Zhu Ling (1973)

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Zhu Ling is best known as the victim of an unsolved 1995 thallium poisoning case in Beijing, China. She received consecutive thallium poisoning after once being cured. Her case was reported to the world via Usenet newsgroup by her classmate, which in turn was covered by news report over the world. Physicians around the world helped to diagnose her case and suggested solutions. Her life was saved, but ruined seriously. The suspect was still covered for over 11 years, and this incident was raised up again in Beijing, to seek for judgement.

1 Zhu Ling's Poisoning Case
2 Diagnosed Via Internet
3 Police Investigation
4 Suspect
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Zhu Ling's Poisoning Case

In 1994, Zhu Ling was a sophomore in Class Wuhua2 (Physical Chemistry) at Tsinghua University in Beijing. News reports 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, beginning with stomach pain and eventually resulting in loss of hair. After being hospitalized at TongRen Hospital with no specific diagnosis, she gradually improved and returned to school. Yet the following March, her symptoms returned worse than before, this time beginning with pain in her legs and leading to facial paralysis, loss of muscular eye control, and an inability to breathe without a respirator.

At Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMC), Dr. Li Shun-wei, who had diagnosed a similar poisoning case in the 1960s, highly suspected that Zhu Ling's symptoms were caused by thallium poisoning. However, Zhu Ling denied that she had been in contact with thallium, which her university's chemistry department confirmed. As a result, her doctors ruled out thallium poisoning as a potential cause. Instead, she was diagnosed with and treated for acute disseminated encephalomyeloradiculoneuritis. Her condition deteriorated rapidly.

[edit] Diagnosed Via Internet

Frustrated with the lack of progress, friends Cai Quanqing and Bei Zhicheng published an "SOS" letter describing their friend's symptoms and asking for help with a diagnosis on usenet groups, at a time when Internet use was just becoming widespread. The message was forwarded around the world and responses began to pour in within hours. News reports marked the event as a milestone for Internet culture, especially in China. Over 1,500 answers came in, and of them, roughly a third proposed thallium poisoning, for which the commonly known treatment is prussian blue.

Tests confirmed that Zhu Ling had extraordinarily high levels of the heavy metal in her body. Doctors were able to administer the antidote in time to save her life, but she sustained serious and permanent neurological damage. While she has recovered the ability to breathe on her own, she still cannot speak and remains largely paralyzed and blind, with a severely reduced mental capacity. 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.

[edit] Police Investigation

The police began investigating the case in May 1995. A Southern People Weekly article dated January 11, 2006, reported that Li Mucheng, director of the local police station, had informed Zhu Ling’s parents ten years ago that a possible suspect had been identified, and they were waiting for the approval of higher officials to take further action. It was only recently reported, after over ten years, that the main suspect was Zhu Ling's roommate at the time, another chemistry student whose anonymity was maintained by the press. No further action was reported, without official explanation as for the delay, and the case remains unprosecuted and unsolved to the public.

Police department did not release any evidence against the former roommate. As a matter of fact, Chinese law enforcement never brought up the charge against anyone on this case. However, the prime investigator of the case, LI Shusen, reportedly told the correspondent from Southern People Weekly in a phone interview in January 2006, that certain conclusions have actually been reached during the investigation, and the case is too sensitive to be mentioned.

[edit] Suspect

While official media coverage of the case remains tightly controlled by the Chinese government, Internet discussion of the crime continues, especially among the overseas students and scholars, who speculate that the main suspect has not been charged due to her family connections.

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, again questioning the innocence of the suspect and her family's role in blocking investigation and prosecution of the case. In response, after over 10 years of silence, on December 30, the main suspect released a statement proclaiming her innocence.

According to the statement, the suspect was identified as the only student with official access to thallium in her experiment. She was detained by the police department on April 2, 1997, and signed a paper acknowledging she was a suspect. Police released her after 8 hours of interrogation. In her statement, she also claimed that, according to the laws, she was cleared as a suspect in August 1998. However, in a Morning News Post report dated March 2006, Zhu Ling’s lawyer said of the suspect, "She was only exempted from the compulsory measure she was subjected to as a suspect at that time, but not excluded from suspicion."

Since releasing her statement, the former suspect has been bombarded by tens of thousands of emails from angry protesters. Her telephone numbers, home address, private email exchanges and even personal photos were released in public. Hundreds of people sent emails and faxes to the companies which her family and friends worked. Their home address, telephone numbers and personal photos were released in public too.