Neighbors Who See Stabbing Kick Ass
Chemist Tianle Li Poisons Her Husband to Death With Highly Toxic Metal
Friday, February 11, 2011 at 2:40 pm
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Tianle Li and hubby Xiaoye Wang were living the sweet yuppie life in Monroe Township, New Jersey. Xiaoye Wang was a software engineer. She was a chemist for Bristol-Myers Squibb. But they apparently didn't get along. They'd had a series of domestic beefs going back to 2009.
And they'd recently decided to get a divorce.
But Li seemed to think that she didn't just want Wang gone. She thought it would be a much better idea to make him dead.
So she got a hold of some thallium, a highly toxic metal, presumably from her job. Then she began poisoning him in December and January. Wang finally went to a hospital at Princeton on January 11, feeling as if he had something like the flu.
He would remain there for 11 days, undergoing a series of test to see what was wrong with him. It wasn't until January 25 that doctors finally discovered he'd been poisoned. But it was too late to save him. He died the next day.
Now Li has been charged with murder for systemically poisoning him. She's also charged with hindering for lying to detectives. A judge seems to believe she's a danger to the public. Her bail has been set at a whopping $4.15 million.
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| Tianle Li's husband died an anguishing death from poisoning |
It would take doctors 11 days to finally figure out that he'd been poisoned by thallium. The problem was that there's only one known antidote for such a rare affliction. It's called Prussian Blue, and it's only manufactured by one company in the U.S.
Steven Marcus, the director of New Jersey Poison Control, began looking for it at 9 p.m. on January 25. He first called the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, knowing they had the antidote on hand. But Tennessee was in the midst of a snow storm. And it would be difficult to get it to New Jersey in time to save Wang.
So Marcus kept on calling, but kept coming up empty. By the next morning, they decided to find a non-medical version of the antidote, which is used to dye clothes. But they had no idea how it would work, or even how much to give Wang. When they administered it, he showed no signs of improvement.
They finally found a medical version of Prussian Blue in Albany, but it would take five hours to deliver it by car. When it finally arrived at Princeton, Wang was already near death. There was nothing doctors could do to help him.
He died at 3 p.m. on January 26, as doctors and detectives watched helplessly.
See our last story from the Homicide file: Braylon Rogers and Columbus Jones Gun Down 12 at Youngstown State Frat Party.
Tags: New Jersey
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