

Katie: A bag for each of them is so they can each take their handsoap home in their own bag.

AJ: I guess, that's a good point. I was thinking, why would you put this small bottle in its own bag? Other evidence that was presented in the trial, and this is according to a video by Dr. Todd Grande, who also has a YouTube channel and covers a lot of true crime cases, and he looks at them from a psychological perspective because he's a psychologist, he says that Jessica sent a link to a news article, to Mirna's sister Sandy about fake Cyanide laced coffees that were being served in Vietnam shortly after the murder. I guess this was an attempt by Jessica to shift focus or blame. It looks like she's trying to cover her tracks. In addition, she was also asking Sandy what the results of the lab tests were on the day of Mirna's death. This is probably her trying to poke around and see what the results were. If anything could be traced back to her, potentially. Dr. Todd Grande says in his video that the pants that Jessica was wearing were thrown out. I don't know why she would throw her pants out unless they had traces of cyanide if she had the Cyanide in her pocket.

Katie: Or she could have spilled them on her pants.

AJ: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Also, it must be a liquid, right? It can come in different forms, liquid or a powder?

Stephanie: It's most likely a liquid.

AJ: It could be a powder too, that just dissolves in the coffee.

Stephanie: I don't know. I've never bought Cyanide so I'm assuming it's a liquid if you're going to pour it into coffee or any type of drink.

Katie: Yeah, I think it is a liquid.

AJ: During this whole thing the public and Sandy herself, Mirna's sister, they were shocked by Jessica's seemingly cheerful demeanor throughout the entire trial. Anytime she spoke with the media, she seemed cheerful and she wasn't at all like somebody who was on trial for the murder of her former best friend. Even the 60 Minutes' journalist, he tries to interview her as she's taking the walk from the courthouse to the van, he's asking her, "Where did the Cyanide come from? Do you know how it got in there?" She is answering his questions, but she's almost smiling and she doesn't seem shocked or anything. She's just very smiley and there's pictures of her, any press conference she's at, she's very much loving the attention. That's what Sandy also says. She says, she believes that Jessica just loved being at the center of attention. Because the trial was getting so much attention, she thrived off that. The trial lasted from June until October. Then on October 27th, 2016, Jessica Wongso was found guilty of Mirna Salihin's murder as millions of Indonesians watched. Her sentence was 20 years behind bars. Due to that agreement between Australia and Indonesia, she did not get the death penalty. After the trial was over Mirna's husband Arief ended up moving back to Australia. This time he went to Melbourne instead of Sydney. He goes back to Australia in an attempt at a fresh start. Since her conviction, Jessica has attempted to appeal three times. She's pleading not guilty. She has pled not guilty the entire time. All of her appeals were rejected and she has now exhausted all of her legal options, so it looks like she will be in prison for the full 20 years. She was very young at the time. I think she was 24, 25, at the time of it, so, you know, she could be out of prison when she's 45. It's definitely not a life sentence. If Indonesia's going from the death penalty, it seems like they went the opposite way. Not giving her a life sentence only 20 years.

Katie: Yeah. It doesn't seem like enough. Obviously it should be life. But yeah, I always find it crazy that when it's a murder they get less than life. It doesn't make sense to me. Murder is the ultimate crime.

AJ: Yeah, and it's weird. Murder is the ultimate crime and it should be a death penalty or it's going to be life. 20 years isn't that much for committing a murder when you see some people going to jail for life for much less than murder. 20 years does seem a bit light, especially considering that they do have the death penalty in Indonesia by firing squad. It seems very drastic. Then this is the other extreme of not tough enough.

Katie: Yeah. Being put to death by firing squad sounds terrifying.

AJ: I know. I didn't even know that that still existed.

Katie: I know, I can't believe it. It just seems way too violent. I can't believe the death penalty is a thing in general, but that just seems extreme.

AJ: Yeah. It's crazy to me that there's even a death penalty that is still in existence at all and how so many people are behind it. We'll get into the whole capital punishment argument, but I feel the death penalty, that's the easy way out. Shouldn't they spend their whole entire life in prison knowing what's out there. That they could be free, but they're stuck behind these walls. I feel like that's more torturous. Firing squad would be pretty horrific and violent, but you know, some people might rather that.

Katie: Yeah, some people feel like dying is better than being in prison forever. Some people feel like being in prison is better than dying. I guess it just depends on the person. Some people, if they get sentenced to life in prison, they kill themselves anyway. They feel like that's the better option. ,

Stephanie: I feel if you're doing the death penalty, it's still going to take a while before you get put to death. Right?

AJ: Yeah, it could be 20 years on death row before you actually get killed. I couldn't believe that it was only 20 years. To me that was very light and I did not think that's where it was going. It's just shocking. Did you guys have any thoughts about the case in general or about Jessica?

Stephanie: I just find it hard to believe that she hated Mirna over something so simple.

AJ: I don't think it was a specific thing. Mirna's Sandy says that she just thinks that Jessica was jealous of Mirna's life in general and was bitter. She might have been having some mental health struggles and obviously she was struggling with addiction too. I think she was on this downward path and was obviously a very violent and vindictive person and was bitter that Mirna had such a good life. Her life was falling apart.

Stephanie: Also going back to the trial, she was smiling the whole time. She was loving the attention.

AJ: Yeah. During research for this case, I got a bit of Jodi Arias vibes, if anyone's familiar with that case. That was also one that was very highly publicized. A similar theme was that people were saying that Jodi loved the attention. She loved the interviews by the journalists and she loved being the front page news story. Some people were saying that televising this was just playing into what these people want. They want that notoriety. There's a bit of controversy there too, which played a part as well. I'm just surprised that she even had a defense or that she didn't just plead guilty. The fact that she was pleading not guilty the whole time obviously they felt strong enough in an argument that was going to let her get off. Which to me is a bit odd because it seems so obvious, but I guess because they didn't have that physical footage of her placing it in the drink, it does leave a bit of room for ambiguity and theorizing I guess, even though I think to the general population, it seems pretty obvious.

Katie: Yeah. But there's also no footage of anyone else doing it either. There's actual footage of the drink being made and then given to her so nowhere along the line did someone do anything except for when she was behind the bags being sketchy? It seems like pretty obvious to me.

AJ: Yeah. Like I said, it comes back to that manager saving the drink which then comes back to Jessica herself making a comment about the drink, which is why she saved it. If they didn't have that coffee cup to test then the defense couldn't know where that Cyanide came from? You know, it's in her stomach and that could have been how she died, but who knows? She could have eaten something before that had it, you know, so thank God they did save that. That is really what made it obvious that it was in that coffee cup, which really narrowed it down. Obviously it's Jessica or a random employee. They're the only people that are handling it, you know?

Katie: Yeah, exactly.

AJ: So that is the case of Mirna Salihin. It's just sad that somebody could actually do that to someone that they called their best friend over seemingly nothing. Who really knows what's going through people's minds, honestly. I guess the lesson of the episode is, don't let people preorder your drinks. I don't know, is that the takeaway from all of this?

Katie: I guess it's a lesson, just be vigilant, don't don't trust anyone.

AJ: Yeah, and just order your own damn drinks, basically.

So that does it for this episode of Crime Family. I hope you enjoyed the episode and if you like the show and you want to interact with us. You can follow us on social media at crimefamilypodcast on Instagram, or @crimefamilypod1 on Twitter, and on Facebook at Crime Family Podcast. As always, you can send us an email, crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com, where you can send us your case suggestions or your feedback for the show. We don't know what you guys want unless you tell us, and we don't know what's working or what's not working. We assume you like it. People are listening. You can also go to our website@crimefamilypodcast.ca. You can listen to all of our episodes there and you can leave us a review as well on your favorite podcast app if they allow for reviews. Definitely do that on apple podcasts because we love hearing your thoughts and yeah, we hope you're enjoying the season. We enjoy doing it.

 Thank you so much. Until next time, take care. Bye.

Katie: Bye.

Stephanie: Bye.