Defense questions poisoning evidence in UW grad student’s attempted murder case

LARAMIE—Aili Wang appeared on a courtroom screen wearing a black shirt and glasses with her hair tied back. She sat at a desk in a brightly lit white cinderblock room at the Albany County Detention Center. With her arms extended before her, she fiddled with a pen and looked blankly into the camera. A pair of deputies put a phone in front of her. Just as the hearing began, Wang lifted the phone from its cradle and held it to her ear. 

Wang, who was studying microbiology at the University of Wyoming as a graduate student from China, is charged with attempted second-degree murder and aggravated assault for allegedly poisoning a fellow student. She faces the possibility of life behind bars. On Oct. 6, authorities arrested Wang at the Los Angeles International Airport, where prosecutors allege she was attempting to flee the country and return to China, court records show. 

Several law enforcement officers and reporters sat in the sunlight-filled courtroom for Wang’s preliminary hearing Tuesday. People directly connected to the case, including one person who appeared to be the alleged victim, also filled the audience until Deputy County and Prosecuting Attorney Joel Defebaugh asked for them to leave the hearing, noting that they may eventually be called as witnesses during trial. 

Police began investigating in September after the alleged victim, another international graduate student in Wang’s office who’s identified in court records as “K.T.,” started having symptoms of possible poisoning. During Tuesday’s preliminary hearing in Albany County Circuit Court, University of Wyoming Police Department Chief Joshua Holland elaborated that the relationship between the two was initially “collegial” but “soured” following accusations of “sabotage” related to research experiments. Holland didn’t go into detail Tuesday about these accusations or who made them. 

At the Tuesday hearing, Defebaugh said he had received new information that Wang worked previously in China for a company pursuing the same research as K.T.

K.T. became suspicious after tasting a “bitter” flavor in a cup of tea he made with a coffee maker on his desk, Holland said. He tasted the bitterness again about a week later in mid-August. K.T. also began experiencing tiredness, inability to sleep, tingling and other symptoms, the Associated Press reported. The alleged victim and his wife tested water from the coffee maker and found the neurotoxin acrylamide, which can be acutely toxic in high doses. 

Holland said that K.T.’s blood samples showed elevated levels of iron — an indication of liver damage that could be a result of acrylamide poisoning. K.T. continues to get medical care for his symptoms, Holland stated. 

According to the police account, Wang used her university email over the summer to buy acrylamide twice on eBay and later requested the site to delete her order history and account. She was also recorded on a surveillance camera going through the alleged victim’s desk, “taking photos and manipulating notebooks” and rinsing out his mug with a liquid from her own mug. But Linda Devine, Wang’s attorney, noted during the Tuesday hearing that none of the video footage showed Wang actually putting anything in K.T.’s coffee pot. 

As part of the investigation, Holland said he had consulted with a toxicologist about the potential hazards of acrylamide. The expert, he said, told him that the “dose is the poison” when it comes to acrylamide’s bodily impact, but acknowledged that, at this time, authorities haven’t quantified the amount of acrylamide that was in the alleged victim’s coffee pot. A lab is now testing samples, according to Holland. He said authorities searched Wang’s car and home but didn’t find acrylamide. 

Devine said that knowing how much acrylamide was allegedly in K.T.’s coffee pot “is key” to understanding whether the substance could have caused bodily harm. “In order to determine if it’s poisonous, we need to know what the dose is,” Devine said. 

Albany County Circuit Court Judge Robert Sanford found sufficient probable cause to move both charges over to district court, where the case could continue to a trial. 

While the court originally set a $200,000 bond for Wang, Sanford subsequently granted prosecutors’ request to increase the amount to $1.5 million cash-only. He denied Devine’s two requests to reduce that bond amount. 

Wang will likely return to court in several weeks for her arraignment, where she’s expected to enter a formal plea to the charges.

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