This is part two of the audio podcast for the case of the Google software engineers.
If you haven't listened to part one, please go listen.
Part one, we covered a lot of ground.
There are two Google software engineers, Tony and Ivy.
They're a married couple.
They both immigrated from China.
They went to the top school in China.
They go to UC San Diego for their master's degree in computer science.
And then they both end up as Google software engineers, each making two to three hundred thousand dollars a year in total compensation.
They can afford a two million dollar house in San Francisco.
They're 20 minutes away from the Google campus and what appears to be a very aspirational life between two 27 year olds.
Turns out just to be the worst case scenario for Ivy, the wife.
She starts going through her husband's devices and she finds a Google document that he has where he is using this Google Doc to cheat on his wife with his ex-girlfriend, his first love high school girlfriend. on and off high school college girlfriend for months.
He even secretly meets up with her around their wedding anniversary.
And there's messages talking about how he wished he could have married her instead, how he wanted to buy a house with her before he married Ivy, and she rejected his request.
So that's the only reason he married Ivy.
There's all of these conversations.
Ivy sees that Google document and she leaves a comment with her Google account which reads I hate you.
I hate all of you.
And within a few weeks, by the end of that week, she is found dead in their shared home in San Francisco.
And Tony is found In a what has been described by authorities as a catatonic state covered in his wife's blood, and he refuses to talk about what he did and why he did it until he's taken to trial, which is what we're going to cover in part two.
The whole time during Tony and Ivy's marriage, he's obsessed with the idea that she's just not good enough for him.
And it's really bizarre.
Like he talks to his friends about how Ivy does not make as much as him.
He also talks about how Ivy doesn't make as much as some of his friends' wives.
But the only reason that she's not even making as much as his friend's wives is because she moved to Google instead of staying at Amazon, where she was up for that promotion.
And Google engineers, they're ranked from L3 to L10.
So like.
Ivy was an L3.
Tony was an L4 engineer.
L10 is the highest.
Yeah.
So he's not even like an L9 and she's an L3.
And total comp for an L3 engineer is still probably around like $220,000 a year.
L4 is around $312,000 a year.
So it's not like he's making, I mean, it is a lot of money.
But it's not enough to be like, we're just getting by.
You need to make more money.
It doesn't make any sense.
A mutual friend of theirs says whenever Tony would say those things to Ivy, she would just be down.
And you could tell.
It's not like she would have an outburst.
She never lashed out, which nobody would be upset with her if she did.
But she just would feel really hopeless is the feeling.
Ivy's friend Wong and Wong's husband know all of this.
So the morning after the most uncomfortable dinner, Wong and her husband are both texting and calling both Tony and Ivy.
Like hey, last night was awkward, but like are you okay?
Hello?
They're getting no response.
And it's making Wong really uncomfortable.
I mean, they clearly feel so uncomfortable that she's like, get up like we're going to go.
We're going to go drive to their house again and see if they're OK.
So this is like the second time in less than 24 hours.
They're like I'm going to go to her house and we're going to see what's going on when they get there.
It's the same as last night.
So Tony and Ivy's cars are parked outside in the driveway and they go to ring the doorbell.
Nobody is answering.
Wong is like pushing her face up against the window and she feels like she sees a figure inside, but they're not moving.
So she's like it seems like a shadow, it seems like the shadow of a person, but they're so immobile.
She's like i don't know what that is and i i was just inside that house.
I don't think that they had a random piece of furniture that looks like that in there but She's so confused.
She doesn't know what to do.
And so she does something that is, I do have to note.
I think a lot of traditionally Chinese people are not the quickest to call the police.
I think they're not the quickest to escalate.
Right.
But I think that goes to show like Wong is feeling very uncomfortable.
She's like, no, this is not just me seeing like a figure in the window and I'm like hallucinating.
She's like, something's weird.
And she's, I think the reason that, OK, this is like some nuance in context.
I'm not saying that this is what I would do or you should do in this situation.
But I think for these types of friend groups, when they're all in tech and they all have these very prestigious jobs, to call the police and to cause a commotion.
Do you know if they're citizens or they're with?
They're not.
They're all with an HB1 visa.
Right.
So involving any legal system will be very complicated.
Yeah.
And then imagine like the police show up and your friends are fine.
It's almost like, okay, I'm so sorry.
It was so dramatic.
And I think most friends would be okay with it.
I think Ivy would have been fine with it, but it's just.
It takes a lot to call the police in this type of situation.
And Wong is like, no, I need to call the police.
Like something is weird.
And I'm telling you something is weird.
But she doesn't know what she's seeing.
Like you say she sees a figure or see something.
She thought she saw a figure.
It's unclear.
And she's like, but I just feel like somebody's inside.
But they're not getting the door and their cars are outside.
And I thought I saw a figure, but it was very immobile.
So it's not moving.
So I'm like, I can't tell you it's one of them, but I feel like somebody's inside the house.
So like, why would they not open the door if somebody's inside the house?
And even last night after their fight, they opened the door.
So it's not like they're not going to open the door and be like, hey, why are you here?
We're fighting.
Don't come unannounced.
At least Ivy would open the door and be like, not right now.
Let me call you later.
But nobody's opening the door.
She calls the police.
Police come.
They're searching through and they're like going through the house.
They're doing a sweep because it's a wellness check.
So they're, you know, searching around the perimeter of the house first.
They walk to the backyard and they also see a figure.
So they're like, OK, something's a little strange.
But let's break through the back door on the main floor.
Yeah.
They see like movement.
Oh, so they're like, OK, this is weird.
Let's kick in the back door.
And then they don't see that movement anymore on the first floor.
They go up to the second floor and they see Tony on his knees covered in blood.
Like I feel like covered is a word that gets thrown around in a lot of cases, but he was like drenched in blood.
The whole room was drenched in blood.
This house was dubbed the murder house in the Bay Area because that whole room, the carpets, the walls, everything had blood splatter everywhere.
And to a degree where it almost doesn't make sense The way that the police describe it.
It almost seems like how can there be that much blood?
And he's on his knees and he is he's got his hands in the air and he's just staring at Ivy's body.
Ivy is laying on the ground next to him and she is.
She has, like dried, matted blood all over her face.
Her face is unrecognizable.
And it's, I think, the part that was the most alarming for authorities is her face is not unrecognizable through.
Typically, bullet wounds will make a face unrecognizable.
There's no gun involved.
There's no knife involved.
There's no weapon involved.
Tony had punched his wife to death with his bare hands.
And she's unrecognizable from the force of his punching.
He punched her repeatedly until she died and when she, when she was gone and he was sure that she's dead, he continues punching her two months before ivy's murder.
Tony has a lunch date at google Gula, has those cafeterias and he's going to be meeting his white rose, his ex-girlfriend Jang.
The ex-girlfriend
She's visiting from Seattle which, like I said, she works at Waymo, and She just ended her engagement to her fiance, who worked at Google DeepMind.
She's technically single, but she knows that Tony is married to Ivy.
She knows this.
This is not like up for debate.
He's not like, oh, we're separated right now.
She knows that he is actively married.
And during this Google cafeteria date where Tony works at Google.
Is she here for a work trip or personal trip?
Personal trip for her birthday.
Oh so she's like i'm gonna go to california for my birthday because i want to see a concert.
And he's like hey, you should come to the fucking google cafeteria and meet me for lunch.
This is where Tony works.
This is where his wife Ivy works.
And he's just meeting up with his ex-girlfriend, eating lunch.
It's audacious.
It's ballsy.
It's likely the two of them are sitting there reminiscing about their past.
I mean, there's got to be people who know both of them, who are like hey, I don't know why your husband's having lunch with some random girl in the cafeteria.
That's crazy.
What made him feel so ballsy of doing that?
There are multiple speculations.
One, I think that he just genuinely does not care about his wife.
Second, I think that he was worried that if he left Google campus to go meet Jang, the ex-girlfriend Ivy would have found out.
Maybe they have find my location on maybe something like that.
And then third, he's still trying to convince Jang, the ex-girlfriend, to transfer to SF, to join Google.
He's like, I'll refer you.
He keeps trying to in the Google Doc.
He's like, I can get you a referral.
I can get you a job.
Why work at Waymo when you can come work here?
So this is like him showing her the work environment.
Yeah.
And they're reminiscing about their past, which their past relationship is just... It's okay.
I mean, they both started dating in high school at Chengdu No.
7 High School.
They both get into Tsinghua University.
But Jiang, the ex-girlfriend, is the type where she just seems like she really likes breaking up with him because he's obsessed with her.
So she doesn't really...
And I mean this with as much disrespect as I could probably have for this type of situation.
She seems like the type of girl that will break up with him because she knows that he's always going to be around.
But the minute that he starts loosening his obsession with her or starts dating somebody else, she starts going in and feeding him.
Some attention brings him back, and then she pulls away.
And then the minute that he starts diverting his attention, she goes back and says some things.
That's the energy that she gives me.
And honestly, she is kind of a bitch, even the way that she testifies.
I don't think she's the villain in this story because ultimately, at the end of the day, Tony is the villain in this story.
But She's also like, everyone is like, she's crazy.
Yeah.
For her to show up in even at the Google cafeteria, knowing that, you know, his wife works here too.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Even if you, you know, like she knows what's going to happen if the wife walks in.
And she's.
She is the type that she kind of is just keeping Tony around because he might be her best bet.
So she's back because her best, best bet ended up getting arrested for soliciting sex workers at the massage parlor.
So the way that it happened was she just keeps breaking up with him all throughout high school and college.
Then Tony and Ivy go to UC San Diego.
She goes to Carnegie Mellon for her master's.
So they all come to the US around the same time, but they're in different areas.
So she's at Carnegie Mellon, she's in Pennsylvania, and then he's in California.
Naturally, they're not keeping in touch as frequently, but she'll reach out when she feels like he's not reaching out.
But then she meets her fiancé.
Better background than Tony's.
Wealthier family than Tony's.
He got sent to this international school that would cost his family 400000 to get his undergrad degree.
What kind of school is that?
It was like a whatever school.
Oh, so they just cash in?
Yeah, just throwing money.
Okay.
And so she starts dating him.
Tony finds out that she's dating a guy that is above his caliber.
And he almost forces himself to move on.
And he immediately starts dating Ivy.
And a lot of people think that the relationship escalated so quickly.
Nobody said it, but they felt like he was using Ivy to try to make Jiang, the ex-girlfriend jealous, trying to comfort himself.
It just felt like a rebound situation, but nobody would question it.
So Tony is the one that actually pursues Ivy aggressively at UC San Diego.
And the whole time, he's still kind of talking to Jiang, the ex-girlfriend.
Eventually they go to SF.
Jang the ex-girlfriend and her fiance go to seattle.
And again, i just want to reiterate, all four of them work at alphabet and this is really important later because tony has a full-blown meltdown about all of this.
So all of them technically work for the same parent company, even though they're in different cities and they work for different companies.
Now tony and ivy get married.
Tony explains to jang the ex-girlfriend it's mainly because Quote the girl wants to get married.
So he's like, I don't even really.
And then you don't want to get married and the girl wants to get married.
So I'm just going to get married.
They get married.
They purchase a house, putting five hundred thousand dollars down.
They finance the rest through a mortgage.
They get two cats and young.
The ex-girlfriend in Seattle gets engaged.
Then they start reminiscing here and there about their relationship.
She breaks the engagement because her fiance gets arrested.
Then she comes up with this whole Google doc, sends it to him.
And then after they've been talking for like a month on the Google doc, this is October, 2023.
She starts being like, you know what?
I am going to make a trip to California for my birthday, which is in November.
And I'm going to go there for a concert.
And if you want to meet up with me, Then let's meet up.
Wait, so she sent this Google Doc to him.
Yes.
Instead of texting him or emailing him.
And then, you know, it's very clear they're secretly chatting.
Yeah.
And she reached out secretly to chat.
Yeah.
And a Google Doc is crazy.
Like if you want to say send a goodbye message, convert it to a PDF.
Email it.
Mail a letter.
Why are you sharing a Google Doc?
Yeah.
It's so bizarre.
Yeah.
And even if I get a Google Doc, I don't think about talking to someone's Google Doc.
I would just text them and be like, okay, that was weird.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So they start texting during this Google Doc.
And a month later, a month in in November, during Tony and Ivy's wedding anniversary Jiang, the ex-girlfriend, travels to California to attend this concert for her birthday.
Before leaving Seattle, she makes plans to see Tony while she's in California.
And she admits the whole reason of wanting to even go to California to this specific concert was because she wanted to see Tony.
She says that straight up.
And that's how she ends up at the Google cafeteria eating lunch with her high school college ex-boyfriend.
Two days later, when Jang, the ex-girlfriend, is going to fly back home to Seattle, they meet once again and he offers to drive her to the airport.
She's like, OK, fine.
So he drives her to the airport and he wants to say goodbye.
Jang, the ex-girlfriend concocts a story that nobody believes on the witness stand when she testifies later and she says that he kissed her on the cheek and she felt it was very uncomfortable.
She did not consent to that.
What yeah?
But then later stories come out from airport like an airport worker who was like no, i remember that couple and they were just like lingering the whole time, just like hanging out lingering.
So they're just saying I mean, maybe she didn't consent to a kiss on the cheek, but it just like the whole energy was weird.
Like they were all over each other kind of vibe.
You did so much worse than that kiss, I feel like.
So he kisses her on the cheek and it was just she claims it was not OK.
And she was just utterly surprised by it.
They part ways and it feels like Tony doesn't even care about Ivy finding out because She does not express to him in that moment when he kisses her on the cheek like that was not OK.
That was uncomfortable.
You shouldn't have done that.
And again, this is not me saying like, oh, this was consensual.
It's just weird.
It's weird.
The airport employee is like, what are you talking about?
Like you guys were kind of all right.
But like, you know what?
Whatever.
And she's like, no, I was highly uncomfortable.
And there's a lot of reasons that she might want to say this in the courthouse.
Anyway, she says she doesn't tell him at the airport that that made her uncomfortable.
So she just like leaves.
He's under the impression things went really well because he kissed her on the cheek.
They hung out.
They spent time together.
He goes back home.
He doesn't even seem stressed about the idea that his wife is going to find out that he was just at the airport, even though it's around their second year anniversary.
He's busy with his ex-girlfriend.
And also, the timing itself does not seem coincidental.
Jung, the ex-girlfriend, came to California for a concert for her birthday.
Her birthday is November 21st.
Tony and Ivy got married November 22nd.
A lot of people think that Tony intentionally timed the wedding to coincide with Jang, the ex-girlfriend's birthday.
So she would always have to think about him and his marriage during her birthday.
Yeah, I can see that.
Yeah.
Just the way that he's so obsessed over her.
Yeah.
When Tony gets back home from the airport, Ivy is waiting for him.
She saw his location at the airport and she knew from social media that Jang, the ex-girlfriend, was in town.
Tony was at the airport.
She's putting it together pretty quickly.
She's a very intelligent woman and that tells her all she needs to know.
But she's very pissed off about the fact that when he walks in coming back from the airport like she's already upset.
He walks in wearing the jacket that she bought him, ivy.
So ivy had bought tony a jacket and he wore it to drop off his ex-girlfriend at the airport.
They start arguing.
She suggests like why don't we just get a divorce?
Like we're literally tormenting each other.
It doesn't even make sense.
If you love your ex-girlfriend so much, go be with her, don't involve me.
And she had disclosed a lot of this information to her friend wong.
So she's like I just genuinely don't get it.
Like, why are you involving me?
Because this is happening in November.
So this is two months before her death.
She's like, I don't know why you have to involve me.
Just go be with her.
Like why sneak around?
Go be with the love of your life.
I don't care.
Like, let's get a divorce.
So Tony's like, okay, yeah, that's exactly what I want to do.
Except, within a few hours into their fight, Tony gets a message from Jang, the ex-girlfriend, where she lands in Seattle.
And she's like, hey, by the way, I was really uncomfortable about that airport kiss.
And like, I never want to see you again.
What?
I don't know.
Tony realizes that he can no longer get back together with Jang the ex-girlfriend.
His only option in his mind is now to grovel and beg for Ivy to come back.
I don't know why being single is not an option.
I don't know why he has to terrorize Ivy.
I don't know.
He's just not the type to break up with someone and do something as big as separate their assets, sell the house.
He likes to have a bigger exit plan is how people describe him.
It seems like he's only willing to divorce Ivy if that means he's gonna- Yeah.
And he's gonna get something out of the divorce.
Right.
Which is-
Maybe the ex-girlfriend.
He gets to marry her.
But he starts making up excuses about how this airport was the last true goodbye.
Like him saying goodbye one last time.
They will never ever be in each other's lives again.
He like just wanted to get closure from his ex-girlfriend.
He omits.
He never mentions this kiss.
Never mentions it.
Or the fact that Jang, the ex-girlfriend, was like, I never want to see you again.
He never mentions it.
He was like, I just dropped her off at the airport so we could get final closure.
And Ivy decides that she is going to forgive him one last time.
So for the next few months they continue posting regularly on their cat's Instagram page, showing a very cute home life, at least from the outside perspective.
They're watching TV, cooking.
Tony is wearing his wedding ring in the pictures.
Everything appears to be normal, except Tony starts feeling this really extreme pressure and paranoia at work.
So apparently he made this mistake and his manager has been micromanaging him since.
On top of that, this is right around the time where every tech company is just doing massive layoffs.
I will say that neither the department that Tony nor Ivy worked in were experiencing any layoffs.
So he just seemed very paranoid and unstable.
You think the fact that Jang rejected him played a big role in his?
Yes.
And he starts feeling this paranoia, that Jang, the ex girlfriend, is going to report him for an hr violation to the, because they all work under the same parent company and that's why it's very important, i guess, like this was a huge thought in his mind.
So i guess, if Maybe Jung had worked for Meta or Amazon,
He wouldn't have cared as much.
But he's saying we all work under the same parent company and all she has to do is put in a complaint.
Where did this thought come from?
He just had this thought.
And how do we know this?
He eventually confesses to Ivy because he's so paranoid that he's gonna get an HR violation and get fired because he kissed her on the cheek and that she's going to report him for it and get him fired.
He tells her in January.
I've been so stressed because this is what happened at the airport goodbye.
I kissed her on the cheek and now I'm scared.
That is really odd.
Yeah, so for two months.
I don't know if I don't want to say anything accusatory, but like maybe Jung mentioned it.
Maybe he or maybe she's kind of has the personality where she might do something like that.
I don't know.
Okay.
Yeah.
And there was a lot of like conversation of, because we work all under the same parent company, it's going to be a lot more serious.
Versus like if she worked at Meta and was like hey, this guy that works at Google kissed me on the cheek and I didn't want it.
It's not that big of a deal.
I say it's not that big of a deal in terms of I don't think a massive corporation is going to say you know what?
I'm going to fucking fire you.
So he's like oh, this is, this is a huge.
I mean, imagine a colleague kisses you on the cheek without your consent.
Like, that's huge.
So he starts having this paranoia and he's freaking out about it.
He finally discloses it to Ivy in January.
And she's like, OK, like, that's honestly my last straw.
I want out.
She starts digging and she finds the Google Doc.
So you're saying they indeed stopped talking after that trip.
Yeah.
OK.
Or at least.
Not in a good way.
Like maybe there were messages of like, no, I hate you.
I don't know.
There was no there was no affair.
There was no continuous messages of what if.
That's so interesting.
So John came over, has some hope of maybe connecting with him again.
And then after that little trip, she's like, nah, I don't want you.
But he was like, oh my gosh, she's back.
So weird.
So he tells Ivy she finds the Google Doc.
Not only did he take her to the airport...
He constantly lied about it.
Oh, and the Google cafeteria.
She's finding out that he met her at the Google cafeteria, her workplace that she didn't even want to work at.
She left Amazon to work at Google for him.
And she's like, What the fuck is going on?
She finds out through the Google Doc that he had asked Jang to get married and buy a house in SF.
Remember,
And then she was like, no.
So then he asked her.
He wears the jacket that she bought him to bring his ex to the airport, kisses her on the cheek, lies about it.
And all of this is happening around their wedding anniversary back in November.
So she's reading all of this, and she's like, okay.
She writes in the Google Doc, I don't even know who you are, Tony.
Like, I thought I knew who you were.
I don't know who you are.
I don't even know who you really are.
Like, my life is a lie.
She comments, and Jang the ex-girlfriend responds.
And instead of apologizing for reaching out to Tony, which is what any normal morally upstanding person would do of like.
I mean, no morally upstanding person would even send this Google Doc in the first place or meet someone at the Google cafeteria, but they would just.
They would say something along the lines of like listen, I've had a massive lapse in judgment because I was going through a traumatic experience and I fucked up your life and I will forever owe it to you, or something along those lines.
But instead, instead, Jung, the ex-girlfriend, has the nerve to write back.
I know how you feel.
When I was dating Tony in college, he would always reach out to his other exes or other girls.
So it was like a really difficult time for me.
The mistress is trying to sympathize with the wife vibe.
She's the one that reached out to Tony.
Nobody in Ivy's position would ever want sympathy from Jung, the ex-girlfriend of all people.
Like it's just uncalled for.
You're the one that asked the married man to meet up and you asked him to take you to the airport for your birthday trip.
Like.
Now suddenly you want to talk about how shitty he is and try to bond?
Then Jang, the ex-girlfriend, has the audacity to write in the Google Doc Ivy, if I were your friend, I would tell you to leave the relationship.
She's like, if you want friendly advice from me, you should leave Tony.
That's crazy.
And Tony can read this too, right?
Wow.
And that is when Ivy comments, I hate you.
I hate all of you.
February 9th, 2024 is Tony's very first court appearance.
It's his plea hearing and he shows up with a helmet on.
It's a human restraint, soft shell, protective helmet, usually for those who have displayed self-exit tendencies.
He's wearing a Santa Clara Sheriff main jail shirt.
He's wearing an orange jumpsuit which, in every district, the colors of their jumpsuits are very different.
Different colors have different meanings.
So in Santa Clara, orange is standard for general population inmates.
Red is for those with a history of violence or high risk behavior who require isolation.
Yellow.
And so he's wearing orange and then a yellow on top of it.
The one Tony is spotted wearing is typically mental health observation patients.
Is yellow, which makes sense given the helmet that he's wearing.
Yeah, wearing the helmet, he's walking out behind his attorney, and this is an attorney that his parents paid for, because his parents are very well off.
And this is another very infuriating part about this trial is ivy's an only child.
I think there's a lot um, i think there's like a lot of nuance and context that maybe chinese netizens and chinese viewers will understand more.
So i mean, china was going through the one child policy and ivy's parents had put everything into ivy yes, and she was the success story, and then she's just gone and they couldn't even get to the us because the us would not give them a visa to come.
So the parents didn't come.
No, they tried so hard i think eventually they were able to, but They had to spend so much money trying to jump through hoops, getting attorneys involved, just to try to come to the US to attend these trials.
Tony's parents had no problem.
They came to the US and they retained an attorney in SF who is known for representing the Lots of violent men who specifically love beating their partners.
He's like known to be a careful with my words here, but he's known to defend a lot of people who are accused of DV.
He's wearing Tony's wearing a helmet.
He's almost like trying to hide behind his attorney, which doesn't work because he's six two in it.
He just looks dumb.
He also lost a patch of hair, could have been from attempted self exit, but it's unclear.
So a lot of Chinese netizens who are in the courthouse were like there's just like a bald spot and it doesn't look natural.
So it looks like maybe shaved.
It looks like something's happening, but the helmet was in the way.
His attorney later confirmed that yes, he did sustain a head injury but could not provide further details.
A lot of people think that they're just trying to lay the groundwork for a mental health defense, trying to argue diminished capacity, seeking to establish that he needs psychological evaluation and treatment rather than standard incarceration.
When he walks out, he has this very blank and timid body language.
However, I will say that his gaze looks like he doesn't look out of it.
He like his eyes look sharp.
He looks like he is in a decent state.
He's analyzing.
He's observing.
He's taking it in.
And during the three days.
Oh, and I'm sorry.
I keep referencing it as a trial.
It's not a trial.
It's a preliminary hearing.
So it's a three day preliminary hearing, but we still get lots of testimony.
So we have the police that went to the house.
They're testifying.
And then you have the ex-girlfriend who's testifying.
And it's pretty much for the judge to determine when the formal trial, if there is enough for a formal trial, which there is.
It just hasn't been set yet.
Oh, still?
Yeah.
So it's still ongoing.
But yeah, I mean.
Unless, which I think it's highly doubtful that they're going to have a successful insanity plea.
I think that we can kind of predict the outcome of this case, because the evidence is just so.
It's just so plentiful in this case that the police they testify of what it was like going through the house seeing him in that state.
I think during the trial, I would imagine that some variation of body camera footage would come out.
I don't think a lot of the graphic imagery would come out, of course, and neither should it.
But I think more of that would happen.
The police talk about how Tony's arm was so severely swollen.
It was almost purple.
And I think that just they're not saying that as in like, oh, he also has injuries.
It was a two sided fight.
Like, that's not what they're indicating.
They're saying that that is how extreme the punches were, because he kept going to the point where he is bruising up the entirety of his arm with the force of his punching.
His left arm has some scratch marks, so there are defensive wounds that Ivy had left, but all of them are superficial.
None of them would have produced really any blood that's covering him and the walls and the carpet and the door.
I mean, there is blood covering every square inch of that room, really.
They described how Ivy's face is completely unrecognizable.
And Tony just had this very vacant look in his face.
He was really calm when authorities asked him, what happened to your hand?
And he responded coldly, I punched my wife.
When?
Yesterday.
There was a suitcase.
It's unclear.
I mean it doesn't it's unclear if he would have fled if Wong and his and her husband didn't show up?
It's unclear.
But there was a suitcase.
It was like haphazardly packed.
Some say that it didn't seem like he had any thought to flee.
And the autopsy concluded that Ivy was killed by severe blunt force trauma to the head resulting from repeated and brutal blows.
The manner of death was obviously homicide.
There was severe skull damage, facial swelling, a broken nose bridge, disfigurement to her face that made her unrecognizable, widespread bruising and contusions on her face arms, legs and torso.
There were no really strong defensive wounds other than a few scratches on his arm, so there was not persistent with a prolonged struggle.
But even after Ivy is unconscious and dead, Tony does keep beating her aggressively, just like blow after blow, without stopping.
Something to note is that Tony is pretty tall.
He's 6'2".
Ivy is 5'4".
She is also reportedly very thin.
I mean, he doesn't strike me as like a gym buff.
It's not like he's so muscular, but he's clearly much larger than Ivy and can easily overpower her.
Ivy is maybe around 100 pounds, if that.
The police present the evidence that they have so far to try and bring this case to trial.
They show ring footage camera.
This is before Wang and her husband show up to the house for that awkward dinner.
So you can hear fighting from the front door ring camera.
So they're fighting inside the house.
You can kind of hear it.
At one point, one of the cats escape.
So I don't know if one of them was trying to leave the house, but a cat runs out.
So now they're trying to bring the cat back inside and they're arguing back and forth of who's leaving, who's not leaving.
It's clear that the emotions are really high.
Everything is in Chinese.
So a lot of the Chinese netizens and people who were at in the courthouse were trying to decipher what was being said because again, it's a preliminary hearing.
So there's not people haven't translated it professionally of like oh, this is exactly every single word that was said.
And like, this is the this is the essence of the fight.
Some people are reporting Ivy doesn't want Tony to leave and she's like trying to get him to stay.
Other people are saying that Tony doesn't want Ivy to leave.
It just seems either way.
There's a very volatile fight happening inside of that house.
Eventually, Tony is spotted leaving the house.
Ivy is in a state of distress.
She does call her parents, which she never does.
She usually follows the very Chinese principle of like only report good news, not the bad news.
Ivy's parents called Tony's parents.
And because Tony's parents, because Ivy's parents are like, I don't know what's going on over there.
They call Tony's parents.
Tony's parents are like, he hasn't even talked to us in like a month.
They're trying to get in contact with Tony and Ivy.
Neither of them are picking up.
That's when they call Wong and her husband.
Tony comes back about 11 minutes before Wong and her husband show up.
We don't know where he went.
No.
And then they present the cat footage to take this to trial.
So that's really, I mean, they have other evidence.
Obviously they have the autopsy.
They have probably, I would, Actually, I don't know.
I imagine Tony's the type to not say anything without an attorney present, because the police did indicate he just like would not say why.
All he really said was like, I punched my wife.
But.
In the calf footage, what was happening?
You were saying that there was a saw, there was some kind of motion.
What was all that?
So the full breakdown, 1221 am.
Ivy appears at the back of the kitchen and she seems to be closing up.
104 a.m., the lights turn off, she heads upstairs.
4.43 a.m., Tony appears and his shirt is covered in blood.
He's in the kitchen.
So you're saying when he appeared, it's already... She's gone.
And then 5.16 a.m., he appears again.
And this time his right hand is more visibly swollen, apparently with the blood.
520 am.
He's holding an electric circular saw in his hand up to his neck, but he doesn't turn it on or use it.
And I don't think that he has any, from what it seems from all the reporting of people who.
So he brings the saw to his neck.
Yes.
Never turned on.
No.
Like very quickly.
Yeah.
But again, that's not.
I do want to clarify that that's not indicative of him not being in a right state of mind.
That's just he probably doesn't want to deal with the consequences, but he also can't self exit.
Like this is not saying, oh, he's out of his mind.
And then again, he goes to the kitchen at around eight in the morning.
And then he tries to put a large knife to his neck, but he doesn't do anything yet again.
So we can imagine that between 104 am and 443 am, Tony brutally beat his wife to death with his bare fists and then eventually tried to self-exit, but it didn't work.
There was a suitcase.
Maybe he thought about fleeing, but that didn't work.
And then he was found in quote, a catatonic state.
So a lot of people because I mean, we don't know why he's done it, because the trial has yet to formally begin.
Although I don't know when it's going to, but a lot of people have started coming up with their reasonings of why this happened.
Because it doesn't make sense.
I mean, it's not that much reputational harm to get a divorce and split assets.
None of this makes sense to people that are, I guess, in a right state of mind.
So people have come up with just some bizarre reasonings.
Some people are saying it was probably the layoffs and the intense pressure of work.
Because both of them are on HB1 visas and he snapped.
That's what some people are saying.
I just think that it's highly unlikely.
It doesn't make sense to me.
I think that's like a really weird reasoning for something like this.
It's weird.
They're both highly educated individuals.
Tony is highly educated.
His parents come from money.
He would have been fined.
Even if he had to go back to China, he would have been fine.
The ex-girlfriend also goes up to testify.
And I would say that her testimony is just a testimony of convenience in my feeling and my honest opinion, my personal opinion.
There are times where she distinctly remembers how she felt in certain moments.
And then she'll completely forget what she told Tony or things that she said in the Google document.
As per the Google document,
She says that, yeah, I don't mind sharing the whole thing to the world.
I just want to make sure that it is professionally translated into English. so that nothing is taken out of translation nothing is misconstructed misconstrued like nothing is miscommunicated it just needs to be done well and then later she petitions to the judge like this is my personal diary and i don't need it to be public which they accept so this google doc has not been made public i mean that's as of right now during these preliminary trial hearings but who knows for the actual trial if it's going to become public.
So they only share a few quotes.
Is that why?
Yeah.
And she was asked directly about certain quotes.
And then when it becomes inconvenient because people are wondering, like in the Google Doc, were you making it a big thing about wanting Ivy gone?
Were you just saying things like, oh, if she were gone, we could be together.
And this is not anybody saying that she instigated this or that she is the cause of this, because Tony is the only one that did this.
But I think people are just trying to Get the full picture of what's happened.
And again, I don't like the ex-girlfriend.
I don't think that she is somebody that I would personally be friends with or want to have in any personal or professional circle of mine in any capacity.
However, she is nowhere near as vile as Tony.
So there are some people who hate her more than they hate Tony.
And I'm like, OK, that's weird.
She is a bizarre individual with a my personal opinion, a low moral code.
But she's not she's not Tony.
Tony is still the one that did all of this, allegedly.
She keeps arguing in court that this Google Doc was just like a delete key for her.
She just wanted to get out her feelings and delete it.
But they're like, if you wanted to delete it, why'd you send it to Tony?
Why don't you just delete it?
She also asked him to meet multiple times, according to her in the testimony.
And one person states, How is this in any way deleting the past?
It's literally the complete opposite.
She's just stringing Tony along to feed her own ego, fishing for sympathy and attention because her own life is unraveling.
A lot of people say.
In Mandarin there's a saying that it's along the lines of like you know you're a homewrecker and you still choose to be a homewrecker.
So I think it's like this essence of you give people grace if they had no idea that the person was married.
But the minute you know and you still do it like you chose this.
Also, to make it a little bit worse, she does get married.
While all of this, preliminary hearings are taking place to her best friend's ex-boyfriend.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Is what has been reported by netizens.
I mean, I couldn't.
I don't know them personally, so I can't tell you if they were really best friends.
But people who knew them have come out to say, no, it was literally your best friend's boyfriend.
Yeah.
So people have commented.
She always keeps an eye on other people's bulls.
There's a classic saying that we are not afraid of thieves stealing.
We are afraid of thieves coveting.
There is a lot of, again, cultural nuance that I think is really hard for me to try and describe.
But people don't think that Tony would throw away his life unless Ivy did something really bad.
Is what?
A lot of not a lot, but a.
A chunk of Chinese netizens believe, because I think in a lot of East Asian cultures.
This is like the dream life to have this type of educational background, to come from a wealthy family.
Nobody really gets that.
So they just cannot grasp the concept that he would do something like this.
And this is like I wholeheartedly disagree and fundamentally want to smack the back of someone's head if they believe this.
But it's just it's an odd thing.
But they think it.
And so they've naturally come up with all of these reasons of what Ivy could have done.
And the first comes down to Vince.
Vince is like a UCSD lore.
Remember I told you about Vince?
I heard about Vince like years ago.
What does Vince have to do with this?
Yeah, so Vince is a, I don't even know how real Vince is.
I think he's real.
I don't know.
A few years ago, I was sent this like PDF of this guy named Vince who went to UCSD.
He's a Chinese exchange student.
And there are I mean, this PDF file was so graphic.
You saw pictures that he would just he was like a sexual deviant.
He would turn cameras on in classrooms, like at UCSD during Zoom classrooms, and he would be having intimate relations with people's partners, girlfriends.
There was a rumor that he had such intense intimate relations with a pregnant woman that What?
What? if that is connected to Vince, though it's unclear if that is a real picture.
This has been like.
I think a lot of Chinese Americans know the whole Vince lore or at least have heard of Vince from UCSD.
So people just connected just because she went to UCSD?
So people started manufacturing screenshots of her being in chat rooms with Vince.
And then people started coming out with fake testimony saying oh, I actually saw her in one of the PDF files.
And she was one of the women that was with Vince.
This is just not true.
This is literally slanderous.
Like it's not that none of this is true.
People were proving it because they were saying, oh, she was responding in this group chat.
And then people who were in the group chat is like, no, I have the records.
Also like why you're in the group chat.
I don't know.
But they were like no, she's not in this group chat.
So that was like the first round of rumors was that he found out that she was involved with vince, who everybody knows vince, especially if you went to ucsd.
And he snapped they're like that makes sense, which?
No, it doesn't.
None of this makes sense and none of it is true.
Then the the whole situation goes to oh, she was a gold digger.
Ivy was a gold digger.
She was having an affair.
She had an affair with her Chinese manager at Amazon and that's why she was up for a promotion which, by the way, is also categorically false.
Her manager was not even Chinese.
He was an Indian man.
So like none of this story even makes sense.
And like I'm not saying that she wouldn't have an affair.
None of this story makes sense.
None of it is factually accurate.
There's no evidence to back it up.
There's so many holes in every story.
It's factually incorrect.
But they're saying that she was having an affair with her manager at Amazon.
That's why he found out she had moved to Google.
And then she started having an affair with a higher up at Google and was trying to get a role at the Switzerland Google office.
Because that's where that higher up was going to be.
None of this has any evidence.
None of it.
I just don't know how she is equally as accomplished.
But people are like, she was using him as a stepping stone.
For what?
For what?
A stepping stone to what?
Then a lot of people started arguing that maybe Ivy was aggressive and abusive first.
And Tony just snapped after being berated.
And a lot of this comes from the fact that this is like the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
And I think it's a very small group of people.
But when the news starts circulating, a lot of Chinese netizens are trying to come up with this theory.
And they thought they settle on the idea that Tony is from northern China.
And Ivy is from southern China.
What the hell does that mean, right?
So there's a stereotype that men and women from northern China are typically taller.
So they're like, Tony's tall.
He must be from northern China.
And then she's from southern China.
And women from southern China, some people say, are more aggressive in relationships.
This whole generalization is very goofy, other than the fact that OK, like one person is tall, like none of this makes sense.
It's akin to saying oh, the perpetrator was probably from New York City, because they're a lot meaner and a lot more confrontational than maybe somewhere like Kentucky.
It's like, well, everybody can be mean.
That has nothing to do with it, dumb.
But people are saying, oh well, he's from northern china, she's from southern china, maybe she was super abusive, and then that gets turned on its head.
This already dumb argument becomes even dumber because it's revealed that ivy is the one from northern china and tony is the one from sichuan, which is like the middle southern part of china.
But then they're like wait, he's from sichuan, china.
So there's almost like a meme in china where Men from Sichuan China, in the most endearing way, like it's seen as a very positive thing, they uplift their wives a lot.
And there's lots of skits of how they're so scared of their wives and they do a lot of the cooking and cleaning at home.
And so people are like oh well, he's from Sichuan China, which means that he probably was uplifting Ivy and maybe she was super domineering and super aggressive.
And he collapsed under her pressure and he lashed out.
Victim blaming is so vile.
Yeah.
And everyone that knows Ivy is coming forward and is like, you guys are fucking idiots.
Like, I don't even know what to say.
It's all lies.
Like, it's just so dumb.
So, while awaiting trial, it appears that Tony has gained quite a bit of weight, which people are really annoyed by.
It just looks like he, and this might not be true, but I think there is this feeling of like look at him living comfortably while after what he's done.
Like he's it just isn't sitting right with a lot of people.
He has high paid attorneys representing him.
And there hasn't been a lot of case.
There hasn't been a lot of press on this case, at least not in the United States, but there has been a lot of coverage on Chinese social media, on Chinese news networks, Chinese forums.
And that's why we utilized our Chinese researchers, even though this is a case that's taking place in the US.
And it seems that her parents couldn't make it to the preliminary hearing.
I don't know if they've been able to make it since before the trial.
I don't know how that's going to work.
I imagine the trial.
I can't imagine that the US won't give them a visa for the trial itself.
But you never know, with the climate these days.
It did take two years to sell their house, but it was not devalued by much.
It sold for around 2 million again.
And Ivy's family has written in Chinese social media, Ivy has left us forever.
Her beauty and kindness were frozen at the age of 27.
Were heartbroken over the loss of our beloved daughter.
With nowhere to express our grief.
Through this platform, we wish to preserve a peaceful space for her, undisturbed and unjudged.
May she protect herself in heaven, no longer sad and far from violence.
A lot of people say the fact that people are victim blaming is just atrocious.
But Ivy was a normal.
I mean it's crazy that.
I think it's crazy victim blaming in any situation, but even more so with Ivy, because a lot of netizens are saying this makes everybody even more depressed because Ivy did everything right.
They say Ivy was a normal girl with a healthy sense of right and wrong.
She dated seriously.
She got married when she discovered his infidelity.
She tried to set boundaries.
And when she realized things couldn't be fixed, she planned to leave.
Like all of these things are the right choices for a girl, a woman.
A lot of people have then come to the conclusion in China and a lot of people have been agreeing with the sentiment of marriage is not a necessity.
People are trying to give tips to other women saying, if you do marry, marry someone who loves you.
Like we need to stop pressuring women to get married because they hit a certain age.
Because if you pressure a man who doesn't love you into marriage, even if you do get married, you never know what's going to happen.
Not that I'd be pressured, but I think it's just the climate in China or a lot of places where, as you get older, a lot of people are like why are you not married?
You're almost 35.
You're 40.
You're 30.
But what are your thoughts on this case?
Have you heard about it?
When the trial happens, when and if the trial happens, we're going to cover it.
But let me know in the comments, what are your thoughts?
Stay safe, and I will see you in the next one.
