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Sweetened, Condensed Poison — The Case of Mirna Salihin
A vengeful best friend spiked her drink and became infamous
Sipping her drink, Mirna Salihin had decided to see her somewhat-estranged friend, Jessica Wongso, at the Olivier Café in Jakarta, Indonesia. Going with her other companion, a woman named Hani Juwita Boon, she sat at the Swiss restaurant in an upmarket shopping center called Grand Indonesia Mall.
Almost instantly, the reunion was short-lived, because Salihin’s head rolled back against the seat, desperate fanning motions of her hand an indication that the foul-tasting Vietnamese iced coffee plunged her into a catatonic state. Between seizures, the employees and customers panicked.
“What did you put in her coffee that made her like this?” Wongso accused the manager, even though the staff thought Salihin suffered from epilepsy rather than a deliberate act of poisoning. Taken immediately to a nearby hospital, she died.
At Olivier, that manager kept the drink, her suspicions raised.
Later, the cup was revealed to have been lethally dosed with cyanide.
Born Wayan Mirna Salihin, the deceased woman, 27, attended Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney, Australia, with Wongso. The two shared friends, majors, and being the children of Indonesia’s wealthy elite, but they had grown apart considerably after graduation. Wongso became an Australian permanent resident while retaining her homeland’s citizenship, and Salihin went home with longtime boyfriend Arief Soemarko.
Then, Salihin returned to Sydney and met with Wongso, supposedly “clashing” when the former gave up-front advice to break up with her boyfriend, Patrick O’Connor. Salihin reportedly stated that Wongso had left the meeting abruptly, and she was afraid of her moving forward because of the other’s negative reaction to her suggestion. When Salihin eventually married her fiancé, they did not invite Wongso to the wedding.
The avoidance did not last forever, though, and the newly married woman agreed to meet her friend for coffee, but only with another person around. Boon came along for support.
On January 6, 2016, Wongso texted her friends wanting to pre-order drinks for them, and when…
