Rotten Mango - #277: The Indonesian Girl That Killed Her Best Friend With Poisoned Coffee Because Of Jealousy

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

In an upscale cafe in Jakarta - 3 women sat in a booth. Jessica, Hani, and Mirna had been friends since college and decided to reunite to catch up. One had gotten married and was ready to start her own family. Another had just landed a new job. Another was going to live full-time in Australia with her boyfriend. And by the end of the coffee date - one would be dead in the booth. The culprit? A strange yellow-colored coffee sitting at the table. Was the coffee tainted? Was she deliberately poisoned? Who were the suspects, her best friends from college? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bramble. Better being better. Devi was the manager at this local cafe in Jakarta called Olive Year Cafe. And she takes her job very, very seriously. She takes pride in taking care of her customers, making sure that all her staff are polished and polite. She made sure the cafe itself always looked very, very magical. It had this forest theme.

But not like the Rainforest cafe, no offense, Disney. It was like a magical plant filled urban oasis, like think of a coffee shop in Brooklyn. That's kind of the vibe. You're talking fiddle leaf plants everywhere, banana leaves, just reaching over into all the booths. It was in one of the fancies malls in the town. It was beautiful. The cafe was often used as like a meeting spot for Jakarta's wealthiest families and the decoration really reflected that. So you have these like dark forest, the hunter green leather booths that are surrounded by all of this live plants everywhere, just so much greenery. It feels like a paradise. They had these golden bar

stools at this marble bar in the whole cafe. It was beautiful. The elite would gather there. And Devin knew that discretion was a big part of her job. And I'm sure just brushing past these patrons on a daily basis, making sure everyone's well fed, everyone's being assisted. I'm sure she heard a few things or two. Like come on, perhaps she overheard the businessman trying to convince his mistress, I swear I'm gonna leave my wife this month. It's gonna happen this month, I swear definitely. Maybe she walked by a group of middle-aged women over there, deep in conversation, one of them is planning to leave her husband for her trainer, you know. Listen, I'm not sure what she overheard on this particular

day. January 6, 2016. I'm sure she would forget most of it by the end of the day. All of it would pale in comparison to what was about to happen. In one of the booths, there were three women sitting. Jessica, honey, and Mourna. They'd all graduated from the same college, and now they're reconnecting again. There was so much to catch up on. One of them was recently married, she's planning her honeymoon. Another one is focused on her career, and another one is living in Australia, but visiting Indonesia for the holidays, and she's single again. Okay, it should have been an exciting time for them to catch up, and the boost should have been filled with all these like loud giggles and screams and,

oh my gosh, right? But one of the girls wasn't feeling well. Merna was always the center of the conversation, not because she wanted to be, but because she was like the glue in the friend group. She was the one that kept the conversation very lively. She was not quiet. She had her hand on her head. Almost as if she was like suffering from a sudden migraine and the other two girls they kept glancing at her, they were concerned, but they don't want to call it out and keep asking her, you know what's wrong, what's wrong?

And in the matter of seconds, Mona leaned her head against the booth and she started covering one of her ears. As if she has this crazy migraine and any little noise could trigger it, white foam starts bubbling out of her mouth and she starts convulsing. Screams for help start coming out of this booth. You know, someone help, please help, call 112, please you have to hurry, please help. Devi the manager, she runs to the booth,

she's assessing the situation, taking it all in. And she, like everybody else in that cafe, all the staff, all the other random civilians, they, their most solid guess was that Merna had some sort of pre-existing health condition. She's young, she's fit, she must have perhaps epilepsy, some sort of condition that would make her have seizures. One of the friends at the table was now in emotional wreck. She's screaming at everyone, you have to call 112, get help right now, make her have seizures. One of the friends at the table was now an emotional wreck. She's screaming at everyone, you have to call 112, get help right now,

we need to get to the hospital, ASAP. Devi's eyes floated to the third girl. She's standing back, stiff, unmoving. I mean, her friend is literally convulsing and she's just standing there, emotionless. And she just stared as Devi and the employees along with the emotional friend are trying to tend to Merna. Her eyes are kind of darting back and forth,

like she's looking from person to person. And the scene is unfolding. She's got her hands in front of her clasped like this. And ever so slightly, Devi saw her scratch at them. Scratch at her hand? Yeah. Okay. And then she makes eye contact with the manager and she says, what did you put in the coffee?

What? It was exactly. That's the reaction Devi had. What? It's so random. It's such a bizarre reaction. It's so unsettling. She was, the manager was insulted.

I mean, she like most people, like I said, thought that Merna had some sort of pre-existing health condition, like epilepsy. But now she's being accused of poisoning the coffee or that there's some sort of tainted chemical in the coffee. Devy glanced at the cup of coffee on the table, and it did have a strange hue to it. She ordered one of the staff to preserve it in the back.

She just had this gut feeling that there was something wrong and she wanted to prove that she was innocent that this cafe did nothing. Yeah. Just everything about this situation, the way she saw this so-called friend sitting there scratching at her hands in her lap, emotionless, it would send chills down her back later. As soon as Murna arrived at the hospital, they checked her vitals and she was dead. They tried CPR but nothing worked and at 6.30 pm that day she was pronounced dead. About an hour after she met up with her old college friends for a quick catch-up session, her pupils were dilated, she wasn't responding to any light, she wasn't breathing, and no matter

what the doctors did, they just could not get her heart pumping again. She was gone, and her loved ones, they were left with, I mean obviously all this grieve and trauma, but also this overwhelming mystery was left with all of Indonesia, and the mystery is what the hell happened to Merna. As always, full show notes are available at rottonminglepodcast.com. This case took place in Indonesia in 2016. We had our wonderful Indonesian researcher help assist in the research of this. They informed me though that there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Or, okay, I wouldn't say misinformation, but a lot of untrustworthy sources that have been floating around. So we did our best to be pretty mindful in avoiding them, but if you're doing your own research, just be careful. This was also a case that was pretty viral at the time. And of course with that, there's often rumors and fake accounts that are created to just stir the pot. So with that being said, let's get started.

The Billy Blue College of Design in Australia, it kind of had these little pockets of communities within its school, right? So all the South Korean exchange students, they would find each other and they would be friends. And I think it's the feeling of, okay, well, no one's really gonna understand my innate struggles unless they're in the same circumstances as me. So then the Indonesian exchange students, they did the same thing. It was almost like each of these students were like their own little magnets, and they would be around campus until slowly, each day of the semester would pass, they would get closer and closer and closer together. And at the center of all of this was Merna. She was the ultimate magnet for the Indonesian exchange students. People just really wanted to be near her.

I think Marna knew herself really well and she was very confident in her own skin and that's not to say that she's a perfect person, nobody is, but I think people like people who know themselves, like just someone who's not trying too hard to please others. That's who Marna was. She almost had this innate confidence from within that comes off really, really attractive and charismatic people, including a girl named Jessica Wangzul.

She's a fellow Indonesian exchange student, and Merna was Jessica's best friend during college days. Okay, the two have so much in common, they're both from Indonesia. They had very similar childhoods in Indonesia where they were upper class, you know, kids. They went to all the fancy schools in Indonesia. Now they're studying abroad without their families. They're going through like the same emotions, the same emotions as well. But the main difference between the two girls, I would say, personalities, just so vastly different. Like I said, Merna is incredibly sociable. Jessica, on the other hand, not so much. So she was much more reserved and shy.

Merna would constantly encourage her, like, go talk to people, make friends, like what, we're all the way, you only have one life, we're all the way here in Australia, like just have fun. But Jessica would think to herself, yeah, okay, well, so easy for you to say because you're freaking perfect. It's interesting, okay? Jessica was the type of person that she did not let people in very easily, but when she did, she would put in so much effort into maintaining a friendship with them. She's the type of friend that would absolutely never forget your birthday. So do in part to Jessica's persistence. Jessica and Merna, they stayed really close during

just the entirety of college. They did welcome two more girls into their friend groups. It was like the four girls, right? But Jessica always felt like, you know what? Hany and Vera, they're here because they're fun, but it's me and Merna. Like, we're the center of this group. We're the two best buds. But all of that would change once they graduate college. I'm sure like the weeks leading up to college graduation, they're like, no, we're going to be friends forever. We're going to like buy houses on the same block and raise our kids together. But everyone has their own life plan.

And so naturally, after they graduate, their paths are kind of growing apart, or some of them are colliding, right? And the dynamics are shifting. So they graduate, their paths are kind of growing apart or some of them are colliding, right? And the dynamics are shifting. So, Merna was engaged to Arif and she had plans to move back to Indonesia with him. She wanted to start her own career, start her own family with Arif and Hany, one of the four girls, she was going back to Indonesia after her studies as well. So naturally, Merna and Hany are going to go closer together.

That makes sense, right? And as for Jessica, Jessica Wongzu, she wants to stay in Australia. She had found work and she had her boyfriend Patrick that she had been dating for a while, so it just kind of made sense. Now, right after graduation, they were like, yeah, we're gonna do girls night

every Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, but then everyone started getting their own jobs. Everyone started making plans to move back. Like it was, it was a lot. They started seeing each other less and less, and they're already drifting apart before Mourna and Hane even moved to Indonesia. And add to that, like most friend groups, I think drama was inevitable. Okay, there was a public falling out between two of the girls.

Jessica Wangzou had walked into a restaurant in Sydney, Australia. She's carrying this little gift box, perfectly wrapped, beautifully wrapped. And this was somewhat of like an upscale restaurant. She dressed all cute, she was very excited for this dinner reservation. She told the waiter the name of her friend, Merna, who made the reservation, and she's being led to the table where her friend is waiting for her. Now, Jessica obviously expected Merna, that's who the president was for, but she was not expecting to see Murna's fiance, Arif.

Also there you're saying, okay. So she's kind of like, oh, I was hoping this would be like a girl's dinner. I mean, it was just supposed to be us to finally catching up, but that's weird. Jessica asked to take Murna out for dinner to celebrate Merna's birthday, and she just wasn't expecting an extra guest, but you know what, whatever. So Jessica sits down in the chair, crossed from Merna and Arif,

and she tries to make the best of it. She puts the gift box on the table. Merna opens it up, it's this beautiful dress, and she's like, oh my God, it's lovely, thank you. And Jessica's like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about it, I was just thinking Thank you. And just because like, no, no, no, no, don't worry about it. I was just thinking about you. So then she puts the box aside.

And my nose like, OK, well, how has life been? Like, I feel like it's been forever. So Jessica had known Arif for a couple of years, but she wasn't, she wasn't really close to him. He's not someone that she would necessarily call a friend. To her, Arif was just a friend's fiance. That's it. Just along for the ride. Jessica acknowledged his presence and then started spilling the tea to Mourna. And Mourna was like, you're still with Patrick, right? Like,

how's that going? This was kind of a sore spot for Jessica. Yeah. Mourna and Areaf were the perfect couple. Everyone thought so. They met early on in college. They've been strong ever since. And Jessica could not help but compare herself and Patrick to their relationship. It just didn't feel nice. Patrick was this very toxic person. It's like he knew that all Jessica had left in Australia was him.

It's like he knew that all of her college friends were moving back to Indonesia. So she confided in Mourna in the past about how, you know, sometimes Patrick would take advantage of the fact that Jessica relied on him for emotional support. She said, I just don't really feel respected in the relationship. Sometimes the fights would get so bad. She said that she would lock herself in the bathroom and stare at the razor blade on the sink.

She said that she had to gather all of the mental strength to just keep herself from picking it up. But sometimes she wasn't that strong and she still has all the scars to remember. I mean, of course, of course any friend listening to this is going to be beyond concerned and Merna asked again, and Jessica responded alarmingly. She said, yeah, it's actually gotten worse with Patrick. Merna is looking at her with a look that is becoming very, very familiar to Jessica, which is very compassionate, very concerned, very worried, but also there was a little bit of pity. And she says, Jessica, I think you'd be so much happier without him. She doesn't respond.

Marner continues. It's just, I know it's not any of my business, but just seeing you unhappy and like, you already told me about all of it's bad habits and it's bad financial choices. And like you said, sometimes your scaredy's gonna get violent. I just, I feel like you should leave him, you know? She didn't know what to say.

So Jessica said nothing. She didn't even move. Maybe a part of it was that she felt like Marna was gonna say that maybe a part of it was that she knew that Marna was right. I don't know, but a part of Jessica started getting angry. Doesn't this girl know that Patrick is all I have left? Everyone's leaving back to Indonesia.

Literally, what do you mean beat him? That's all I have. I'm not like perfect Merna, who can just make friends and date anyone that I want. It's not like I have the perfect boyfriend, like, I really who's just gonna take care of me and respect me, just getting angry. And angry, and it just feels like Merna never has

to struggle for anything, and Merna doesn't even understand. And suddenly Jessica's anger just boils over and she gets up and she leaves. She walks out on the dinner. She doesn't make an excuse. She doesn't say, oh my gosh, this is so random guys, but I have to go projectile vomit. She doesn't say, oh, I just got a text message of an emergency. She just gets up and leaves.

Wow. Yeah. That's kind of wild. Yeah. Merna tries texting and calling her, but she doesn't even have the energy to respond. Maybe a part of her is even a bit embarrassed of how she handled this uncomfortable dinner, right?

She never responded. Instead, Jessica watched on Facebook as Merna moves back to Indonesia, starts her wedding prep. She watches Murna reunite with her family, buy an apartment with a reef, show off her engagement ring, try on wedding dresses. Jessica thought, okay, I think I'm going to get invited to the wedding. Like, I know that we had this whole falling out. It was bad, it was awkward, but I was like her best friend for what? Four years. Maybe the wedding is going to bring us together. The days went by and Jessica would keep checking her mailbox, right?

And that letter never came. She found out that Merna had gotten married from the wedding photos on Facebook. It was, of course, a fairy tale wedding. Merna and Arith vowed to each other a lifetime of happiness. November of 2015 in Bali in Donesia. It was the destination wedding. Merna and Arith vowed to each other a lifetime of happiness. November of 2015 in Bali, Indonesia. It was the destination wedding. It was lavish, but it was still fun and relatable. I mean, you had the sunset, you had the beach,

the outdoor tent with sheer curtains and the chandeliers hanging from above. It was beautiful. Jessica scrolled through the photos and she's like, why was I not invited? The other two girls Vera and Hane, they were invited. And she's feeling like it's not like I asked her to be her bridesmaid, her maid of honor. What?

And she turned off her phone. To Jessica maybe it felt like a very painful contrast to her own life. Three days later, she was fired from her job. A little while after that, like a few weeks after that, her relationship with Patrick ended. It was a very, very messy breakup. Like, I'm talking police got involved type of messy. Worse.

She had no one to see, nowhere to go. She was truly and completely alone. And she was hospitalized twice for attempts on her own life during the months of October and November. She was going through like alone, and she was hospitalized twice for attempts on her own life during the month of October and November. She's going through the worst period of her life and she felt like she has nobody to turn to, so she takes this deep breath,

she's looking around her room, probably thinking about her life, and she reaches out to Mourna. She doesn't tell her everything that's happened, she just says, hey, I'm gonna go back to Indonesia to hang out with family and I think I'll be nice to just be at a familiar place, like be back home for once, but do you want to grab some coffee? And when Jessica reached out, it was arranged that both Merna and Hany were going to meet with her for a coffee date. Very exciting and since Jessica is

the one inviting them, she's doing all the planning. She chooses the spot. She's like, okay, all the via cafe in Jakarta is most expensive mall. Very upscale. She even offered to pay for the drinks in the group chat. She was like, oh, the drinks are on me. And of course everyone's like, no, don't worry about it. But Jessica is insisting. She stated that she and Marna had left off on such a bad note that she wanted to make

up for it. So then I was settled. The coffee date was set for all of your cafe at 5pm. Jessica would walk through the doors of the cafe at 3.30pm. A full 90 minutes early. And this part is so interesting to me. I imagine if I arrived anywhere 90 minutes early, I would either walk around the mall since this is inside of a mall, right? Even if you're not shopping, just do some eye shopping, or I would grab my phone or my Kindle and plop in the cafe and wait while I just busy myself. Mm-hmm.

But Jessica did something very bizarre. She orders three drinks. She orders two cocktails, one for her, one for honey, because she had asked for their orders, right? And then she gets a Vietnamese iced coffee for Mourna. But she arrives so early in fact that if she got the drinks now and sat down, all the ice would have been melted by the times the others have arrived. Yeah.

So she tells the waiter, hey, I'm gonna be right back, but I'm gonna pay for the drinks, but you're gonna make them when I get back. It's really weird. Well, what do you mean be right back? Like she's leaving the cafe? Yeah, she's gonna go hang out in the mall, but she's ordering the drinks. 90 minutes early. Yeah. Okay.

So she's basically going in there and being like, Hey guys, I'm not gonna sit down right now, but these are the drinks that I'm gonna want in like an hour. And everyone's like, okay, it's really weird. Like why don't you come back in an hour and order it? Why are you just letting us know? Maybe she wants to pay for it ahead of time. Yeah, so she does pay for it.

And some people think it's like the Asian way because at the end you fight for the bill and then chances are you might not get it. So maybe she wanted to pay for it early, but it is very odd behavior. Do you even stop by? Like I imagine if I got to the mall at 3.30, I would walk around and then chances are you might not get it. So maybe she wanted to pay for it early, but it is very odd behavior. Do you even stop by? Like I imagine if I got to the mall at 3.30, I would walk around and then I would get there maybe like 15 minutes early and then pay for the drinks. But to go at 3.30, a full 90 minutes early,

I'd be like, I'll be right back. It's kind of weird, right? So she leaves the cafe and we don't know all the stores that she goes into, but we do know that she goes into a bath and body works. She buys three bottles of soap. Listen, I used to be obsessed with bath and body works back in the day. Even if you get the biggest size of soap, it's not as big as their bags. Their bags are designed to fit multiple candles and multiple bottles of soap. It's designed to fit a lot of stuff. Jessica asks for three separate bags

and these are not like the mini bags they have. These are like their regular full-size bags, and one bag for each soap. Maybe I thought, okay, we don't know, because it never happened, but maybe her plan, her intention was to give each of them a soap. So she gets a soap, and Merna gets a soap, and Honey gets a soap, right?

But anyway, she buys the soaps, walks two minutes back to all of your cafe and then she does like a like a walk around around the cafe She's not following a waiter or anything This is presumed. I mean you can think of it in two ways Some people think of it as well. Maybe she's just scoping it out to see the most intimate part of the restaurant because it's the first time meeting with friends in a while, maybe they want to talk about some crazy things or spill some juicy tea, maybe she's got some crazy gossip about Patrick, right? Other half of people are thinking, oh, she's scoping out where the CCTV cameras are. Hmm.

Yeah. So after- Well, she could be finding like a good spot. Yeah, but it is? Maybe whatever. Yeah, but you know, be finding like a good spot. Yeah, but it is whatever. Yeah, but You know sometimes I'm trying to imagine when I walk into a restaurant I do look for good seats if it's relatively empty, but I can usually visually see everything and I'm like, oh, okay Like that one. Mm-hmm. Like over there looks quieter and not near the little entryway So does she pick a good seat?

Yeah, she picks a booth and it's a good seat because there were about two CCTV cameras pointed at that booth. One of them was covered by an overgrown fiddle leaf plant. So she wants a BNC TV or she wants the tree to cover? Okay, tree to cover. I see. wants to be in CCTV or she wants the treat to cover. Okay. Treat to cover. Yeah. So the booths were connected. Okay, if you really want to visualize it, it's a green leather booth that's like a half

circle. Okay. And then there's like this round black table so that you can put your drinks in your food on, right? And then the other side is like relatively empty. No one's going to sit there. And it's not like this booth was in a secluded dark corner away from everything else. Like nothing in this cafe was like that. This is in the middle of the cafe.

There's another booth exactly right next to it. And it's assumed that, again, Jessica chose this booth because the closest CCTV camera was covered by an overgrown plant. However, there's another camera on the other wall that has a clear view of the table. So Jessica sits down inside the booth. She puts the bath and body works bags on the table. The restaurant had customers, it wasn't super busy, but it wasn't like during prime time. So there was a little bit of lull in business. There were a lot of, there were more empty seats than there were taken seats, okay? There's the soft study home conversation.

50 minutes after she first entered Oliver Cafe, the waiter serves her the two cocktails and the Vietnamese coffee, seven out like 4.20 p.m. They're me that five. Still 40 minutes, I mean, the ice is gonna melt for sure. The waiter makes the Vietnamese coffee at the table. He's busy pouring the hot water through the espresso.

Jessica is also busy. She's shifting the bath and body, works bags, just ever so slightly, like inch by inch. She would kind of nudge it a little, and then nudge it a little more, and then nudge it a little more very, very slowly. Wait, is there CCTV footage of all of this? Yeah.

Oh my goodness. And then eventually, the iced coffee was completely covered on all CCTV cameras by the big bath and body works bags. Yeah. The waiter had finished making it and he leaves. Murna and Hane aren't due to a rifer like at least another 30 minutes. CCTV cameras have a clear view of the cocktails but not of the coffee because of the bath and body works bags. At 4.30 Jessica opens up her purse with both of her hands. She reaches in, turns her head to the left, then to the right, and then pulls out her hand. She puts something on the table, but CCTV is not able

to see what she put there because the footage is so grainy. And when she placed it on the table, she put it behind the bathroom body works bags so we don't know what's there. The camera catches her moving her arms behind the bags, but again, we don't know what she's doing. Meanwhile, Arif is dropping off his wife, Marner, at the cafe. He dropped her off and he promised to pick her up when she was done. He drove her to the front of the mall where she was going to meet with Jessica and Hane, and he pulled the car to a stop and she's like, unbuckling her seatbelt.

He's like, okay, well, I'm going to pick you up in a couple of hours and then maybe we can grab dinner. She's like, yay, I'll text you when we're almost ready. Marner glances out the window towards the mall and she sees Hane. So she's like, oh, my god, that's Hane. Like, gotta go love you. Bye. And she runs out the door. So Arif is kind of smiling at this point. You know, I feel like for him, even just dropping Merna off for a coffee date, like that was an honor for him. He had met Merna back in college and originally he was just one of,

one of Merna's many, many friends. He felt like he was like this moth to a flame, and she was like the only light bulb in the dark night. And she must have felt similarly to him because their friendship would evolve into a full-blown relationship. They stayed together all throughout college, and when Merna graduated, the two of them decided to take the next step.

They were gonna move in together, move back to Indonesia, be with their families, and start a family of their own. Mernick got a job at her father's company, and okay, when I say father's company, it sounds like she's like an epobaby. Her family is very wealthy, right? But she works really, really, really, really hard

to make her father proud. She was the owner of one of the branches of her family's business, and she managed a bunch of other, other like factories from other branches. So her dad owned like a plastic container business. They exported products all over Asia and is booming. So yeah, she did get the position because of her dad,

but all the employees, they could attest that she was incredibly hardworking. Her work ethic was something that even Arif admired about his wife, but is absolute favorite thing about Marna? Probably her humility or her dimpled smile. So with Marna's upbringing, a lot of people are actually very surprised that she's so very humble. I mean, I think she just had it in her, I suppose. So Marna has a twin named Sandy.

And they were both so spoiled by their dad. He was this scary astute businessman, but his weakness were his girls. He had three girls, Merna, Sandy, and a younger daughter. And the twins, Merna and Sandy, they were identical twins. So he would take pleasure in dressing them identically. And it was like a cute little stick they had when they were younger. It was like double the cuteness, probably most likely double the trouble, right?

But as they grew up, they, he's really just embracing that both of them have completed other opposite personalities. So they would go to the same schools. And just to give you perspective on how wealthy they were, even before they studied abroad in Australia, they went to some of the best institutions in Jakarta. They went to Jubilee School, which is an international private school that is associated with the Cambridge International School.

It's considered one of the most expensive international schools in all of Indonesia. And so after that, they're sent abroad to study, which is very, very costly. And even though the twins, they were like each other's best friend, they lived completely separate lives. They had completely different hobbies. They had completely different interests and completely different friend groups, and I

think that's so much cooler. The fact that they didn't even like the same things, but they were basically stillmates if that makes sense. They just found peace with each other, and they were both very well behaved, it said. People said, Merna and Sandy were always the type of students that were incredibly helpful. I think they were very proud of their father and did not want to make him look bad.

Yeah, they were very humble, both of them. But I digress. So after dropping her off, Arif goes back home to resume planning their long awaited honeymoon. So this is January 2016. They had plans to visit South Korea in April of 2016, which is arguably the nicest time to visit. The weather is beautiful.

And it was gonna be if they were lucky. Their last trip without kids. Yeah. Cause Murn's twin Sandy, she had kids of her own, and the two twins dreamed of, you know, how soon Mernah was going to have her own family, and their little kids would run around with each other, and hopefully they would be as close to each other as the two sisters were, right? So I read, would plan his honeymoon when he got home. By the evening that same day, he would be planning a funeral. Merna and Hania arrive at the cafe at 5.15 pm. They meet out at the front and walk in

together. They tell the waiter the name of the reservation Jessica and he leads them over to Jessica's booth. The drinks have been at the table for 55 minutes at this point. The ice in the coffee has completely melted, but I digress. Both Mourna and Honey, they slide into the booth. So Mourna is in the middle of the two girls. So Jessica's on one edge and then Honey's on the other. And then Jessica is seen motioning to the drinks. Like this is for you, you know. Mary, you said you wanted the Vietnamese iced coffee, you said you wanted the cocktail.

So it's crazy. Yeah. Maryna drinks a sip or two of it. An out loud Maryna says, oh my god, this tastes awful. Here, try it. She pushes the coffee towards honey. Honey, picks up the glass, smells it. She's wrinkling her nose.

She takes the tiniest little sip. And at this point, Merna is kind of like fanning her hand in front of her mouth like, oh, like it's almost like a burning motion. Like it's hot. It's hot type of motion. Honey agrees. Oh, that's that's weird. She passes it on for Jessica to try. But Jessica's like, oh, nothing. I don't really want that. If you guys are both saying it's nasty, why would I take a sip, right? Within seconds Merna's head is rolled down to the back of the booth her eyes roll into the back of her head and she begins to convulse Wow, that was instant. Yeah

Hanisee's Jessica shake her head at the table and Hanisee is caught by sudden movement and it's Mourna. So Jessica's shaking her head like I don't want to sip. And then in her peripheral vision, Hanne sees Mourna convulsing. So she jumps up immediately and Hanne is screaming, Help! Help someone help! Call one one two! Jessica is sitting frozen in the booth next to Mourna and the restaurant is silent. All eyes are on Hanne. She's like, please, please send Mour someone help, I don't know what's happening.

The cafe manager, Devy, comes rushing out and she sees Merna convulsing in the foam coming out of her mouth and she turns to the waiter that is standing behind her and she's like, go get the police. She rushes over to Merna and she's holding her head to keep it from banging on the table because she's losing consciousness.

Honey quickly catches on, rushes over as well, and is protecting, like, Murnus flailing limbs from the hard edge of the table because she's convulsing. Jessica is, she's emotionless. Her eyes are just kind of darting back and forth, watching the chaos happen, and her hands are in her lap. But they're clasped together, and she's kind of like slightly itching her palms.

Kind of like itching. And Hony says to the manager, to no one in particular, really, she just sat down and took a few sips and then the seizure started. This has never happened before. Devi looks at the glass of coffee that's still on the table and it's mostly full. She calls another waiter over and she's like, huh, this is interesting. Now this is when Jessica is like, what did you put in the coffee? Wow.

And Debbie is insulted. So Debbie is like, okay, waiter, bring me water and take the coffee back to the kitchen. Don't let anybody touch it. Jessing come must be freaking out at that point. Yeah. I mean, Debbie was really not happy with the suggestion that her coffee had caused this to happen. They had followed all the procedures

and all the protocols when making their food. I mean, there was just no way. Still, she did notice that it had a strange yellowish tint when the waiter took it out. A lot of people said it looked like turmeric coffee, like a golden latte, you know? Mm-hmm. So she chalked it up to maybe the cafe lighting as weird, like it's kind

of like that warm cafe lighting. Maybe in the back, you can see it better because it's the kitchen lights. So Devin calls the waiter over, hey, is the coffee in the back? Yeah, put it in a clean glass jar and put a lid on it and keep the coffee glass. So that waiter comes running to tell Devin that the ambulance was close. The mall's medical staff arrived with the wheelchair and they're carrying Murna. They're wheeling Murna to the front of the mall so the ambulance can get to her quicker. As Murna was being wheeled away, honey had glanced and there was this middle-aged woman standing in the middle of the dining room and she had her eyes squeezed tightly and her hands were pressed

together. She was praying as hard as she could for Murna. The other patrons had joined her, and some of them even had their hands clasp in front of them, others reached out and touched the shoulders of those who were praying, and the whole restaurant seemed to be pleading to the highest power that they knew of, that Murna would get home safe tonight. Except Jessica. Mernah was wheeled out of the restaurant, and Hany was running after the team with her phone in her hand.

She's calling Airee, telling him to meet her at the hospital ASAP. Meanwhile, back at the cafe, a waiter is holding Mernah's glass of Vietnamese coffee back in the kitchen, and he's studying it. And he tells another waiter, hey, come here. One of the co-workers comes over.

Is that from Table 54? Yeah, it's the coffee, like a turmeric coffee? The co-worker looked at it. Usually Vietnamese coffee is like a dark dark brown. So besides sweetened condensed milk, the only other thing in there is ice and espresso. The ice was melted, but it doesn't really, it just dilutes the colors and it would make it a different color. This coffee was not dark brown, it was not light brown, it was more like a dark orange,

like a very deep yellow. In the shadow, it might look acceptable, but now that they were looking at it in the bright, fluorescent lights of the kitchen, they could see it as plain as day, it was just such a bizarre shade. The first waiter sniffs the coffee. It kind of smells weird. The recent lights of the kitchen, they could see it as plain as day, it was just such a bizarre shade. The first waiter sniffs the coffee. It kind of smells weird. He pushes it in the second waiter's face.

The second waiter taps his finger against the top of the coffee surface so that a tiny little drop of coffee was on his finger. Then he brings it to his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and tasted it. He said instantly his tongue felt a little bit tingly and the coffee tasted really better. So the first waiter pours the coffee from the glass into a clean jar and throws Merner's use straw away and keeps the coffee cup. Devi comes back into the kitchen with them and Merner had already been rushed out of the cafe so there's not much that she could do.

She's looking at the coffee and she sniffs it. She takes the tiniest, tiniest little sip like weight on number two. And after a second, she said her mouth was tingling, it was burning, she put the coffee down, she instructed her staff to label the jar undrinkable and store it in a safe place. Just in case. Now, I just want to mention, at this point, Devi was still under the belief that Merna had some sort of pre-existing medical condition. I think everyone did. OK, so nobody draw the connection that coffee killed her.

Yeah, I think it was more of like, why did that girl accuse us of doing something in her coffee? We would never do something to her coffee. And we serve this coffee every single day. We serve it table side. It's like an experience. So it does look weird.

Like maybe the milk went bad. I think that was the mindset. It wasn't like, oh, do you think someone put poison in the coffee? Let's try it. It was more like, oh, that's so weird, right? So they kept the coffee. And all of these feelings of maybe

she had a pre-existing health condition, they would all change very soon. But her gut feeling of keeping this coffee would provide the police with some of the best evidence in this whole case. And this whole case would soon escalate into one of the most explosive murder trials that was ever televised for the whole nation of Indonesia to spectate. Ary found out when Hani called him in a panic and he said at first it didn't even register. Like he knew it was Hani calling him. He knew it was Hani when he picked up but he was like no she's got the wrong number. It just didn't click. Saw her a few hours ago he's making dinner no, she's got the wrong number. It just didn't click.

Saw her a few hours ago. He was making dinner plans for when she got home. He was planning their honeymoon. I don't think the grief would hit him until he came back home. And that feeling of, wow, OK, her shoes are in the closet. Her keys are on the counter. Her dishes are in the sink. But I'm never going to see her again. And

we just started our lives together. When Merno is brought to the hospital at first glance, it looked like she had suffered from a seizure. That was the doctor's first idea, but the main cause of death from a seizure is suffocation, and without an autopsy, they wouldn't know for sure. She and her family were very religious. The overwhelming religious majority in Indonesia is Islam but I don't know for sure what their religion was. Typically though, according to many religions, autopsy's are found upon. Autopsies, they're actually incredibly invasive. You just like break the chest plate oftentimes. It's a lot.

And breaking the bone of a dead person is considered the same weight of a sin as breaking the bone of a living person in a lot of religions. So either way, you're harming a person and that's a sin. So typically autopsies don't happen unless they're absolutely necessary. In this case, it was necessary.

So Mernus family, they wanted the autopsy to be as minimally invasive as possible. They consented to a partial autopsy. Side note, while the medical examiners were conducting an autopsy, the police received the coffee from the cafe and they were running their own test. And do you know how much cyanide it takes to kill someone?

Listen, I am out here just putting myself on every single FBI watch list so that you don't have to. But apparently it takes about two milligrams of cyanide per kilogram of body weight for it to be a lethal dose of cyanide. Okay, one more time. Two milligrams of cyanide per kilogram of body weight. So you would need more cyanide than I would. Taken as supplement and then opening the contents. Yes, yes, yes. It's very small amount.

You're not talking like a break of cocaine. So is that what you're trying to share? Like a small small amount? Well, it's a small small amount, but also I'm trying to share how much is in this coffee, okay? So this is not an exact science. I mean, some people probably have, I'm sure health conditions, personal fitness,

all of that plays into a role and I don't think it's like, oh, prefer sure are two milligrams per weight and you're gone. So there is some fluctuation and I'm not giving you step-by-step on how to use cyanide, but according to the CDC, it takes around 150 milligrams to kill a full-grown average weight adult male in the US. Now if we're going at two milligrams per kilogram, 150 milligrams is enough to kill someone that weighs 165 pounds. Merna's Vietnamese coffee contained a whole whopping 300 milligrams of cyanide. It's a lot. That's almost the double amount needed to kill an adult male. But you say she

only take one sip. Now here's the thing. I think everyone sips were different. So you know when you like run into a cafe, you're probably like in the heat, and you sit down and you're like, oh, that looks so good. You take a big healthy gulp. Now, when she says, tasted, it's disgusting. Everyone's going to take a tiny sip. Yeah. And then the waiters, it's not their coffee, they're taking a drop. So I do think that she took a maybe multiple sip. Wow. I don't think it was like, oh, this is interesting.

You know, like taking a little, because it's a coffee, she knows what it tastes like. I just can't imagine being like, let me take the tiniest sip. Yeah, wow. I feel like you take a few sip and then you're like, oh, wait, this is what's going on with this coffee Yeah, and I wonder the 300 milligram you said is the leftover. That's probably not including how much she already consumed

Yeah, so this is where it gets really really strange Let's talk about her first partial autopsy the doctors took samples of Mernos bile liver and urine 70 minutes after her death samples of Mernos, bile, liver, and urine 70 minutes after her death. Side note, bile is the liquid that the liver makes when it stores it in the gallbladder and it helps with digestion. Now these samples showed no abnormalities. I know, it's strange, but that's what the results said. So the coffee is testing for crazy lethal amounts of cyanide and Mernos body is fine? Like what's going on?

A wreath in the rest of Mernos family, they had no answers. It's very confusing. How did the partial autopsy not bring up any traces of cyanide? So at the risk of sounding stupid on the internet, I'm going to try and break down how this may have happened. I'm not saying this is what happened, but these are the speculations. When you eat or drink something, the food goes into your stomach and then your intestines. That's where the nutrients are absorbed. Then the blood carries the nutrients into the liver, which filters everything out to make sure that you're not digesting any toxins. Then all

the nutrients travel on their little merry way to whatever cells need them. It's crazy what your body does. It's kind of insane. Don't quote me on any of this, but it's a very complicated process other than just like, I eat it and now it's in my blood system, right? Now, cyanide works like a greedy little monster. Cyanide attaches to all of the oxygen it can find inside of your body. It leaves none for the rest of your cells. It makes you weak, dizzy, it gives you headaches, it can mess with your awareness and can render you unconscious. It can send you into a coma and it can even take your life. All of this can happen in the matter of seconds depending on the dosage. Wow.

So maybe it wasn't showing up because it had happened to soon to her body for it to be detected in her bile urine or liver, you know. Got it. So we never even made it that far. Yeah. So the family was forced to consent to another partial autopsy. The doctors took a sample of the contents of her stomach and then analyzed it. The test came back positive for cyanide. And while extracting the sample from Mernos stomach, the doctor also noted that all of Mernos

intestines appeared corroded, which could point to poison. They also noted that Mertus' mouth, which would have been the first point of entry for the cyanide, her mouth, her gums, her tongue, her cheek on the inside, all of it was black. It was pretty clear to the doctors that she had died of cyanide poisoning. She had been murdered. The case at this point had already reached the public eye because of the nature. You know, it happened in the mall during daylight in the middle of a cafe to a perfectly healthy young woman and an upper class establishment on top of that.

Because there was no official answers, the public they started making up their own theories. We're going to explore some of these theories, but just keep in mind these are theories and not real facts. So the first theory is pretty practical. Merna had a 5.7 million dollar life insurance policy. And even I was kind of like raising my eyebrow at that because Merna is young, she has no health problems, she just got married, right? But we have to remember, Merna was from a wealthy family. She was running one of the branches of her dad's business, she was quite literally the top

manager for a very lucrative company, but more importantly, she and our reef were about to start a family. It is not uncommon for those with a lot of money to think about getting life insurance around the time that they start family planning. Now, the public wasn't thinking about any of that. All they saw was a big hefty life insurance payout and they figured that one of the family members had something to do with her death. Sadly, they started pointing the finger at Mernos father. I'm not sure why it was her father. I mean, typically it's the husband

that gets accused, and oftentimes it's the one that does it, but maybe since they just got married, maybe everyone believed her father was still listed as the beneficiary of her life insurance. This specific information is not public, but it's the only reason I can think of that why the public would go after the dad. In the end, they dropped the theory

because nobody touched Marna's life insurance policy. Nobody claimed the money. The money stayed in with the agency for at least the first few months after Marna's death. And I'm sure part of the reason was because whoever was gonna to touch it, I mean the public was going to go after them. So eventually they lose interest. That was the practical theory. Then we have the fantastical theory and not fantastical as in fantastic, but fantastical

as in truly existing only in some sort of strange fantasy land. The business competition theory. All of your cafe was a popular destination. They had been open for about a year, and they were bound to have competitors. The idea was that what if one of their competitors spiked the ingredients of the Vietnamese coffee that only murder drank from that booth?

Remember, because the other two girls had cocktails? Or even, that specific cup was spiked. In the hopes that one of the customers would get sick and would make all of their cafe look bad and lose all of their business. The theory was crazy, but it was debunked because all of their cafe had served another 10 Vietnamese to ice coffees that day.

Before Merna came in, nobody else was sick. Also in this specific cafe, like I mentioned, the waiter makes the Vietnamese coffee at the table in front of you. It's part of the price. It's like the show. The waiter brings out the sweetened condensed milk, pours it in a glass, then brings out the coffee grinds, puts them through the filter, and lets the water seep through, and the whole process is done in front of not just your table, but really the whole cafe. It's not like a waiter from the competition came and slipped something into the drink as it's being carried out of the kitchen. Again, you could argue that something was slipped into the coffee grounds or the milk, but like I mentioned, 10 other coffees

had been served prior to Mernos coffee that day. It just didn't add up. So this theory dies down. Then another one pops up in its place. This one was brief, but it had the potential to ruin lives. People started pointing the finger at honey. Since as far of what the public knew so far, the cafe was in the clear. The coffee was in the clear. That meant that honey was with Merna before she entered the cafe. Maybe she poisoned her then.

Maybe she gave her a little candy before they walked in. But later when people found out that Haani looked genuinely so upset that she was the one contacting emergency services, organizing how Mernus family was getting to the hospital, making sure Mernus had didn't hit the counter, people kind of stopped pointing the finger at her. And they directed it at Jessica, but not for the reason you think. Let's go over the last theory. The love triangle theory. To simplify it, people believe Jessica killed Merna because she wanted Merna to be with her romantically. A legit screen

shots came out of a conversation between Merna and Jessica and in the messages they used phrases like, I love you and I'm really happy I want to kiss you. Now, our Indonesian researchers said that that was a major red flag. So apparently you don't really say I love you to your friends in Indonesia like that, in Indonesian culture, that's kind of a thing that's really only said between partners. The phrase, I'm really happy I want to kiss you doesn't exist, like in America where it's maybe like, oh my god, I'm going to kiss you. Okay, I feel like maybe in America, it's also kind of interesting. I do not know.

But it doesn't, especially in Indonesia, just doesn't really exist. It's very, the translation in Indonesia reads quite literally. Now, lots of people thought that Jessica and Marna must have been in some sort of secret, lesbian relationship or that Jessica must have had a crush on Marna, but since Marna was already taken or she was straight,

she killed out of jealousy. I will say one thing to consider is that these alleged screenshots could have been 100% faked. Now the second thing is, they're studying abroad in Australia, even though it might not seem that common in Indonesian culture, it could have been maybe they were getting accustomed to the Australian way.

Like the American way, you know, everyone's like, oh, I love you, I love you, nonstop, right? But then you go to Korea and no one's saying, like, I love you to their friends so casually. So maybe it's just a cultural difference that they got used to in their college days. But this last theory would actually catapult this case, not just in Indonesia, but everywhere internationally. For the rest of the world is very intriguing, I guess, you know. The whole idea that a best friend secretly loves the victim is so upset that she doesn't love her back so that she kills her in a cafe with a Vietnamese-dice coffee.

It was a whole thing. Now it was pretty damaging from Marina's family, even if people knew it was a rumor. In Indonesia, the majority religion is generally not accepting of LGBTQ relationships. That's not to say Indonesians hate anyone, that's not straight not at all, but the general majority culture looks on these issues unfavorably, so it was just a whole thing. So when the investigation opens, the police were looking at Mernos' husband, father, sisters, and the people who had seen her last.

Close family, last name contacts, that's the way they start the investigation. But then they go to the cafe, they look at the CCTV, and they only have one suspect in mind now, Jessica Wong-Soo. The same day that they turned their attention on Jessica, the second partial autopsy is released, and the police, oh, they're all hands on deck. Four days have passed since the murder,

and it was abundantly clear that there was something incredibly wrong with Jessica. They bring in Mernos family for interviews and they're like, hey, do you know about her friend Jessica? Like, what do you have to say about her? And they speak to Mernos father first and his name is Eddie. He says, you know, I always thought of Jessica as my daughter's strange friend. What do you mean by that? Well, Jessica wasn't really that close with Mernos, but Jessica acted like they were closer than they were. Jessica acted like she knew Marna and the whole family really well and he said you know she did very strange things like she would hug

my wife very very tightly when they first met. She would go into our primary bedroom when she visited the house. Look, I don't know. Okay. That, to me, is kind of crazy. Like, I think even going into my own parents' bedroom, I'm usually knocking or like, hey, I'm coming in, right? But then, like, to just go into your, as an adult, too. It's like, whoa, what is going on?

That's not normal. The police then spoke to Arif and Arif knew exactly who Jessica was. He told the police officers that Merno is actually a bit afraid of Jessica and wanted to distance herself from her. He talked about the last time he saw Jessica during that meeting, during that little dinner where Jessica up and left. And ever since then, you know, Murno was kind of a bit iffy about her friendship with Jessica.

And it's just also strange. To put it quite bluntly, the reason that Hania was there was because Merna probably didn't want to be alone with Jessica. She was very cautious of her. And that's why they didn't even invite her to the wedding. Very interesting. The police believe they have their killer. So at the end of the month, 23 days after Merna's death, the police officially announced to the public

that Jessica was their main suspect, and they arrest her the next day. Now, the first thing they asked of Jessica was for her to participate in a reconstruction of the crime. They wanted to take her back to the cafe and have her walk them through everything that she did where she sat, all, where she put the bags, all of that. The police do this in order to get an exact idea of what happened when it happened and how it happened. They were going to use this alongside the CCTV as evidence in court. Now, sources are not clear if she had a lawyer at this point, but I'd like to think that she didn't, because from my very basic true-crime knowledge, I feel like as a lawyer, I would maybe perhaps possibly not want my client demonstrating to the police how they put cyanide in a coffee cup.

That is my non-law school educated opinion. If there are lawyers that think otherwise, please let me know. Just go wholeheartedly agreed to do this reenactment. Not only did she show police officers what happened that day, which is kind of wild to me because later she pleads not guilty. So she confessed to it all. She just doesn't really confess. She just says like then she put her hands up like this

So it's like really weird, right? But the whole time she's acting like she's on some sort of TV show. She's smiling. She's posing off camera She tries chit chatting with the officers like they're on set filming some sort of TV show There's this one picture of her where she's leaning up against the bar and she's facing away from the bar so she's like leaned back against the bar and she's got her full prison uniform like this bright orange color, name tag and everything and she's smiling like someone who is you know just leisurely hanging out at the bar. It's like she is playing a prisoner on Grey's Anatomy. There's like 20 officers around her that just have the most serious

expression on their faces like this cannot be real right now. Like this I'm so confused. After arresting her, the Indonesian police actually asked the Australian police to release information they had on her during her stay. They're looking for things like speeding tickets, major purchases, just anything really. Now the Australian police agreed under one condition. If found guilty, Jessica would not be sentenced to death. So Indonesia still has the death penalty, but Australia doesn't, and they did not want their actions to potentially contribute to someone's death even if they're murder. And Indonesia is like, yeah, yeah, sounds good.

Now Jessica's Australian file is insane. Insane. August of 2015, Jessica gets into a car accident. Just a few months before Mourna's wedding. She was driving her car in Sydney, she was drunk, and she decided that she was gonna floor it straight into the brick wall of a nursing home. Which, listen, I'm not a big drinker,

and I've never driven under the influence. This part is kind of confusing to me. Either she was so intoxicated and potentially falling asleep at the wheel amongst other things, but I've just never heard of people driving into literal buildings like this. I've heard of people getting a DUI because they drove into a pole on the street. No one I personally know, but on the news, they drive into a pole or the street. Like no one I personally know, okay, but like on the news, you know, they drive into a pole or another car or pedestrian or like a building on the side of the street. But I would imagine like a nursing home

has a parking lot around it, right? So that would be some really, really hefty drunk driving. The brick wall was completely obliterated, so it seems like she was going pretty fast too. Thankfully, no residents were on that side of the property at the time. No one was hurt, except Jessica. She had a couple of cracked ribs and some chest pain, as well as a shiny new DUI charge. She was actually supposed to appear in court February of 2016, but she wouldn't be able

to make it because she was in jail in Indonesia for murder. Yeah. Not only that, but people, a lot of people, ratted Jessica out to the cops. So Jessica was facing like $15,000 in fines and legal fees for her drunk driving incident. She texted colleagues and friends where she was openly, proudly talking about fleeing the country. She literally texted a friend, hey, I could use the money to have like an epic holiday,

have new licenses anywhere, and my dad has power too, rather than giving the money to those police, those ignorant. In another one she texted, I'm being pushed again and again, and I will break. Side note, since we're on the topic of conversations on text, these are not the only texts that Jessica sent that were seen by Indonesian officers. Even before her arrest, after the murder, Jessica was texting friends talking about how she was so shaken up about what happened to Murna, about how upset she was. She even texted one friend back in Australia. Like, I came here because a particular someone was bothering me, but even here, like all these bad

things are happening to me. But it doesn't end there. Jessica had the audacity to text Mernazone twin sister Sandy an article about poisonous coffee, truly trying to divert any and all attention off of her as the murder suspect. Back to Jessica's police file. The DUI charges were not the only thing on there. Remember Patrick? Her ex-boyfriend that she always told Marna was, so toxic, so abusive, listen, I don't

want to say that he's innocent because I don't know what truly happened in their relationship, but if you look at just the police files, Jessica seems to be the toxic one. Jessica's ex-boyfriend Patrick said that his relationship with Jessica was quite possibly one of the worst, scariest experiences in his entire life. And it got worse after they broke up. He was ready to move on, he was done with her stuff, but each time, he would even try and break up with her, Jessica would threaten to self harm. When their relationship finally ended September of 2015, Jessica kept sending him texts and calling him she would threaten to hurt herself if he ignored her.

She threatened and even attempted to unalive herself multiple times and tried to convince kept sending him texts and calling him, she would threaten to hurt herself if he ignored her. She threatened and even attempted to unallive herself multiple times and tried to convince him that her death would be on his hands. There would be blood on his hands. It would be his fault. He filed a police report each time she did that. When Indonesia got Jessica's file, there were more than a dozen reports like that. She would text some things like,

I will unalive myself with carbon monoxide. It would freak him out to the point of calling the police to do a wellness check, but also sometimes talking toward, try and help interacting with her in some sort of way. Another time she basically texted him that she was over life, and the police were sent to do a wellness check, and she was found unconscious, near sleeping pills, antidepressants, and a knife. And then after they broke up, Patrick's car was suspiciously and mysteriously vandalized. He requested a restraining order against Jessica, and it was granted. Now just to clarify, she was struggling with her mental health, but that's a separate

thing from her criminal actions. I just want to put a disclaimer there to make it clear that while Jessica's criminal actions may have been influenced by her mental health, mental health struggles do not lead to criminal actions. There are so many people who struggle with her mental health that do not hurt people. Now, there were no attempts or reports that Jessica made against Patrick, at least in the police files. Now Indonesian prosecutors were also able to reach out to Jessica's former boss who had

filed a police report against Jessica for disturbing behavior in the workplace. Her name is Kristi Carter and she said that she fired Jessica days after Marna's wedding in November of 2015. So like two months prior to the murder, Kristi said that Jessica admitted to knowing how to kill people. The police clarified, what do you mean?

Well, she said that she knew how to hurt someone. What did she say exactly? Well, on one occasion, she attempted to unalive herself. She was hospitalized. And as a supportive boss, Kristi went to visit her show her more support, but Jessica was complaining to her I'm gonna go home. They're treating me like I killed someone if I wanted to kill someone I know exactly how to do it. I know the exact right dose Christie was so taken aback

She didn't know what to say, but she just knew that this is not someone that she feels safe to be around her her employees the business. So she let her go. And she made the right choice clearly because immediately afterwards Jessica texted her saying things like, you have to die. And so does your mom. Christie said she's manipulative, scheming, emotionally unstable. She sent me death threats.

I have no doubt that she's capable of hurting or killing another person. Another thing that would come out during the trial is that police asked Jessica to turn in her clothes from that day and she basically was like, I can't. What do you mean you can't? Just now I can't. Do you realize that we're not asking? This is like a police order. They're burnt.

I burned the clothes. Why would you burn the clothes? Well they were worn out and I don't wear clothes that are worn out so I burnt them. Why? Okay. On top of that, cyanide is proven to be a skin irritants. If you touch cyanide, you could have very, very itchy hands. Now once they gather up all this evidence, the prosecutors come up with their motive.

They believe Jessica killed Merna out of jealousy. If the motive for this murder is jealousy, that means Jessica constantly compared her life to Merna's. Every bad thing that happened to her was a good thing that happened to Merna. Jessica broke up with her boyfriend. Merna married the love of her life. Jessica lost her job. Merna became the branch manager for her family's business.

Jessica was sent to the hospital for another unalive attempt. Merna posted her engagement in wedding photos where she was wearing her signature dimpled smile and just looked so happy surrounded by people that loved her and Jessica wasn't invited. Now, I will say it's a motive for sure. Countless murders have been committed due to jealousy, right? But it is one that's hard to argue in court. Because jealousy is such a common emotion that everyone feels.

And most people will think to themselves, well, can you really kill someone because you're jealous? I would never kill someone because I'm jealous, right? But not only that, this is weird. The public felt like it would be one thing if Jessica was from a middle or lower class family and she was best friends with this upper-class girl Merna. Maybe it'd be too much of a contrast. Maybe it'd be that feeling of injustice. But the thing is, Jessica is always is also from the upper class. Her

dad owns a pretty big bicycle spare parts factory in Jakarta. Maybe her family is not as rich as Mernaos, but they're really well off. So most people in Indonesia are reading about this case, they would never even spend their money at all of their cafe. It was a $3 sign establishment. To put it in perspective, the majority of Indonesians have to live on less than $4 a day. The average drink at the cafe is about $4. For an American perspective, the average American lives off $160 a day.

That's including bills and rent, all calculated and split into one day, right? Imagine going to an establishment where you were spending $160 per person on a drink. Wow. Yeah. So it's shocking for civilians to be like, I don't really believe that a girl from this type of class can also feel jealous of someone from the same class basically. That doesn't make sense.

Right? That just, I don't know. And if she can, then we should have no sympathy for this type of girl. Jessica's problem specifically, just were not real problems when you look at it compared to everyone else in the country. So the trial begins. Jessica's psychological condition was evaluated and it was stated that she was a very smart woman, calm she actually fell under the amorous narcissist. These are considered the least violent of the narcissist, the least aggressive of the

narcissist groups. They have a touch and seeking behavior, but not in the way that you would think of most narcissists. They don't have this grand, dewy sense of self that you can feel immediately. They're actually incredibly insecure. They have a deep desire to gain affection for affection's sake. So most people want affection from their partner or their family to satisfy this human connection need that we have, right?

But these narcissists, they just want affection for affection's sake. They tend to live under this rule of, if I scratch your back, you better scratch mine. So they will typically shower you with attention. They do not mean it typically, but they will do this because they expect you to return the attention. I mean, it doesn't sound that bad compared to some of the other narcissists that we've talked about, right?

But the problem lies in the fact that they will keep wanting more and more. There's not really a satisfaction point, and it will never stop. And I'm not exactly sure what happens if you cut someone off like that. I'm sure a person, a person at varies, but it's very enlightening in terms of this case, right? So Jessica's trial resumes. There would be three judges that would decide Jessica's fate. If she would face the death penalty and I know what you're thinking, didn't Indonesia

agree not to kill her, right? That's another part of this case. Like, this case just kept going more and more viral because it just kept unfolding. There was so much drama. Australia was like, hello, Indonesia. You gave me agreements in writing that you would not pursue the death penalty for Jessica. Indonesia was like, I didn't writing that you would not pursue the death penalty for Jessica. Indonesia was like, I didn't do that. I never did that. And for some reason, Australia never wanted to show proof. And they didn't want to force Indonesia to comply. So it was like a he said, she said between the two countries.

And Indonesia was like, well, technically, that's our citizen. And it's a crime that took place in our country. So we can do whatever we want. So they're debating if they want to kill her. Yeah. Wow. So if Jessica is convicted, she could face the firing squad, which is how they carry out the death penalty in Indonesia. If you're on death row, you get woken up in the middle of the night,

take into a remote, grassy location, and you can choose either to sit or to stand. 12 guards face you with rifles pointed. Only three of the rifles have life bullets. It's to make the guards not know who's the one that delivered the fatal wound. So they all shoot, and if the prisoner survives, it's up to the commander to shoot until a doctor confirms no signs of life. Yeah, the stakes could not be higher, but if you look at some pictures of Jessica during the whole thing, I mean, some parts she does look serious, right?

If you watch the videos as well, but most of the time she looks kind of chill, like she's in there for a speeding ticket. No, matter of fact, she looks like she'sing someone who's in front of the court for a speeding ticket. She doesn't even look like she's on trial It's bizarre. It's so strange. I mean she pled not guilty her lawyers that are funded by her parents are literally grasping at straws Doing everything. I mean they even lied and they were like she has no Australian criminal past and everyone's like we literally have the files literally and criminal past, and everyone's like, we literally have the files, literally. When asked about, then what happened? How did she die?

She's like, I don't know. She took a sip of her coffee and it happened so fast. It was just non-stop. They kept trying to pin the blame on other people. At one point, they tried to pin the blame on Arif. They came up with this theory where her defense attorney said that one of the cafe waiters was paid 10,000 USD by a reef to kill Mourna and Spike the coffee

Yeah, the waiter was brought into court and was like, I've never seen that guy in my life. I'm never like, I don't know what you guys are talking about In the end it lasted 135 days. The verdict was 377 pages long. It took the judges four hours to read in full. Right the end of the day. You have to be ready for four hours straight. In the end, they said Jessica Longzou has been legally and convincingly proving guilty of committing premeditated murder. They spared her the death penalty and instead she got 20 years in prison, which

is so light. That's it. Yeah. Everyone was upset. It's not even an eye for an eye. It's okay. You know what? We can debate the death penalty and I think that everyone is valid to their own opinion about it. And I just as someone I will never give an opinion on it because she's young too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So she's like what 20s 20s. Yeah, 20s. Yeah, in 40s. Yeah, like 47.

Maybe maybe earlier. Yeah. What? Yeah, that's why people were so upset. Like, like I was saying, you know, I will never debate death penalties because I think when you have families of victims of these types of crimes, I will never be the one to look them in the face and be like, well, no, we shouldn't kill people, right? The thing is, it's not even an eye for an eye, it's not even life in prison.

That's the crazy thing. I don't know how it went from death penalty or 20 years in prison. Why was there no life in prison? But I do think a lot of countries don't strongly enforce life in prison like the state does. Yeah. Yeah. Because like even in a lot of cases, we talked about countries where it's life in prison, but on average they get out in like 20 years.

So she's going to get out in 20 years. And I just cannot imagine what it feels like for Mernos family, especially because she gave a statement. Jessica said, I did not kill Mernos and I never planned to do so. She said, losing her means the world for me and my family. So I will say there is a group of people that do think that Jessica is innocent. So I don't know, you know, they think that there is no evidence of her actually putting the cyanide in. There's arguments that putting cyanide into coffee will actually make it appear a darker color and not a tumor yellow color. There's arguments that putting cyanide into coffee will actually make it appear a darker color

and not a turmeric yellow color. There's arguments that her motive doesn't make sense. But I don't know, especially from what we know about justice systems, why would they pin it on another upper-class woman? Typically, that doesn't really happen. They have a cold case and they pin it on lower-class civilians. So that, do you know what I mean?

I don't know. Mernace family keep her in their memories, but they are trying to move on from the trial. They said the trial was pretty traumatic. They still post about Mernace and they keep her memories alive. Mernace father recently got married, and it made headlines,

but thankfully the public is giving him his space. A reef is having a really hard time. It might be because of the language barrier, but he still talks about Merna in present tense. He said, I think she is the most wonderful person I've met. She has an amazing outlook on life. He just tries to find comfort in the fact that Merna got to experience how it feels to be in love

and he feels honored that he was the man that she fell in love with. It brings him a little bit of peace. And that is it for today's story. What are your thoughts on this? I mean, I think that this case was going around for so long and I think in the beginning, when I first got into true crime, I covered it and I talked about it and I was so like confused about this case, but now I'm like, wow, there are so many layers to this that I wasn't able to dig into prior. What are your thoughts? Please stay safe and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye!

stay safe and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-suit. Bye!