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00:01:38
episode on your app or on our website. >> [music] >> It was nearing 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday,
00:01:47
January 6, 2016, when 27year-old Jessica Wongo, arrived at the Grand Indonesia Mall in central Jakarta.
00:01:57
She was due [music] to meet two of her friends, Mina Sali Hinn and Hani Boon, for coffee at the upscale Olivier Cafe
00:02:05
at 5:00 p.m. It had been a while since the trio had all been together. [music] The three Indonesian women had met in
00:02:14
Australia years prior while studying at the Billy Blue College of Design [music]
00:02:18
in Sydney. After graduating, Jessica had stayed in Australia [music] while Mina and Honey returned to Jakarta.
00:02:26
They'd all remained in contact and caught up intermittently over the years, but this was Jessica's first trip back
00:02:33
to Jakarta since 2012. Having arrived at the cafe early, Jessica went in to make a reservation.
00:02:42
Olivier was a trendy [music] venue that catered to high-end clientele. It was known as a cool spot to be seen
00:02:50
and was a favorite among Jakarta's more affluent crowds. Customers could enjoy the eclectic menu
00:02:57
of fine foods, [music] desserts, and cocktails while soaking in the natural light that poured in from the skylights
00:03:03
above. An assortment of indoor plants [music] perfectly complemented the green vinyl booths and timber finishes,
00:03:11
creating an earthy yet sophisticated atmosphere. It was the perfect spot for the friends
00:03:18
who came from well-off families and lived around the affluent Kalapa Gardening district [music] to catch up.
00:03:26
After reserving a table, Jessica still had plenty of time before her friends arrived. [music]
00:03:32
She ventured back into the shopping mall and headed to Bath and Body Works, a fragrance and skin care store, where she
00:03:39
bought a bottle of liquid soap for herself and each of her friends. She then returned to Olivier with the soaps
00:03:46
in three large paper gift bags. By [music] this point, it was 4:14 p.m. Jessica took a seat [music] at table 54,
00:03:56
a large booth situated towards the back of the cafe. Earlier that day, Jessica had messaged
00:04:03
Mia and Hanie in their WhatsApp group saying that she'd like to pay for their drinks that afternoon.
00:04:10
The others told her she didn't need to, [music] but Jessica insisted. She walked over to the bar and ordered
00:04:16
an old-fashioned cocktail for herself, a sazzarak for Hani, [music] and a Vietnamese iced coffee for Mina.
00:04:24
Mina was a self-proclaimed [music] coffee snob, and she'd raved to the group about how much she loved Olivier's
00:04:31
Vietnamese iced coffees. [music] By the time Mina and Hanie finally arrived, it was 5:16 p.m. Jessica stood
00:04:41
up and warmly embraced her friends, letting them know she'd taken the liberty of ordering their drinks.
00:04:48
Mina thanked Jessica for this kind, albeit unnecessary, gesture, and the [music] three sat down and began
00:04:55
chatting. Mina took a sip through the straw of her iced coffee. She immediately screwed her
00:05:02
face up in disgust. "This tastes awful," she declared. Mina extended the drink towards Hanie
00:05:11
and asked her to taste it. It didn't smell like coffee at all, and the color didn't look quite right either.
00:05:19
Honey reluctantly took a sip. [music] It tasted bitter and burning. Honey pushed the drink towards Jessica,
00:05:28
but having seen her friend's reactions, [music] Jessica refused to taste it. Then Mina started fanning her face with
00:05:37
her hand. Suddenly, she threw her head back and [music] began convulsing. The cafe staff saw what was going on and
00:05:47
ran over to [music] move the table out of the way and give Mana some room. It was clear she was having trouble
00:05:54
breathing, [music] and she soon began foaming at the mouth, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
00:06:01
Olivier's manager joined the crowd that had gathered around trying to help. [music]
00:06:07
Jessica Wongo stood next to her. "What did you put in the coffee?" >> [music] >> she asked.
00:06:38
An unconscious Mina Salihinn was wheelchaired out of Olivia Cafe and to a medical center within the shopping mall.
00:06:46
Realizing the seriousness of her condition, she was transported to hospital where doctors worked
00:06:51
desperately to try and revive her. Her family immediately rushed to her side, having received a phone call from
00:06:59
a hysterical honey, who initially thought that Mina might be having an epileptic seizure. [music]
00:07:05
Mina's father, Eddie Salihinn, desparingly tried to administer CPR to Mina himself, while her twin sister,
00:07:13
Sandy, yelled at her to wake up. But it was no use. Mina was officially declared dead 30 minutes after arriving
00:07:22
at the hospital. The Sully Hinn family was left in shock. As far as they were concerned,
00:07:30
27year-old Mina had been in perfect health. She [music] was in the prime of her life, working for a design company
00:07:38
and having just gotten married to her adoring husband, Arie Samco. 2 months earlier. [music] They'd had an opulent
00:07:45
ceremony at a luxury resort in Bali, attended by their closest friends and family.
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Mina had grand plans for her future with the dreams of opening her own cafe and starting a family of her own.
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How, her family wondered, [music] could she be taken from them so suddenly? Mina's father, Eddie, reported his
00:08:09
daughter's [music] death to the police. There was only one explanation he could think of for Mina's sudden [music]
00:08:16
death, and it was that she had been poisoned. Hani Boon told the doctor that she had
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drank from Mina's iced coffee and was worried that she would die, [music] too. The doctor conducted a physical
00:08:31
examination, but concluded that Hanie was fine. He prescribed a laxative and told her to
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eat and drink as much as possible to flush out any potential toxins from her system. [music]
00:08:45
Jessica Wongo was also examined and given the allcle [music] while police took samples from Mina's
00:08:51
stomach contents for toxicological testing to determine if she had indeed been poisoned.
00:08:58
The police went to Olivier Cafe and spoke to the staff there. The barista who made the Vietnamese iced coffee,
00:09:07
Rangar Saputra, said there had been nothing unusual about the coffee. After the receipt for the order came through,
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Rangar said he made the beverage like he always did, [music] filling a glass with
00:09:19
ice and a couple of spoons of condensed milk before placing what's known as a fiend filter full of ground coffee on
00:09:26
top of it and pouring over hot water. He then put the coffee on a tray to be taken out by the server.
00:09:34
The server didn't find anything unusual about the coffee when he took it over to
00:09:39
table 54. It looked and smelled like it always did. After Mina collapsed, Olivier's bar
00:09:48
manager, Divi Siagian, took [music] the iced coffee into the back kitchen and examined it herself.
00:09:56
She had immediate concerns about it based on Jessica Wongo's comment about what had been put into it. Divy gave the
00:10:04
iced coffee a whiff and [music] took a sip. It smelt and tasted rotten. Ranga, [music] the barista who made the
00:10:13
iced coffee, came in and noticed that the color had changed since he made it. It should have been brown, but it had
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turned the golden yellow color of turmeric. Runga sniffed the coffee and was hit
00:10:28
with a sharp odor that smelt like glue. It instantly irritated his nose. Panicked, Ranga began double-checking
00:10:37
all of the ingredients he'd used to make [music] the drink, but everything appeared to be completely fine.
00:10:45
Having kept the drink aside, a bartender poured the leftover iced coffee into an
00:10:50
empty water bottle and handed it over to the police for toxicological testing. 3 days after Mina Sully [music] Hinn's
00:10:58
death, the results came back. It was confirmed that the iced coffee [music] contained cyanide, a rapidly acting and
00:11:07
highly lethal poison. When ingested, cyanide affects the cardiovascular and central nervous
00:11:15
system by preventing the body's cells from receiving or absorbing oxygen. Within minutes of absorbing the poison,
00:11:23
a person can experience organ failure, convulsions, [music] coma, and death. While all of this was consistent with
00:11:32
the symptoms Mina exhibited right before her death, a full autopsy would need to
00:11:36
be done to prove that she hadn't died from natural causes. The police met with Mina's family at the
00:11:44
funeral home and requested permission to perform a full autopsy. Her mother refused, saying she didn't
00:11:51
want anyone to touch her daughter's body. They intended to have an open casket funeral for Mina the following day and
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her body had already been prepared for burial. This was a major roadblock for the
00:12:05
police. They explained that without an autopsy being done, they [clears throat] wouldn't be able to conduct a proper
00:12:12
investigation to prove that Mina had actually been poisoned. After some deliberation, Mina's family
00:12:20
continued to reject the full autopsy, but they agreed that her stomach and liver could be removed for further
00:12:27
toxicological testing. Mina's funeral went ahead the [music] following day. Mina was a popular and
00:12:36
deeply loved young woman, and it was a highly emotional time for those in attendance.
00:12:42
For Mina's father, Eddie Salihinn, the loss of his daughter made him feel like he'd lost his sparring partner.
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Eddie was a successful, wealthy [music] businessman with a tough, nononsense attitude.
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He'd always seen traits in Mina that he recognized in [music] himself, and he admired the way she challenged him
00:13:02
whenever they had a disagreement. Following his [music] daughter's burial, Eddie told reporters,
00:13:09
"We entrust the case to the police. I believe in the power of God. I believe the police will be able to arrest the
00:13:18
perpetrator so my daughter can rest in peace." There was one person who was noticeably
00:13:29
absent from Mina's burial, and that was Jessica Wongo. Some wondered why she wasn't there given
00:13:37
the two seemed to be close friends and had been together when Mina died. But the truth was that Jessica wouldn't
00:13:45
have been very welcome there. Mina's parents had always viewed Jessica as a bit peculiar.
00:13:52
The first time they'd met her, she'd been overly affectionate in the way she hugged Mina's mother. when she first
00:13:59
visited their house. They also found it strange that she had entered their bedroom.
00:14:06
Her odd behavior continued at the hospital on the day Mina died. Unlike Hanie, who had been in a clear
00:14:13
state of shock and distress, Jessica had been oddly calm. [music] Eddie Sally Hinn felt like a Jessica was avoiding
00:14:22
him by pretending to be short of breath [music] and have a stomach ache. He asked Jessica what she had to drink
00:14:29
at the cafe and she told him mineral water. Eddie was surprised by this response.
00:14:37
He'd seen the receipt from Olivier and knew that Jessica had ordered cocktails for herself and Hanie. He couldn't
00:14:45
understand why she would lie about such a thing, unless of course she had something to hide.
00:14:53
The day after Mina's burial, toxicology tests confirmed the presence of cyanide in her stomach. With the police now
00:15:02
confident that she had definitely been poisoned, they reviewed the footage taken from the nine CCTV cameras around
00:15:09
Olivier Cafe on Wednesday, January 6th. There didn't appear to be anything unusual about Ranga Saputra's actions as
00:15:17
he made the Vietnamese iced coffee. Nor did the server interfere with the drink in any way when bringing it over to
00:15:24
Jessica's table at 4:24 p.m. It sat there out in the open for 52 minutes until Mina and Hanie arrived at
00:15:34
5:16 p.m. [clears throat] At no point between the drink being delivered and Mina taking the first sip
00:15:42
did anyone else approach the table. Jessica Wongo was filmed arriving at the cafe lobby at 3:30 p.m. She then made
00:15:53
her way into the main dining area to choose a table for her group. But there was something odd about her movements
00:16:00
that seemed unnatural. She walked around the room in a somewhat suspicious manner, looking around as
00:16:07
though she was scoping the place out. At one point, she looked directly at one of
00:16:13
the security cameras. The table Jessica eventually chose, table number 54, was located towards the
00:16:21
back of the cafe, where the closest camera was obscured by a large pot filled with indoor plants.
00:16:29
However, another camera at the opposite side of the restaurant provided a direct, albeit grainy, view.
00:16:37
This camera captured Jessica as she sat down in the booth and placed the three gift bags from Bath and Body Works on
00:16:44
top of the table, arranging them in a line. When the waiter placed a menu plate at
00:16:50
the end of the table, Jessica picked it up and placed it parallel to the gift bags.
00:16:56
Once the drinks arrived, the bags essentially acted as a barrier, obstructing the drinks from the view of
00:17:02
the camera on the other side of the room. Police couldn't see exactly what Jessica
00:17:09
was doing behind the gift bags, but at one stage she made some movements as though she was taking something out of
00:17:16
her handbag. She later moved the iced coffee cup around, placing it further down the
00:17:23
table to where Mina would eventually sit. Minutes before Mina and Haneie arrived,
00:17:29
she put the gift bags on the floor. Once Mina took a sip of the iced coffee, she began exhibiting symptoms almost
00:17:38
immediately, waving her hands in front of her face as though trying to cool herself down.
00:17:45
After she collapsed and the staff rushed over to help, a panicstricken Hanie called Mina's husband a reef on her
00:17:52
mobile to let him know what was happening and to ask if Mina had any pre-existing health conditions that
00:17:59
could explain what was going on. While all of this was happening, Jessica stood back from the crowd, watching on
00:18:07
with little emotion while rubbing her hands together. This was a significant moment for the
00:18:15
police. When cyanide comes into contact with the [music] skin, it causes irritation, itching, and a
00:18:22
dermatological condition known as cyanide rash. Based on the footage, they began to
00:18:29
theorize that Jessica had invited Mina out for a drink with the intention of poisoning her.
00:18:36
Beyond the cafe staff, there was simply no other person who had the opportunity to tamper with Mina's drink. It also
00:18:44
explained why Jessica had arrived so much earlier than her friends, and why she'd offered to buy their drinks in
00:18:51
[music] advance. Furthermore, after Mina died, Jessica had sent Mina's twin sister, Sandy a
00:18:59
message asking if her family had received the results of Mina's lab tests yet. She also sent Sandy a link to a
00:19:07
news story about fake coffee containing cyanide that was being sold in Vietnam and suggested that's what could have
00:19:15
happened to Mina. From the way Jessica had surveyed the restaurant, the police believed she'd
00:19:22
arrived early so she could scope out the locations of the security cameras and choose a table that was out of their
00:19:28
view. She then purchased the items from Bath and Body Works so the gift bags would
00:19:34
provide an added layer of protection while she stealthily slipped the cyanide into Mina's iced coffee, getting some on
00:19:42
her hands in the process. A review of the WhatsApp messages sent between the friend group revealed that
00:19:50
Jessica had asked if there was a medical clinic inside the shopping mall. She claimed she needed to get a
00:19:57
prescription for vitamin D, but investigators suspected there could be a more sinister reason for her [music]
00:20:03
query. What if she was checking to make sure there wouldn't be a doctor on site who
00:20:09
could administer first aid to Mina and potentially save her life? >> [music] >> The problem was the cameras hadn't
00:20:20
actually captured Jessica putting anything into Mina's drink, and no traces of cyanide had been found at
00:20:27
their table. Jessica had been summoned to the police station for an interview after the
00:20:33
toxicology tests came back, and she'd appeared calm the whole time, saying nothing that incriminated her in Mina's
00:20:40
murder. She had no criminal record in Indonesia and told the police she'd never had any
00:20:47
trouble with the law. A search of her parents' home in Jakarta didn't turn up any evidence of cyanide, nor was there
00:20:55
any trace of the poison found in Jessica's handbag. However, when police asked Jessica for
00:21:02
the clothing she had been wearing on the day Mina died, she told them she had thrown the pants away.
00:21:09
She said they'd gotten a hole in them on the way to the hospital and had asked her maid to get rid of them.
00:21:17
Police seized a computer, documents, and tissues from Jessica's house, but found
00:21:22
nothing that tied her to the poisoning. Then there was the obvious question of what motive Jessica could possibly have
00:21:31
to want Mina dead. Not only did she claim they were good friends, but an examination of text
00:21:38
messages sent between the two showed nothing but a typical female friendship, and no one in their social circle knew
00:21:45
of any overt friction between them. They also didn't think of Jessica as a violent or dangerous person.
00:21:54
Most knew her to be bubbly and a bit goofy, not the kind to commit such a callous crime.
00:22:02
Police spoke to Mina's husband, Arif Samco, to see what he knew about Jessica and Mina's relationship.
00:22:09
The only thing Arief could think of was a minor incident that Mina had told him about back in October 2014, roughly 14
00:22:18
months before she died. Having returned to Sydney for a holiday, Mina had caught up with Jessica for a
00:22:26
coffee. As they chatted, Jessica told Mina about some problems she was having with her boyfriend at the time, a man
00:22:34
named Patrick O'Conor. She apparently said that Patrick could be rough with her and that he had some
00:22:41
problems with the drugs. Mina had never met Patrick, but she didn't like the sound of him and
00:22:48
couldn't fathom what Jessica saw in him. According to a reef, Mina could be very
00:22:54
upfront about her opinions and she told Jessica not to be stupid. She told Jessica to think about her
00:23:02
future and urged her to end the relationship. Jessica didn't like what she heard and
00:23:09
had reportedly stormed out of the restaurant. Arie said that Mina became wary of
00:23:17
Jessica after that and no longer wanted to meet up with her one- on-one. When Jessica returned to Jakarta in
00:23:24
December 2015, 1 month before Mina died, Arie joined Mina when the two women had
00:23:31
first caught up for coffee. He and Mina had only recently tied the knot in Barley and they were still
00:23:38
riding the wave of newly wed bliss. Jessica hadn't been invited to the wedding, but if she held any grudges
00:23:47
[music] about this, she made no mention of it. While these minor incidents indicated
00:23:56
that things weren't completely rosy between the two friends, it still didn't suggest why Jessica Wongo would want
00:24:04
Mina Salihinn dead, or how she'd managed to pull off such an elaborate plot. For the average citizen, cyanide isn't
00:24:13
exactly easy to come by. Although it's a naturally occurring chemical found in many plants such as
00:24:20
apple seeds, almonds, and tapioca, the level of cyanide found in the foods we consume is very low. It's the man-made
00:24:30
version available in gas, liquid, and solid form that's fast acting and highly lethal.
00:24:37
Cyanide is illegal in Indonesia and police could find no evidence of Jessica having sourced or attempting to source
00:24:44
it from anywhere. However, that didn't mean it wasn't possible. In Indonesia, it was once a common
00:24:53
practice to catch fish using cyanide. Fishermen would add a small amount of the chemical to waterways to stun fish
00:25:01
and send them floating to the surface. Although this practice had become illegal, the laws were minimally
00:25:09
enforced and it wasn't difficult to buy cyanide from illegal sellers. If Jessica had managed to source the
00:25:19
cyanide, police considered how she could have gotten the cyanide into the iced coffee. According to Olivia staff, it
00:25:27
was cafe policy that all straws be served alongside a drinks with a paper sheath at the top for hygiene purposes.
00:25:35
Yet, some staff members recalled that the sheath had been removed from Mina straw and placed into her iced coffee
00:25:42
before she arrived. Police wondered whether Jessica could have come prepared with the cyanide
00:25:48
laced straw, which she swapped over with the cafe straw. [music] Either that or she could have placed the
00:25:55
cyanide into the drink in some other way and then unchathed the straw to stir [music] it in. The straw Mina drank from
00:26:03
had been thrown away. So neither of these theories could be [music] tested. Regardless of how she'd managed to do
00:26:12
it, police felt confident enough with the circumstantial evidence they'd gathered that on Friday, January 29,
00:26:19
2016, they publicly declared Mina Sulli Hinn's death a murder and named Jessica Wongo as a suspect.
00:26:29
The following morning, they went to Jessica's parents house to formally place her under arrest, only to find
00:26:36
that no one was there. The police tracked her down to a hotel room in North Jakarta where she was
00:26:42
staying with her parents and in possession of her luggage. Fearing that Jessica was trying to flee
00:26:49
the country, they charged her with Mina's murder and placed her in custody without bail.
00:26:56
As news spread about Jessica's arrest, many were quick to question her unusually calm demeanor when fronting
00:27:03
the press. Jessica smiled for the cameras outside the police station, raising further
00:27:09
suspicion against her in the eyes of the public. The murder charge carried the possibility of a death sentence, making
00:27:17
her seemingly upbeat attitude difficult to reconcile. In the eyes of Mina's family, Jessica
00:27:25
seemed to be enjoying [music] the attention. They supported Jessica being given the
00:27:31
death sentence with Mina's twin sister Sandy telling Australia's 60 Minutes program.
00:27:37
I would like to see justice for my sister. Eye for an eye, life for a life. But when the prosecutors were handed the
00:27:48
brief of evidence, they were reluctant to proceed to trial. While the police case against Jessica Wongo was
00:27:55
compelling, it relied almost entirely on the grainy CCTV footage, statements from
00:28:01
cafe staff, and Jessica's strange behavior on the day of Mina's death. There was still nothing to suggest how
00:28:10
Jessica could have sourced the cyanide, no clear indication as to how she could have administered it, [music] and no
00:28:17
information about her mental state at the time. Prosecutors returned the brief to police
00:28:24
requesting more information before the trial could go ahead. Given that Jessica had spent roughly the
00:28:32
past 8 years in Australia, the Indonesian police knew very little about her past. All they had was her statement
00:28:40
that she'd never been in trouble with the law. They considered whether Jessica could
00:28:46
have sourced the cyanide in Australia and brought it over when she returned to Jakarta.
00:28:52
They reached out to the Australian Federal Police to see if they could shed any light, but AFP agents were hesitant
00:28:59
to cooperate. [music] Australia doesn't have the death penalty for convicted murderers, whereas
00:29:05
Indonesia does. Given that Jessica was an Australian resident, they wanted to protect her
00:29:12
from that possibility. The AFP agreed to help with the investigation on the condition that the
00:29:20
death penalty be taken off the table. [music] The Indonesian prosecutors agreed and the confidential files were
00:29:28
handed over. As the Indonesian investigators cast their eye over the information,
00:29:36
it quickly became clear there was more to Jessica Wongo than they had first realized.
00:29:49
While little was known about Jessica Wongo's early days in Sydney, [music] the year leading up to Mina Sully Hinn's
00:29:56
death had been a tumultuous one for the then 26-year-old. Police records revealed that Jessica had
00:30:03
been working as a graphic designer for the New South Wales Ambulance Service when things began to unravel in her
00:30:09
personal life. It all started in January 2015 when her boyfriend at the time, [music] an
00:30:16
Australian man named Patrick O'Conor, tried to end their relationship. According to Patrick, Jessica began
00:30:24
sending him countless texts and voice messages in which she threatened to hurt herself. She went ahead with that threat
00:30:32
in late January 2015 and was subsequently hospitalized for self harm. This destructive behavior continued to
00:30:42
escalate over the following months. In October 2015, Patrick called the police to Jessica's flat after she tried to
00:30:50
poison herself with carbon monoxide from [music] a small coal barbecue. She was hospitalized but released
00:30:58
shortly after. A few weeks later, police were called to the flat again. [music] This time,
00:31:05
Jessica was unconscious in bed with a bottle of whiskey and three letters by her side.
00:31:12
One of the letters was addressed to her family and one was addressed to her co-workers saying [music] her goodbyes.
00:31:19
The other letter blamed Patrick for her death. In November 2015, 2 months before Mina's
00:31:29
death, Patrick contacted the police after discovering that his car had been destroyed by a vandal.
00:31:36
Although he couldn't prove who was responsible, he felt confident it was Jessica. Not only had she been harassing
00:31:44
him, but his friends, too. Fearing for their safety, Patrick sought an urgent apprehended violence order
00:31:52
against Jessica, hoping that a court issued restraining order would deter her from further harassment.
00:31:59
He described Jessica as unstable. And although there was no evidence for police to charge her with damaging the
00:32:06
car, the urgent AVO request was granted with a court hearing set for February 2016 [music] to formally put it in
00:32:15
place. Around the same time that Patrick's car was vandalized, Jessica was fired from
00:32:22
her job with the New South Wales Ambulance Service. As part of the investigation into Mina
00:32:28
Sihin's suspected murder, police interviewed Jessica's former boss, a woman named Christy Carter.
00:32:36
Christy told the police that during the 8 months she'd spent working with the Jessica, she'd seen two very different
00:32:43
sides of her personality. While Jessica could be kind, and loved to smile, she was also quick to anger if
00:32:52
things didn't go her way. Christy described to Jessica as being manipulative, dishonest, hateful, and
00:33:00
badtempered. She said she wasn't surprised to hear that she was being accused of poisoning
00:33:06
her friend, telling police, "I have observed her for the past 8 months, and from her attitude, hatred, and nature of
00:33:15
her craziness, I have no doubt that she is capable of hurting or killing another
00:33:21
person." Christy had gone to visit Jessica in the hospital after her suicide attempt in
00:33:28
October 2015. Jessica was furious because the doctors were refusing to discharge her. She said
00:33:37
something along the lines of, "The bastards in this hospital would not let me go home and they are treating me like
00:33:44
a killer, but if I wanted to kill someone, I certainly know how to do it. I could get a gun and I know the right
00:33:52
dosage." After Jessica lost her job with the ambulance service, she asked for Christy's help in finding a new place to
00:34:01
live. When Christy refused, Jessica allegedly threatened to kill both Christy and [music] Christiey's mother.
00:34:10
Christy told the police she had no idea how Jessica could have obtained the cyanide that was used to kill Mina, but
00:34:18
she didn't doubt the possibility. When Jessica wants something to happen, Christy [music] said it could happen.
00:34:31
All up, Jessica Wongo had reportedly been hospitalized for four suicide attempts in the months leading up to
00:34:38
Mina's [music] death. Combined with the allegations from Patrick O' Connor and the comments she allegedly made to
00:34:45
Christy Carter, [music] this gave Indonesian authorities their first real insight into Jessica's
00:34:51
psychological state leading up to the supposed crime. But it was a police report from August 2015 that really
00:35:00
caught their attention. On the night of Saturday, August 22, 2015, emergency services were called to
00:35:09
a nursing home in the Sydney suburb of Lyart after a car plunged through the brick facade just meters from where
00:35:17
dozens of elderly residents were sleeping. Police arrived to find [music] Jessica
00:35:23
Wongo behind the wheel in what they believed to be an intoxicated state. She was taken to the hospital but
00:35:30
managed to escape with minor injuries to her ribs and chest. No one else was hurt in the accident.
00:35:39
Jessica was charged with a high range drink driving offense, further adding to her problems.
00:35:46
According to confidential police files released exclusively by ABC's 7:30 program, in the leadup to her trip to
00:35:54
Jakarta at the end of 2015, [music] Jessica sent a text message to a friend saying she was considering fleeing
00:36:02
Australia to avoid paying over $15,000 she owed in fines and legal fees. I could use the money to have an epic
00:36:12
holiday, she wrote. have new licenses anywhere where my dad got power too rather than giving money to those police
00:36:21
ignorant [ __ ] In another message, she wrote, "I'm being pushed [music] again and again.
00:36:29
I'll break." For the Indonesian prosecutors, the files handed over by the Australian
00:36:36
Federal Police were exactly what they needed to pursue the murder charge against Jessica.
00:36:42
In their view, it proved that she was becoming more emotionally unstable and increasingly aggressive in the leadup to
00:36:50
Mina's [music] death. Her harmful behavior, once directed at herself, was now turned toward others.
00:37:00
It also turned out that Jessica had been fired just days after Mina and Arif got
00:37:06
married, a wedding she had not been invited to. Prosecutors believed the culmination of
00:37:13
these events could have led her to direct her anger towards Mina. As Mina's twin sister Sandy told 60
00:37:21
Minutes, [music] "I think Jessica is jealous of Mina because Mina had a good life and [music]
00:37:27
a good future ahead of her. And maybe Jessica's life is crap." All up, the brief of evidence was sent
00:37:37
back and forth between the police and prosecutors five times over a 3 and 1/2 month period [music]
00:37:43
before the Jakarta High prosecutor's office finally determined that there was enough evidence for the case to proceed
00:37:50
to trial. This was major news in Indonesia where the story had been making headlines from
00:37:57
the [music] outset. While the police had been gathering evidence against Jessica, speculation
00:38:03
had been rampant about who else could have possibly been responsible for Mina Salahin's [music] death.
00:38:10
Although no one else was ever formally investigated for the murder, that didn't [music] stop the rumor mill from running
00:38:17
wild. One of Jessica's lawyers claimed that someone could have taken out a life insurance policy against Mina overseas
00:38:26
in which they stood to gain $5 million in the event she was murdered. Without elaborating on this possibility,
00:38:36
he said that Jessica was being used as a scapegoat, [music] asking, "Why is Jessica the only person
00:38:43
targeted in this case when it is possible that other persons were involved?" These comments led to public suspicion
00:38:52
against [music] Mina's husband, Arif Samarco, with some speculating that he was the one who stood [music] to gain
00:38:59
from such a life insurance policy. Some publications reported that a reef could have co-conspired with Olivia's
00:39:07
barista Ranga Autra by paying him to spike Mina's drink. One tabloid journalist claimed that on
00:39:15
the day before Mina died, he was in the car park of a shopping mall when he saw a man who looked like a reef Samco
00:39:22
[music] pass a package to Ranga Saputra. The implication [music] being that the package could have contained either cash
00:39:30
or the cyanide that was used [music] to kill Mina. Arie vehemently denied such rumors and
00:39:38
publicly accused the journalist of slander while Mina's father reported Jessica's lawyer for defamation for his
00:39:45
unfounded statements regarding the life insurance policy. Meanwhile, others theorized that Mina
00:39:57
and Jessica could have been having a secret lesbian relationship during their time together in Australia.
00:40:04
Mina's marriage to a reef tipped Jessica over the edge and led her to poison Mina
00:40:10
in a jealous rage. Mina's friends and family denied that she was ever involved in a same-sex
00:40:17
relationship, but that didn't discount the possibility that Jessica could have had romantic feelings towards her.
00:40:25
Mina's father publicly claimed to have seen a series of text messages that Jessica had sent Mina, which he believed
00:40:32
carried romantic connotations, fueling rumors that Jessica could have killed Mina out of rejection.
00:40:41
A forensic hypnotist who interviewed Jessica and examined the messages sent between the pair told ABC's 730 there
00:40:49
was no evidence to support the theory that the two women were lovers, but the rumor prevailed regardless.
00:40:58
Some also speculated that a reef and a Jessica could have been having an affair, an allegation they both strongly
00:41:04
denied and for [music] which no evidence existed. For the average Indonesian, watching the
00:41:12
story play out was compared to watching a real life soap opera. In a country where the majority of the population
00:41:19
reportedly lives on less than $4 US a day, the same price as a cup of coffee from Olivier Cafe. The salacious story
00:41:29
of murder and revenge among the wealthy urban class had people gripped. With the Jessica and Mina's families
00:41:37
pitted against one another, unfounded rumors swirled that the murder was part of a business rivalry between the two
00:41:44
families. As writer Johannes Negro explained in an article for Foreign Policy magazine,
00:41:52
while the two families do not make the list of Indonesia's top 10 richest, they are filthy rich by the urban wealthy
00:42:00
standards, at least rich enough to buy the law. The fight between them is a drama that even those convinced of
00:42:08
Wongo's innocence can enjoy. Indonesians have a proverb that goes, "When two elephants clash, the mouse
00:42:17
deer caught in between is doomed." [music] In Sally Hinn's murder case, however,
00:42:23
two elephants are locked in a struggle while the tiny mouse deer get to be [music] the spectators.
00:42:30
For the average Indonesian, this is a moment of sweet irony. Watching giants grapple at each other's throats without
00:42:38
being trampled underfoot yourself does not happen a lot in a country where the political and economic elites hold the
00:42:44
reigns often at the expense of the rest. Ultimately, tragedies like Salahin's death are seized upon by Indonesians
00:42:53
because they expose the vulnerabilities of the country's upper class and bring the hope that things can go ary even for
00:43:02
the giants. Interest in the story only strengthened after it was revealed that celebrity
00:43:12
lawyer Oto Hazibwan had agreed to take on Jessica's defense case pro bono. Many were disappointed by his decision
00:43:20
to do so. With the Jessica's trial approaching, a majority of Indonesians were convinced she was guilty and they
00:43:28
didn't approve of Oto's decision to defend a killer. But as Otto later told Netflix, he had been scheduled to go on
00:43:36
an Alaskan cruise with his family when he received a visit from Jessica's mother, saying [music] that her daughter
00:43:42
had been treated unfairly and pleading with him to take on the case. Oto met with Jessica and agreed to help
00:43:50
on one condition. If at any point he became convinced that she was guilty of murdering Mina
00:43:58
Salihinn, he would resign from the case. Jessica agreed without hesitation. Otto was one of 15 lawyers on Jessica's
00:44:09
legal team. As they [music] looked further into the case, they discovered that all wasn't as it seemed in the
00:44:17
trial by media. First and foremost, there was the question of why Jessica would have
00:44:23
chosen Olivia Cafe as the place to commit a murder. Not only was it a popular, busy spot,
00:44:30
but if Jessica was aware of the CCTV cameras, like investigators asserted, then why wouldn't she have simply chosen
00:44:39
a quieter location that didn't have any security cameras? The fact that Jessica had arrived at
00:44:46
Olivier Cafe an hour and a half ahead of the agreed upon meeting time was viewed
00:44:51
as proof that she'd come to scope the place out in preparation for Mina's murder. [music]
00:44:56
But according to Jessica, she only arrived so early because of the 3in-1 traffic rule that was in place in
00:45:03
Jakarta at the time. To avoid congestion on the roads of the densely populated city, only cars with
00:45:11
three or more passengers were allowed to use the main roads during peak periods.
00:45:17
She said she'd only arrived early because she had to, not because she wanted to.
00:45:25
Much had also been made about Jessica's decision to order her friend's drinks ahead of time, with the implication
00:45:32
being that she did this so she could slip the cyanide into Mina's drink. But Jessica claimed that she'd ordered the
00:45:39
drinks expecting them to be served by the time Mina and Hanie arrived. WhatsApp messages sent between the group
00:45:47
at the time confirmed that Mina and Hanie had been running late that afternoon. If Mina and Hanie had arrived on time
00:45:55
like Jessica expected, her defense team pointed out that she wouldn't have had the opportunity to administer the
00:46:02
cyanide. The messages also showed that Jessica told Mina she was going to order the
00:46:09
Vietnamese iced coffee for her ahead of time, to which Mina agreed. For the defense team, Jessica's message
00:46:18
to Mina's twin sister, Sandy, about the lab results wasn't an attempt to see if she'd been caught, but because she was
00:46:25
genuinely curious to know how her friend had died. The article she'd sent Sandy about
00:46:32
cyanide laced coffee being sold in Vietnam wasn't an indication that Jessica knew Mina had been poisoned with
00:46:39
cyanide either, but simply proved that she was looking for any possible information about what might have
00:46:46
happened to her friend. The fact that Jessica was staying in a hotel with packed suitcases at the time
00:46:53
of her arrest wasn't an indication that she intended to flee the country. She and her parents had moved there to
00:47:00
escape the throngs of journalists who had camped outside of their home. With no evidence to suggest how Jessica
00:47:09
could have sourced the cyanide and no footage of her removing anything from her handbag or putting anything into the
00:47:16
iced coffee, her defense team questioned the validity of the prosecution's case entirely.
00:47:23
The timing of the so-called suspicious movements that Jessica had made behind the gift bags coincided with the text
00:47:31
message that she had sent to Mina. They believed that any movement she made could be attributed to that and they
00:47:40
didn't think there was anything suspicious about the gift bags either. Jessica claimed she had simply wanted to
00:47:47
buy her friends a [music] present. As for her unusually composed demeanor after Mina's death [music] and when
00:47:54
fronting reporters, Jessica explained that she was generally a calm person and she didn't want to show her true
00:48:02
emotions in front of the cameras. Confused about how to deal with the whole saga, she said she wanted to bury
00:48:10
the memory of what happened on January 6. But above all, there was one major detail that the defense [music] team
00:48:20
couldn't get past. The lethal oral dose of cyanide for a human of Mina's weight was around 171
00:48:29
mg. Toxicology testing of the Vietnamese iced coffee handed over by staff at Olivier Cafe detected 7,400 mg per liter
00:48:40
of cyanide in the glass served to Mina and 7,900 mg per liter in the water bottle into which staff had poured the
00:48:50
remaining liquid after the incident. However, toxicology tests conducted on samples taken from [music] Mina's body
00:48:58
70 minutes after she died had revealed no traces of cyanide in her gastric [music] fluid, bile, or urine.
00:49:08
Further samples taken 3 days after she died had revealed just 0.2 mg per liter of cyanide in her stomach.
00:49:17
Not only was this incredibly low dose not enough to be fatal, but no cyanide was detected in her bowel or liver,
00:49:26
which would be expected in a case of cyanide [music] poisoning. Her skin also hadn't shown a reddish
00:49:33
hue, which is another telltale sign of cyanide poisoning. By the time those second samples had
00:49:42
been taken, Mina's body had already been imbalmed. Jessica's defense team spoke to at least
00:49:49
two forensic pathologists who explained that the low levels of cyanide detected in Mina's stomach could have been
00:49:56
produced postmortem, possibly during the imbalming process. Because her family hadn't approved a
00:50:05
full autopsy, none of her organs, such as her brain, lungs, or heart had been tested.
00:50:11
And without these tests, the forensic pathologists said it couldn't be proven that Mina hadn't died from natural
00:50:19
causes. This was a huge piece of information for the defense. If Mina hadn't been
00:50:27
poisoned, it explained why Hanie and the cafe staff who tasted the iced coffee hadn't fallen sick despite the high
00:50:35
levels of cyanide found in the drink. As far as the defense was concerned, the only way to explain the lack of cyanide
00:50:44
in Mina's system was that the cyanide had been added to the drink after Mina drank it. [music]
00:50:58
By the time Jessica Wongo's highly anticipated trial for the murder of Mina Sali Hinn commenced in June 2016, it had
00:51:07
been dubbed Indonesia's trial of the century. In terms of public interest, it was
00:51:14
likened to the OJ Simpson murder trial in the United States with the topic of Jessica's possible guilt deemed a
00:51:21
national obsession. Camera crews filled the courthouse with three television stations set to [music]
00:51:28
broadcast a roundthe-clock live feed of the proceedings complete with commentaries.
00:51:35
Indonesia operates under a civil law system. In criminal trials, there is no jury. Instead, a team of public
00:51:44
prosecutors goes head-to-head with the defense team while a panel of three judges determines the fate of the
00:51:50
accused. The proceedings are inquisitorial in nature, meaning the judges are allowed
00:51:57
to question witnesses directly. They sit at the head of the room while witnesses sit alone in a chair in the
00:52:04
center of the court and the two legal teams are placed at either side. During opening arguments, the
00:52:12
prosecution team presented their theory that a jealous Jessica Wongo had been motivated to kill Mina Salah Hinn to
00:52:20
avenge the pain she felt over her breakup with Patrick O' Connor. They believed Jessica had arrived at Olivier
00:52:28
Cafe armed with the cyanide and intentionally chose a table out of view of the security cameras where she used
00:52:35
the three gift bags to further shield what she was about to do. Ordering the drinks before her friend's
00:52:43
arrival, she administered the cyanide behind the bags and then watched on with barely feigned concern as the poison
00:52:51
took its toll on Mina. The defense team argued there was no evidence to prove any such claims. One
00:53:00
of her lawyers stated, "It does not make sense that Jessica flew all the way from
00:53:06
Australia to Indonesia to murder Mina. It also does not make sense that Jessica would murder Mina because she had once
00:53:15
asked Jessica to end her relationship with her boyfriend at the time." Turning to the judges, he asked, "Why is
00:53:24
Jessica the only one suspected of murder when she did not do anything unusual and
00:53:29
nobody witnessed her putting cyanide into the coffee?" The defense said the possibility that
00:53:36
someone else was responsible for the poisoning couldn't be discounted. [music] A bartender from Olivia Cafe testified
00:53:44
to having poured Mina's iced coffee into an empty water bottle and handing it over to the police for testing.
00:53:51
While some staff members recalled that the glass had then been secured in cling wrap and handed to the police, too, the
00:53:58
bartender testified that he had returned the empty glass to the cafe pantry. Oto Hzibuan pointed out that the police
00:54:07
brief of evidence said that cyanide was found in the water bottle as well as the
00:54:12
coffee glass. If the bartender's testimony was correct, then what glass had police used
00:54:19
for testing? The police had also asked Olivier's manager to provide them with a glass of
00:54:26
Vietnamese iced coffee they could compare to Mina's drink as well as another empty water bottle that they
00:54:32
could pour the comparison beverage into. Therefore, if the bartender had misremembered, the police should have
00:54:40
had two glasses and two bottles. Yet, their brief of evidence inexplicably mentioned just [music] one bottle and
00:54:49
two glasses. Given these inconsistencies and the fact that no one else who tasted the drink
00:54:56
became severely ill, the defense said it couldn't be ruled out that either the cafe staff or the police could have
00:55:04
added the cyanide to the iced coffee after Mina drank it, but before it was tested.
00:55:12
This wasn't an outlandish allegation to make. The Indonesian legal system is notoriously corrupt with the judges and
00:55:20
prosecutors known to take bribes from people in positions of power. Rumors had circulated that Mina's father
00:55:28
could have worked with the police to secure a conviction against Jessica at any cost necessary.
00:55:34
Although there was absolutely no evidence to support such an allegation, talk of corruption had surrounded the
00:55:41
case from the very beginning. The defense also pointed out that Olivier's barista, Ranga Saputra, had
00:55:50
disposed of the hot water from the kettle that had been used to make Mina's iced coffee.
00:55:56
They suggested this could have been a deliberate move to ensure the water couldn't be tested for cyanide.
00:56:03
Lawyer Oto Hazaban claimed to have seen a police file with a confession from Ranga Saputra in which he admitted he
00:56:11
was hired to kill Mina, but that this file had mysteriously disappeared. Taking the witness stand, Ranga denied
00:56:20
having gotten rid of the hot water that had been used to make Min as iced coffee. He then changed his mind and
00:56:27
said he wasn't sure if he had. This [music] inconsistency raised some eyebrows about his credibility, but when
00:56:35
asked if he'd accepted any money from Mina's husband, Arif Samco, to commit the murder, Ranga vehemently denied it.
00:56:44
At the time of the trial, he was still employed at Olivier Cafe. If I received the money, I would have
00:56:51
quit my job, he stated. The prosecution said it didn't matter if the hot water used to make the iced
00:56:59
coffee had been disposed of. Experts testified that if the cyanide was put into hot water, the resulting steam
00:57:07
would have given off a strong smell of burnt almonds and in an enclosed space like the cafe. Others who inhaled the
00:57:15
steam would have also been poisoned. Given that no one else was affected, and even Jessica claimed that the coffee had
00:57:23
smelt normal, the cyanide had to have been put into the drink when it was already cold. And the only one who went
00:57:31
anywhere near the drink when it was cold was Jessica Arie. Samarco also rejected the
00:57:42
allegation that he'd conspired to have Mina killed, saying he'd never met Ranga Saputra before in his life. He testified
00:57:51
about how angry Jessica had been at Mina for suggesting [music] she break up with
00:57:55
her boyfriend and how this had led to Mina becoming afraid of Jessica's anger and not wanting to meet her alone.
00:58:03
Jessica's anger issues were further solidified by the comments she allegedly made to her former boss in Sydney,
00:58:10
Christy Carter. While Christy didn't give evidence, her statement detailing Jessica's suicide
00:58:17
attempts, [music] her threats to kill Christy and her mother, and her comments that she knew the right dosage to kill
00:58:24
someone [music] were read to the court. These comments appeared to lend further weight to testimony provided by several
00:58:32
psychologists who described Jessica as being intelligent and confident with a narcissistic personality and a huge
00:58:40
impulse to be at the center of attention. One clinical psychologist who had interviewed Jessica shortly after her
00:58:49
arrest said that she was calm in situations where she could anticipate what was coming next. But it was when
00:58:56
something unexpected happened that her emotions ignited. Having studied the CCTV footage from
00:59:03
Olivia Cafe, this psychologist believed that Jessica showed no signs of panic when Mina collapsed. Even when Jessica
00:59:13
walked over to fetch some water for Mina, she didn't hurry. A criminologist from the University of
00:59:20
Jakarta testified that he'd interviewed Jessica twice at the police station during which he'd used physomy, [music]
00:59:28
the practice of assessing a person's character based on their outer appearance. Studying Jessica's facial features and
00:59:36
expressions while they spoke, he determined that she had a narcissistic personality and a great desire to be
00:59:44
loved. While he didn't find her to have psychopath traits, he did find her to be
00:59:50
emotionally unstable, spiteful, and unable to tolerate criticism. A criminologist for the defense team
00:59:58
refuted that a criminologist has no place examining an individual's gestures without assistance from a psychologist.
01:00:07
She told the judges, "Physionomy is only used to describe potential offenses or people who have the potential to commit
01:00:16
a crime. It can't [music] be used to determine whether someone is guilty." But the major argument for Jessica's
01:00:25
innocence [music] stemmed from the results of the toxicology testing in which only small traces of cyanide were
01:00:32
detected in Mina's stomach several days after her death. The forensic pathologist who examined Mina's body
01:00:39
testified that her stomach and esophagus had turned black, which clearly indicated that she had been poisoned
01:00:46
using a very toxic substance. A police toxicology expert told the court that after his expert [music] team
01:00:54
conducted a series of tests, he had no doubt that Mina was killed by the cyanide.
01:01:02
But Dr. Ja Surya Admaher, a forensic pathologist from the University of Indonesia, testified for the defense
01:01:10
that [music] these traces of cyanide in Mina's stomach had probably come from the embalming chemicals that were used
01:01:16
to preserve her body. [music] and that there was nothing to disprove that Mina hadn't died from natural causes.
01:01:25
If you don't check all the organs, [music] you can't determine the cause of death, Dr. Admar stated to the court.
01:01:33
That's forensics dogma. [music] We wouldn't know whether Mina had a stroke, for example, unless you examined
01:01:40
her brain. Would the lungs be infected with certain diseases or not? Not to mention the heart. All of these are
01:01:49
potential causes of death. [music] Dr. Atmaha also said that one of the telltale signs of cyanide poisoning is a
01:01:58
red discoloration of the skin. When Mina was first brought into the morg, he said her skin was [music] blue.
01:02:07
However, once the news got out that she had died from cyanide poisoning, the photos circulated online [music] and her
01:02:14
skin was clearly red. The red tinged photos had been submitted to the court by Mina's father earlier
01:02:23
that day. According to Dr. Admar, those photos could have been easily altered, a claim
01:02:31
that caused commotion in the courtroom and provoked [music] Mina's father to stand up in shock and voice his outrage.
01:02:39
Two other forensic pathologists from Australia supported Dr. at Maja's testimony that the low levels of cyanide
01:02:47
found in Mina's stomach couldn't rule out the possibility that she had died from natural causes.
01:02:54
One said, "If you take the toxicology results as they are and the explanation that the very low level of the gastric
01:03:02
content was due to post-mortem changes, then it is impossible in my view to conclude that the death was due to
01:03:09
cyanide poisoning." The less than optimal quality autopsy has failed in its primary duty to the
01:03:17
deceased and her family, the accused, and the justice system, which is to provide as definitively as possible a
01:03:25
cause of death. Another stated plainly, "These toxicology results show there is no
01:03:33
evidence of cyanide ingestion." By the time Jessica Wongo took the stand in her own defense, the trial had gone
01:03:45
on for 3 and 1/2 months. Hearings had run from morning to night, with some going as late as 2:00 a.m.
01:03:54
While it had been an exhausting time for all involved, the defense's evidence appeared to be having an impact on
01:04:00
public perception. Jessica had gained more supporters with many viewing the trial as a farce in
01:04:08
which the prosecution was relying on flimsy and unreliable evidence. Others were more convinced of her guilt
01:04:15
than ever and resented [music] the defense team's decision to call upon Australian expert witnesses instead of
01:04:22
fellow Indonesians. One of the forensic pathologists was even arrested for misusing his tourist
01:04:29
visa to testify at the trial and deported to Australia. It was pointed out that nobody seemed to
01:04:36
care when this same pathologist had used a tourist visa when he'd been asked to help identify victims of the Bali
01:04:43
bombing terrorist attacks back in 2002. As Jessica took her seat in front of the
01:04:51
panel of judges, she maintained her trademark [music] calm and composed demeanor.
01:04:57
She denied that the conversation in which Mina had supposedly told her to break up with Patrick had ever even
01:05:03
happened, saying she hadn't ever told Mina anything about her relationship. "I just told Mina I was close with one
01:05:11
guy," she told the judges. "I didn't even tell her Patrick's name. One of the prosecutors asked, "How could
01:05:21
a reef know Patrick's name when you never told Mina about him?" Unfazed, Jessica told the judge he would
01:05:29
have to ask a reef that. She also said that 90% of the allegations made by her former boss,
01:05:37
Christy Carter, were untrue. Jessica dispelled the rumors that she was a lesbian, stating, "A lot of the
01:05:45
experts statements are untrue, and I want to say it firmly that I'm only interested in men in the past, now, and
01:05:53
in the future." Jessica said she hadn't lied when she told Mina's father that she had ordered
01:06:00
mineral water at the cafe that day. Mina had asked for some after tasting the bad
01:06:05
coffee, and CCTV footage captured Jessica going to get it for her. It just wasn't noted on their bill. She also
01:06:14
rejected the claims that Mina was reluctant or scared to meet with her alone, saying it was Mina who had
01:06:21
initiated several of their catch-ups in Sydney. Some compared Jessica's calm demeanor to
01:06:28
that of Amanda Knox, an American woman who was wrongfully convicted of murdering her housemate Meredith
01:06:34
Kercher, as covered in episode 270 of Case File. Instead of appearing nervous or
01:06:41
intimidated, some thought Jessica was mocking the prosecutors. When one of them asked her whether
01:06:48
Vietnamese iced coffee is served hot or cold, Jessica asked sarcastically, "Well, what do you think?"
01:06:58
A moment that went viral on social media. Her attitude while giving her testimony
01:07:04
only divided members of the public further. As Johannes Negro explained in his article for foreign policy, while
01:07:13
Jessica's sometimes contemptuous demeanor in court may have won hearts among the middle class, it could only
01:07:20
aggravate her image with those prejudiced against her from the outset. Jessica told the judges she was being
01:07:29
vilified by the prosecutors and the press, who had made her entire personal life a topic of discussion. [music]
01:07:36
If she acted calm, she was interpreted as being a cold-blooded murderer. But if she cried or showed emotion, that was
01:07:44
criticized, too. "Whatever I do is wrong," Jessica [music] said. In closing arguments, prosecutors
01:07:57
demanded that Jessica be given a 20-year sentence for the sorrow she had caused Mina's loved ones. They called her
01:08:05
sadistic and cruel to have intentionally killed her friend in a way that would have caused great pain and pointed out
01:08:12
that she had shown no remorse. The defense counted that Jessica had shown no remorse because she had not
01:08:20
committed the crime. After almost 5 months of hearings on Thursday, October 27, 2016, [music] the
01:08:29
judges delivered their verdict. They concluded there were only three parties that could have possibly put the
01:08:36
cyanide in Mina's drink. Olivia's staff, [music] the police, or Jessica Wongo. They ruled out the cafe staff on the
01:08:46
basis that the iced coffee had looked completely normal in the CCTV [music] footage and that no other patrons in the
01:08:53
cafe had smelt burned almonds or collapsed, supporting the notion that the cyanide had [music] been put in the
01:09:00
coffee after it was already cold. Furthermore, the judges believed it was logical to assume that a guilty staff
01:09:08
member would have immediately disposed of any evidence rather than handing it over to the police.
01:09:15
The fact that Mina had complained about the taste of the coffee and waved her hand in front of her mouth after
01:09:21
drinking it, [music] coupled with the fact that Hanie and at least two staff members tasted the coffee and noted it
01:09:27
as foul, [music] meant the cyanide was in there before the police arrived. This [music] proved to the judges that
01:09:35
the police had not tampered with the evidence or added the cyanide to the coffee after confiscating it. With the
01:09:42
cafe staff and police ruled out, that just left one explanation. Jessica Wongo was the one who ordered
01:09:52
the iced coffee. [music] She was the one who placed the gift bags on the table to
01:09:57
obscure the view of the cameras. and she was the only one who had access to the beverage before Mina drank it.
01:10:05
For the premeditated murder of Mina Sally Hinn, [music] the judges found Jessica Wongo guilty and sentenced her
01:10:12
to 20 years in prison. Mina's loved ones broke down in tears [music] of relief while Jessica
01:10:20
maintained her composure. She looked at the judge and said, "Thank you, your honor. I don't accept the
01:10:28
verdict. Her lawyer, Oto Hazaban, was shaken, he told the court. Because the judge's decision is unfair,
01:10:40
biased, [music] and definitely not according to the law, this trial has sounded the death nail for justice. As a
01:10:47
result, we firmly announced that we'll file an appeal. With that, a round of applause and
01:10:55
cheering erupted. Outside court, Mina's father told reporters that even though he hoped
01:11:02
Jessica would get the death sentence, he respected the judge's decision. [music]
01:11:08
The most important thing is that it has been proven that Jessica has killed Mina, [music] he said.
01:11:16
Jessica's legal team immediately filed an appeal, arguing that the judges had ignored key evidence that cast
01:11:23
significant doubt on whether Mina had actually died from cyanide poisoning, and if she had, whether Jessica was the
01:11:31
perpetrator. They argued that the testimony from Jessica's former boss and the CCTV
01:11:38
footage taken from Olivier Cafe should never have been admitted in court. The prosecution hadn't aired the
01:11:46
original footage, only a police copy, and the original had never been given to the defense.
01:11:54
They argued that the footage could have been tampered with or certain frames could have been deleted.
01:12:04
Jessica's appeal was rejected by both the High Court and the Supreme Court, sparking further debate about whether or
01:12:11
not she had received a fair trial. Many believed that the judges had made their minds up about her guilt from the
01:12:19
very beginning and were too quick to believe the prosecution's version of events without adequate evidence to
01:12:26
support it. One of the trial judges even said so in an interview with Tempo magazine just [music] days after the
01:12:33
verdict was delivered. For me, this case was very simple. He said, "The relationship between the
01:12:42
defendant and the victim was very close. A person who poisons another person is acquainted with that person.
01:12:51
Just look at it from when Jessica came until she ordered a drink. That's the extent of it. The poison was
01:12:59
put in when the drink was cold. If cyanide is put into hot water, everyone around would have been poisoned by
01:13:07
inhaling the steam. It is as simple as that. Simon But is a professor of Indonesian
01:13:15
law at the University of Sydney Law School. After examining the case against Jessica
01:13:22
Wongo in detail, he concluded that her trial was not fair based on the [music] standards of the Indonesian legal
01:13:28
system. He found that police had interrogated Jessica without a lawyer present, searched her parents' house without a
01:13:36
warrant, detained her without reasonable cause, failed to order a full autopsy to
01:13:42
establish Mina's cause of death, and mishandled, perhaps even contaminated the coffee they claimed killed Mina.
01:13:52
In the new criminal law review, Professor Simon But wrote that procedural irregularities and legal
01:13:59
mistakes plagued Wongo's case from the very beginning. He argued that the prosecution fell well
01:14:07
short of meeting the evidentary standard. While the court paid insufficient, arguably no regard to the
01:14:14
defense, he suggested the judges may have been swayed to convict due to public pressure. noting they swallowed
01:14:22
the prosecution's case and drew strange conclusions from Wongo's demeanor [music] without properly addressing
01:14:30
significant holes in the evidence. Rejecting the possibility of natural causes, the court instead relied on
01:14:38
process of elimination reasoning. In 2023, Netflix released a documentary on the contentious case titled Ice Cold,
01:14:49
Murder, Coffee, and Jessica Wongo, which featured exclusive interviews with several important figures, including
01:14:57
Mina's father and lawyers from both the prosecution and defense teams. The highly anticipated film propelled
01:15:05
the case back into the spotlight and gained international attention, leading to renewed discussion about whether or
01:15:12
not Jessica Wongo had been wrongfully convicted. The film put Jessica in a sympathetic
01:15:18
light, leading to a shift in public opinion [music] despite criticism about its lack of journalistic rigor and
01:15:25
balance, with some critics labeling the documentary as sensationalistic. The following year in August 2024,
01:15:34
Jessica was granted parole, having served just 8 years of her 20-year sentence. Officials said their decision had
01:15:43
nothing to do with the Netflix documentary, but was based on Jessica's good behavior, which included her
01:15:49
teaching English and yoga to other prisoners. The now 36-year-old walked straight into
01:15:56
a press conference saying she didn't have anything planned for her release, but she had forgiven everyone who
01:16:02
wronged her. In May 2025, Jessica agreed to participate in an exclusive interview
01:16:12
with Australian journalist Liam Bartlett for Channel 7's Spotlight program. It was a highly anticipated interview that
01:16:20
attracted millions of viewers. As had become her trademark, Jessica didn't appear at all ruffled by any of Liam's
01:16:28
direct questions [music] and was able to laugh off or explain away any uncomfortable moments.
01:16:35
She also appeared to have backtracked on her claims about her friendship with Mina, [music] saying, "We weren't close
01:16:42
at all. It was because we came from [music] the same country that was why we kind of like know each other. We weren't
01:16:50
best friends or anything. Jessica told Liam she never scoped out Olivia Cafe for security cameras and
01:16:58
that if the footage made it appear that way, it was only because she was looking
01:17:03
around at the place and people. As for the gift bags that she moved around the table, Jessica [music] smiled
01:17:10
as she said, "That's just me being me, you know, being bored. It really doesn't mean anything at all."
01:17:19
She said the fact that the bags shielded the drinks from the security cameras was
01:17:24
a pure coincidence. Liam asked Jessica why she was scratching her hands on the CCTV footage
01:17:32
while Mina was getting first aid. Jessica explained it as a habit of hers, stating, "It's not because it's itchy or
01:17:40
something from poison or something like that." Liam jumped in. "I'm not saying that," he clarified. "You made [music]
01:17:48
the suggestion. I'm just saying you're standing there scratching your hands, but you're not helping."
01:17:55
It was yet another awkward moment that Jessica managed to brush off. She said she had never heard of Cyanide before
01:18:03
Mia's death, [music] prompting Liam to point out it was therefore strange that she had contacted Mina's twin sister the
01:18:10
day after Mina died and asked about the results of the toxicology tests. Jessica [music] explained she knew that
01:18:18
samples had been taken and she was simply curious to know how Mina had [music] died. As for the restraining
01:18:24
order her ex-boyfriend Patrick had taken out against her, Jessica said the story
01:18:29
was [music] complicated and not like it sounds. Explaining the relationship was kind of like toxic
01:18:37
in a way. We didn't really see eye to eye on a lot of things. Jessica said she had no idea why people
01:18:46
said that Mina was afraid to be alone around her. asked if she had the potential to be violent. Jessica laughed
01:18:54
and said, "No, of course not. What would I do?" Liam told Jessica he wondered why she
01:19:02
didn't get an invite to Mina and Arif's wedding. She began to stammer, saying, "Because I was in Australia. I couldn't
01:19:12
be bothered to like [music] fly over just to attend their wedding." Liam pressed on, saying, "But you didn't
01:19:20
get that choice, did you? [music] She didn't invite you." Jessica looked stunned, pausing for a
01:19:27
moment before saying, "I can't remember. Didn't she invite me? I can't even remember."
01:19:36
She burst into giggles when Liam asked her about the time she drove her car into the nursing home.
01:19:42
When he said she was lucky that she didn't die, [music] Jessica responded, "Yeah, do you think I'm lucky? After
01:19:50
everything I've been through, you think I'm [music] lucky?" Jessica Wongo will be held on parole in
01:20:00
Jakarta until 2032. [music] She maintains her innocence in Mina's murder and has filed a judicial review
01:20:08
against her conviction in the hopes that she will be officially exonerated from the crime. In the meantime, Spotlight
01:20:15
reported that she is trying to make a living as an influencer with brand deals coming in from beauty, food, [music] and
01:20:21
tech companies. Indonesia's largest coffee chain, Canang Coffee, has even reached out to her
01:20:28
about collaborating with them. Jessica told Liam Bartlett she couldn't imagine working a regular office job
01:20:36
after everything that she'd been through. When he quipped that no one would trust her to do the coffee run,
01:20:43
[music] she laughed heartily. The question of whether or not Jessica Wongo is guilty of murdering Mina Sally
01:20:51
Hinn is still debated almost a decade later. Professor Simon But stated in his journal article, "Whether she is guilty
01:21:01
or innocent, Wongo should not have been convicted. As has been shown, her trial was unfair, as was her treatment by
01:21:10
police." Wongo's case illustrates that Indonesia's laws of criminal procedure require an urgent overhaul to better
01:21:18
protect the rights of suspects and defendants. Though [music] this is unlikely in the foreseeable future,
01:21:26
some view Jessica as an innocent [music] victim of Indonesia's broken justice system, while others see her as a
01:21:33
cold-blooded and manipulative killer masquerading [music] as the victim. Indonesian news presenter Timothy Marun,
01:21:41
who hosted a daily show covering [music] Jessica's trial for the Compass TV Network, likened Jessica to a villain
01:21:48
from a film. [music] He told Australia's 60 Minutes, "When you watch a movie, when the
01:21:56
villain is that good, you don't even want them to die." Mina Selihinn's loved ones have never
01:22:04
swayed from their belief that Jessica was [music] responsible for Mina's death. Her father, Eddie Sully Hinn,
01:22:12
told Netflix he is a million% sure that Jessica is guilty, saying, "Deep inside her, something is evil."
01:22:23
Mina's [music] twin sister, Sandy, moved to the German countryside with her husband to distance herself from the
01:22:30
case and [music] find some peace. Mina's husband, Arief Samco, has remarried and no longer publicly
01:22:38
discusses [music] the case. However, back in 2016, when Jessica's trial was underway, he fondly told reporters how
01:22:47
he had first met Mina in 2006. They got to know each other over the course of the year before they started
01:22:55
dating. Arie cried as he recalled how happy he'd been during their courtship, saying,
01:23:01
[music] "I was so happy to meet Mina. She changed my life so much. She also introduced me to God. She was kind to
01:23:12
everyone. She didn't discriminate [music] and she treated everyone equally." He proudly recalled watching Mina in the
01:23:20
leadup to their wedding in awe of her creativity as she designed the [music] small details of their wedding
01:23:26
decorations. A reef told reporters that [music] despite the public focus on Jessica,
01:23:33
quote, "When people follow the case, I always think of [music] Mina. >> [music]