http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhu_Ling_(poisoning_victim)
Zhu Ling (Chinese: 朱令; pinyin: Zhū Lìng, born
1973) photo is best known as
the victim of an unsolved 1995 thallium poisoning case in
Beijing, China. Her symptom was sent to
Internet via a Usenet newsgroup by her friend
from Peking
University, Bei Zhicheng and was subsequently
proven to be thallium poisoning. Her case was then reviewed by
physicians in many different countries who examined her symptoms
and made suggestions as to diagnoses and treatment. This effort was
recognized as the first large scale tele-medicine trial.[1]
Her life was ultimately saved, but she suffered serious
neurological damage and permanent physical impairment.
This case drew great attention of Chinese media, because the
victim and the suspect were living in the same dormitory in the
most prestigious university of China, and the case was never
solved. Internet discussion of the
crime has continued since then and became hot topic on major online
Chinese communities very frequently as a high-profile cold case.
In 1994, Zhu Ling was a sophomore in Class Wuhua2 (Class 2
majored in Physical Chemistry) at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Classmates described her as attractive, intelligent, and talented,
with an interest in music. She began to show strange and
debilitating symptoms at the end of 1994, when she reported
experiencing acute stomach pain, along with extensive hair loss.
Following her hospitalization at TongRen Hospital, her condition
gradually improved and she was allowed to return to school. The
following March, however, her old symptoms returned worse than
before, this time accompanied by pain in her legs, loss of muscular
eye control, and partial facial paralysis. Unable to breathe on her
own, she was placed on a respirator.
One physician at Peking
Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), Dr. Li
Shun-wei, reported having diagnosed a similar poisoning case in the
1960s and strongly suspected that Zhu Ling's symptoms were caused
by thallium poisoning. However, Zhu Ling denied that she had had
any contact with thallium in class, a claim which was confirmed by
her university's chemistry department. As a result, her doctors
ruled out thallium poisoning as a potential cause. Instead, she was
diagnosed with and treated for Guillain–Barré syndrome. Her
condition deteriorated rapidly.
Frustrated with local physicians' inability to help Zhu Ling,
her friends Cai Quanqing and Bei Zhicheng, undergraduate students
in Peking University, posted an "SOS" letter on a number of
Internet usenet groups on April 10, 1995, describing their friend's
symptoms and asking for help with a diagnosis.[2]
It was remarkable that by 1995 only a few research institutes in
China had Internet connections, including Cai's advisor. Responses
began pouring in within a matter of hours, and news reports hailed
the event as a milestone in remote diagnosis by Internet,
especially in China. Of the more than 1,500 responses which Zhu
Ling's friends received, roughly one-third proposed that she was
suffering from thallium poisoning, the common
antidote for which is known as Prussian blue.
Subsequent tests confirmed that Zhu Ling had extraordinarily
high levels of thallium in her body, about
10,000 times more than normal people.[3]
Doctors were able to administer the antidote, Prussian blue in time to save
her life, but she sustained serious permanent neurological damage.
While she has recovered the ability to breathe on her own, she
still cannot speak and remains largely paralyzed and almost blind, with severely reduced
mental function. In addition, she has contracted Hepatitis
C from a tainted blood
transfusion. Once again, her family and friends
are using the Internet to seek help for her, but this time they ask
for donations to help pay for her care and rehabilitation on a
website dedicated to the
cause.
The police began investigating the case in May 1995. It was not
until January 2006 that police finally revealed to the media that
their initial investigations had yielded a possible suspect. No
explanation was given for the delay in releasing this information,
and no one has yet been formally charged in connection with the
case. The primary investigator, Li Shusen, told a correspondent
from Southern People Weekly in
a January 2006 phone interview that investigators have in fact
reached some important conclusions regarding the case, but that the
information is too sensitive to be released to the public at this
time.
The main suspect after police investigation is Sun Wei (孙维)
(born (1973-08-20)August 20, 1973), who was Zhu Ling's
classmate and roommate in Tsinghua University from 1992 to 1997.
Tsinghua University also said Sun Wei was the only student who
would have had official access to thallium compound among the
students with close relationship to Zhu Ling, according to Zhu
Ling's lawyer, Zhang Jie.[4]
The investigation result of the case was refused by authorities to
be released to Zhu Ling's parents after their appealing.[5]
However, Tsinghua University denied to issue Sun Wei's B.S. certificate and refused to
provide her document needed to get a passport or visa in 1997. It
is believed Sun Wei has changed her name to Sun Shiyan (孙释颜).
The case began to draw extensive public attention near the end
of 2005, after an ID named "skyoneline" posted on one of the
largest Chinese online bulletin boards, Tianya
Club, again questioning the innocence of the
suspect and her family's role in blocking investigation and
prosecution of the case.[6]
In response, after over ten years of silence, on December 30, 2005,
the main suspect Sun Wei released a statement proclaiming her
innocence, which was confirmed by a weekly newspaper, Qingnian
Zhoumo after interviewing Sun Wei's father in 2006.[7][8]
According to the statement, the suspect was identified as the
only student with official access to thallium in her experiment for
undergraduate research. She was detained by the police department
on April 2, 1997, and signed a paper acknowledging she was a
suspect. Sun Wei's family retrieved her from the police after eight
hours of interrogation. In her statement, she also claimed that,
according to the law, she was cleared as a suspect in August 1998.
However, in a Morning
News Post report dated March 2006, Zhu
Ling’s lawyer, Zhang Jie said of the suspect, "She was only
exempted from the compulsory measure that she was subjected to as a
suspect at that time, but not excluded from suspicion."
Internet discussion of the crime continues since then and became
hot topic on major online Chinese communities frequently as a
high-profile unsolved case. A hacker who claimed he had
hacked into the email account of one of Sun
Wei's classmates, revealed communications purporting to be between
Sun and several of her classmates, showing Sun Wei was guiding them
how to post on forums to declare her innocence and they were
preparing for Sun's statement in 2005.[9][10]
Among the Internet users in the discussion, many people speculate
that the main suspect has not been charged due to her family
connections. Sun Wei's grandfather is Sun Yueqi (孙越崎) who was an important
member of Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference as a
senior leader of Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese
Kuomintang and her first cousin once removed, Sun
Fuling (孙孚凌) was deputy mayor of
Beijing from 1983 to 1993 and
Vice Chairperson of Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference from
1998 to 2003.
An online White House Petition on the whitehouse.gov website was
created on May 3rd, 2013, demanding investigation on the major
suspect who was believed living in the US at the time. The number
of the signatures reached 100,000 goal three days later after it
was created. This online campaign also drew great attention from US
and Chinese mainstream media, about Zhu Ling's family and the cold
case.[11][12][13][14]
Widespread awareness by the Chinese public and cynicism
regarding the matter and the alleged whitewashing of it pose public
relations problems for the government of China. Information
regarding the matter is too widespread to suppress, but, at the
same time, evidence adequate to establish the guilt or innocence of
the primary suspect is probably unavailable. Thus the matter serves
as a vehicle for expression of public dissatisfaction with
corruption and abuse of power by the political elite associated
with the regime.[15]
