Google Engineer Allegedly Punches Wife to Death…Then Never Speaks Again

0:00Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like showing up for movie night ready for a heart-pounding thriller but getting a three-hour documentary on lawn care. That's kind of like insurance. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface, but when it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. You wouldn't settle for a snooze fest when you came for a thrill ride. So don't settle for just any insurance when there's State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. It's my first day of work and I need to make a big impression. From executive producer Mindy Kaling.

0:31This is our sexual harassment training. Hands off your co-workers. Now sign this saying that I trained you or you're fired. Yes, ma 'am. Work relationships are too messy. I just met the woman of my dreams. You gotta chill out and not come on too strong. That goes against my entire personality, but I'll try. Watch the new Hulu original series, Not Suitable for Work, premiering June 2nd on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Bada bing, bada boom. There are so many things that you wouldn't even think have cameras, but they do and they're potentially recording you and it sounds nefarious it's not all nefarious it's just unexpected is all like ovens a lot of smart ovens they have cameras inside the oven to utilize ai to detect what type of food you're putting in there so that they can cook it to completion without you having to think which i guess inside the oven is much less invasive than say like a robot vacuum those things have cameras and as they roam around cleaning your hardwood floors, the camera is scanning to make sure that there's no obstacles in the way, like you getting out of the shower butt naked.

1:36Even those little automatic pet feeders for your cats, they typically come with cameras. And I do think that that's a feature that a lot of people want. They want to see their cats eating. They want to make sure that their cats are getting fed if they're at work, unless you're this guy who posts on Reddit. Okay, so this is kind of a complicated one, but here goes. My girlfriend got a new job. So she got one of those auto feeders for her cat because she's going to be away a lot more now. And it's like a doctor feeder. So it has a camera in it and it can connect to Wi-Fi. What's a doctor feeder you say?

2:07I think it's one of those fancy cat feeders. And he says it can connect to Wi-Fi. She can actually look at the camera while she's at work and even talk through it and send the cat treats and it comes through the cat feeder. I said initially, I don't like the idea of you having a camera in the living room, but she was like, it's my place. So you shut the fuck up. So I did. I shut the fuck up. Anyhow, flash forward a couple of weeks on a Friday. I get out early and I was supposed to go to her place that night, but I just went out like two in the afternoon to chill until she got back home from work.

2:35I lay down on the couch. I completely forget about the camera and I eventually start self-pleasuring because that's something that I just do. And apparently she's at work talking to her colleague about this cat and decides that she wants to show her colleague how she feeds it a treat and see if the cat comes over. So she turns the camera on with her colleague over her shoulder. and here I am on the couch just beating it. She's obviously very pissed off like, how often do you do this? Which is not often and she would say things like, you violated my space and all of this and we've been fighting on and off for a few weeks now.

3:10And then to top it off, her colleague found my Instagram and has been liking some of my photos. Like even ones that my girlfriend's not even in. And it's just kind of got me thinking like, am I the asshole? I mean that feels honestly more like a user problem than a cat feeder with a built-in camera problem The cat feeders will just capture the cats sprinting to the feeder typically And you'll hear the food come out the kittens being startled by the new There's a lot of viral cat feeder videos The cat food will tumble out and then the kittens will get so scared They jump like three feet in the air like a circus animal It's usually just like more on the wholesome spectrum People just love the cat videos Which is exactly why Tony and Ivy This is a couple with two cats they get a cat feeder so tony and ivy and their two cats and they get that cat feeder and they put it in their house and on this particular day this cat feeder is picking up something just a lot of things alarming things but there's no built-in system to call the authorities because something is alarming or even call the people who own the pet feeder all this cat feeder does is just record so this cat feeder records by itself yeah oh like a security camera almost they keep a data log a little past midnight at 12 21 the wife ivy she's in her 20s she walks into the kitchen to close up shop for the night if you will i mean she's cleaning up she's turning off all the lights and by 104 a.m it just seems like the whole house is going to bed the lights are off there's not really action the cat camera is not picking up anything but it's just downstairs it sees the living room it sees the kitchen but it's not seeing the entirety of the house and then 4 43 a.m This is really early in the morning.

4:50Tony the Heisman suddenly appears in the cat feeder camera and his shirt looks like almost like he's been painting. There's just deep red colors everywhere, some sort of pigment. He goes out of the frame and when he comes back, he's holding one of those circular, one of those wood saws that you turn on and the blade just starts rotating to cut the wood, but it's not rotating. It's turned off right now. And he's looking at it and he brings it up to his neck and his finger is on the button to turn it on and he's about to press down and he's very tense it's almost like he's just waiting for the courage to press it and then he doesn't and then he walks off then the next time he's caught on the pet feeder his entire arm is swollen there's like this thick red liquid on him and it's very clear that it's blood like there's just blood everywhere but tony himself is not injured not even a little bit like that circular saw he didn't do anything there's no injuries on him there's not even a cut or a bruise really other than his swollen arm so where's all this blood coming from and what has he been doing all night and why is it that we haven't seen ivy since midnight and what is he going to do when he realizes that this cat feeder is recording his every move we would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for rotten mango to support the national network to end domestic violence nnedv is a non-profit dedicated to ending workplace relationship and stalking violence this episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's team of dedicated researchers.

6:18We'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. Today's case involves topics like DV, so please watch with discretion. We also worked with our professional Chinese translators since the news was, it takes place in the US, but it's a lot, there was a lot more discussion in Chinese media about this case, but a lot of quotes, statements may be translated and shortened or condensed for brevity. So with that being said, let's get into it. Chinese is arguably one of the hardest languages to learn. And I'm not just saying that as somebody who has been trying to half-heartedly learn this language for the past 12 years of my life being with my Chinese husband.

6:55I just know how to say the very important stuff like, yes, no, thank you. And that's way too expensive. But there are words in the Chinese language that mean one thing, but also sound like another thing. And there's a lot of these so for example cup sounds like tragedy uh-huh yeah sure sure i guess cups is like bay how do you say tragedy tragedy so it sounds so much alike that there are now sayings in chinese where they say life is like a cup if it's washed it breaks life is like a tragedy if it's washed it breaks it's like a play on words they say porridge sounds like like so on social media a lot of younger people will say things like, I porridge you, instead of I like you.

7:37Can you say porridge? Oh, 我 西饭, like like, okay, 喜欢, 喜欢, 喜欢, right, okay. The fruit pear sounds a lot like pressure, they say. So people will say like, you feel a mountain of pear, so the fruit, the pear. Does it sound like pressure, stress, pressure? Just a fruit pear? Yeah, fruit, pear Apparently they'll say I feel a mountain of pears right now Instead of saying I feel a mountain of pressure right now Because pear sounds like Oh, 压力 Ah, 压力 sound out Okay, okay Wait, I don't get it What is it? It's like a more formal term of pear It's like you say the full thing Rather than the short term But yes, I know what you're talking about So it sounds the same?

8:24Yeah, yeah, yeah So instead of saying I feel a mountain of pressure They say I feel a mountain of pears And one of the reasons that you can't even give somebody a clock or a watch as a gift. So typically in Chinese culture, I think also in Korean culture, although I'm not sure if it stems from this reasoning, but if you give somebody a clock, the word clock, the words give a clock also sound like attend a funeral. Yes, so when you give a clock, that's really bad. So a lot of the times if you gift somebody a clock or a watch, they will give you a dollar in return. So it seems more like a purchase, a trade versus, you know, giving somebody a clock.

8:59because you're almost wishing them death. And to make it even trickier, there are even number sounds. So 520 sounds like I love you. People will text 520 instead of texting I love you. And everybody knows exactly what it means. There's the long one. What's the long one? It's like 5201314. Like I love you my whole entire life. Something like that. So people will just send a sequence of numbers and just think that you get the most deepest, profound confession of love. And May 20 is the Chinese Valentine's Day now. Because it's 520. Yeah, I love you. Because numbers just mean a lot of things. Like a lot of Chinese buyers will make sure the house number doesn't sound or mean anything else that sounds negative.

9:42Lots of people don't like the number four because it sounds like death. But when you're in the Bay Area in San Francisco and you're buying a house where all the tech people are buying a house, it's very difficult to be picky. There's not a lot of options. and the options that are there are already in the midst of bidding wars. You have to act fast for a four bedroom, two bathroom house. That's less than 2000 square feet, by the way, 1800. Yeah, about 1800 square feet, which is OK. That's not a bad size. It's just the fact that it's over $2 million for less than 2000 square feet,$2 million. And it's a 20 minute drive from Google's campus in SF, it's going to get snatched up.

10:22So regardless if the house number is 714, because 714, it sounds in Chinese like wife will die. Regardless of that fact, you're going to want to get the house. January 15th, 2024, police are inside a house 714, trying not to flinch at the metallic scent. The officers testified later that it just, you walk into the house and it smells like blood. There's no other way to describe it. Everything smells like blood. You can't smell anything else because everybody's house has a very unique scent. Not that that is important to the officers, but it can tell them a lot. If you smell lots of feces and urine, you could probably come to the conclusion that there is someone that is not well kept here and maybe not even a mentally good state.

11:07If you smell other things like the scent of a dead body, you can also, people pick up on the smells. They can't even smell anything, but that strong eye-watering metallic scent. They're performing a wellness check when they find a suspect in a nearly catatonic state. That's the only way they can describe it. Just they're on their knees staring. The officers, they broke down the door and there's just a suspect on their knees staring at the wall. It doesn't matter that the officers are slamming down the doors to get in. They're just all screaming like, get your hands in the air. None of it matters.

11:43The suspect, it seems like they saw nothing, heard nothing, don't care about anything. They're just catatonic. They're just staring. They're staring, staring, staring. And right next to them is a dead body. The police, they walk the suspect out with their hands firmly behind the back. They're walking past a little cabinet and this cabinet has a bunch of trinkets on top. They're guiding the suspect out of the house like a dog. And the suspect leans down onto the cabinet. So he leans towards the cabinet and with their mouth bites the top of this picture frame and chucks it like a dog ripping apart a squeaky toy.

12:20Just chucks it onto the floor. The picture frame shatters everywhere. There's glass everywhere. And inside the picture frame is a photo of Ivy. The same Ivy that is now caked in blood laying on the bedroom floor. Her face is completely unrecognizable and she's dead. The photo, is it just Ivy in there? Just Ivy. The wife of the house is now dead. Tony and Ivy are a 27-year-old couple from China, and they put$500 ,000 down on this house. They mortgage the rest, which is a pretty substantial down payment. They're able to afford it considering both of them are software engineers at Google. They buy the house one year into getting married.

13:00They get two cats. They even have a dedicated Instagram for their cats named Cooper and Kiwi. by all accounts I would say that they seem like a very standard software engineer tech couple they're obsessed with their cats they commission artwork for their cats they buy those cute little party hats for their cats during their birthdays the cats lay on their laps as they're working from home and when they're not taking pictures of their cats for the Instagram pages they're going skiing they're going snowboarding they're going hiking with their other software engineer couples in the Bay Area. Tony's Instagram bio lists that he's into photography, volleyball, skiing, rock climbing, and a bunch of other sports.

13:40Ivy's adds yarn and gardening to hers. And they're both Chinese. So just to like paint a picture of both of them, Tony gives the very, like the very first impression you give of Tony is quiet academia focused nerd. I, there's really no other way to describe it. He's always wearing black framed rectangular glasses. His hair is very short and neat. It looks very efficient. Like he doesn't want to spend too much time on his hair. He has a very slender build. He has a very unassuming face. The most noticeable thing about him is that he's six feet two inches tall. But other than that, he just kind of looks like a software engineer.

14:14He also has a very rigid look to his face. It's not necessarily cold, but he appears guarded. He doesn't seem like the type and by all accounts people say he is not the type to engage in small talk in the elevator he's not gonna be smiling at you when you're a random co-worker that gets into the google elevator and he's in there he's probably gonna give you like a curt nod if anything whereas his wife ivy she looks a lot softer she's not super expressive people say she's also not very expressive with her face but she looks a little bit more open people say that she's the type that will smile at your jokes even though they're really not funny but it's not like a over the top like oh my god you're so funny.

14:50Like, where did you learn that joke? It's just like a very polite smile so that you don't feel awkward. She also has very bookish qualities to her. She feels very approachable and unapproachable all at once. The way everyone describes her is she's the one that will get you coffee one day in the office and then she's going to remember your coffee order three years later and you're not even her friend. You're just like the person that works in the room next to her. She feels very approachable in that sense because she's very kind and sweet, but also unapproachable because is she will probably score in like the top 1 % of an Ivy League school at all times and somehow be the smartest person in the room at the same time and you feel like you can't talk to them because maybe you feel insecure that you're not that smart.

15:28But she doesn't make you feel that way. The two of them, they get married in 2022. In 2023, they buy this$2 million house in the Bay Area and both of them are now working at Google as software engineers. But just because everything appears to be near perfect from the outside does not make it true. Do you know people who are obsessed with their first loves. It's like a thing, okay? They don't marry their first love in the way that, I mean, the way that they think about their first love, you would think that they're possessed to the point where they almost idolize their first love in a way that everybody around them is very confused.

15:58They talk about their first love as if this is a member of Black Pink, an idol that is untouchable, somebody that would never grace planet Earth ever again. And everyone around them is just thinking, I mean, they're great, but like, are we talking about the same person right now because this is so crazy. I don't know what you're saying. It's like this longing that they have this unreachable love. And you're like, no, no, they're pretty reachable. Like I saw him working at the vape shop down the street. Like he hasn't gone anywhere. I don't know why we're trying to make him out to be this Prince Charming that ran away.

16:32He's down there selling vapes. You can go get him tomorrow if you want. Probably tonight. I don't think he has plans. By the way that they talk about their first love, you would think that they were the one that got away and became an Oscar winning actor and actress that they'll never be able to connect to again. It's never that serious. But some people just idolize their first love.

16:57Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like showing up for movie night ready for a heart pounding thriller but getting a three hour documentary on lawn care. That's kind of like insurance. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface but when it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. You wouldn't settle for a snooze fest when you came for a thrill ride. So don't settle for just any insurance when there's State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. It's my first day of work and I need to make a big impression. From executive producer Mindy Kaling.

17:29This is our sexual harassment training. Hands off your co-workers. Now sign this saying that I trained you or you're fired. Yes, ma 'am. Work relationships are too messy. I just met the woman of my dreams. You gotta chill out. and not come on too strong. And that goes against my entire personality, but I'll try. Watch the new Hulu original series, not suitable for work, premiering June 2nd on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop.

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18:30Chinese says a saying called, so guys will describe, sometimes not even like first love, but even like a girl that they like loved. The white flower? They call it like white moonlight. Yes, white moonlight. White moonlight. That's what I'm just about to say. Okay, so they call it white moonlight. And then there's the other aspect where they call it like the red rose or something, like the red moonlight. So some people idolize their first love as this white moonlight. So pure, so innocent. Just, yeah, pureness. And then a lot of people will start idolizing this red rose, which is a very passionate love.

19:10So this comes later in life, but this is a passionate love that they don't end up with, but they remember this relationship. And so there's almost this very annoyance that people have in China of when guys are always haunted by either the white moonlight or the red rose. And it's just like, get over yourself. It's not that big of a deal. There's even books written about this in China, where a female author writes about how men tend to have two loves, the white rose and the red rose. They have two love interests and they're going to pick between one of them. So the white rose is the first love.

19:41But if he marries his first love, she's no longer going to be the white rose. She becomes a grain of sticky rice on his clothes, just dull and irritating. And then he's going to yearn after, because he married the white rose, he's going to yearn after the red rose. The red rose is the passionate mistress that makes him feel alive and sensual and burning with love but here's the thing if he had chosen the red rose and doesn't marry the white rose if he married the red rose she will become mosquito blood on the wall sordid marriage he will consider her ugly and venomous even and then he will daydream and idolize about what life would have been like had he married the white rose the eternal pure moonlight before his bed type of woman it is a very deep outlook on males need to conquer women stating that this is the type of system where no real woman can win because the moment she's possessed by the man, she gets downgraded.

20:35And then the other woman is almost like a mythologized. It's about how men only fantasize about those who he cannot conquer and how men tend to construct women as symbols. And then they blame the woman once they become symbols for them. But it's also just a very interesting concept. And I'm sure it's not taken seriously, but it's so widely known that people will even use the categories to determine what kind of ex they were. So like your last ex, are they your white rose or your red rose? To the point that the question can even be asked at dinner parties. Would you rather be a white rose to your ex or a red rose to your ex?

21:08Oh, like asking a girl. Yeah. Okay. There's even memes about it with some people hating the concept of the white rose because a lot of girls have been compared to a guy's first love. And it's really fucking annoying because typically first loves they say it's not even a real relationship so like you're in this relationship when you're in middle school high school sometimes college you never even have a real relationship with that person to see all the bad things that come from being in a relationship because there's a lot of hardship so of course you idolize the relationship that has no disappointment in it because you weren't old enough to be disappointed by the relationship it's just people are saying it's very annoying to be compared to the first love in relationships that's so interesting these are very like chinese specific yeah struggles of you know couples in relationship i know exactly what they're talking about though yeah and i feel like you don't really hear that a lot in the u.s yeah yeah because in china like i think even up until okay so before college relationships pretty much forbidden by school and by parents you're not allowed to publicly be dating right very different from here so there a lot of these relationship is like underground it's forbidden so it's like very subtle you you pass a no maybe you you look at someone you you you barely touch hands when you're going out like it's this very subtle type of relationship so people have this like very pureness frame of lens when you're looking back at it maybe it's very bizarre it's really weird yeah it's really weird because i feel like in the U.S.

22:38when you think of relationships in high school you're like oh yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah it's so strange but I just think that the comparison is very toxic and Ivy hates the fact that Tony will always compare her to his high school ex-girlfriend that he dated on and off in high school and in college his first love and her name is Jiang, Jiang the ex-girlfriend. Was that in US or was that in China? In China But they all come to the US All three of them When did they come to US? This was during their PhD years Oh, so they finished college and all that I mean, they all went to the same college in China And then they all immigrated to the United States And then they all start working for Alphabet So all of Yeah, well, some of them work for Google Some of them work for subsidiaries of Alphabet Which is the parent company of Google Wow, that's messy.

23:34Yeah, very messy. But that will come up. But Tony will compare Ivy to his very first love, Jiang, comparing their appearances, their education, which was practically the same, their income, hobbies, interests, even their personality traits. Even going as far to imply that if Ivy was not his wife and had he married Jiang the ex-girlfriend instead of Ivy, he probably would be living better now. The fuck? I don't think it's very easy to cheat on your partner these days. I feel like everything has a digital footprint. Text messages, emails, Instagram DMs, Snapchat. Yeah, you can make the messages go away, but they can still see when you were last active.

24:11I think you can see like top friends or whatever that's changing. You can delete as much as you want, but there's going to be ways that you're going to get caught. Maybe they're not going to see the exact messages, but they're going to see something that's weird. Even things that you think don't have a paper trail or you forget that they do like Venmo a few years ago, even uber you you were not able to delete a ride from your ride history on uber you can do that now i think they got a lot of complaints i don't know why you would need to delete it like who's deleting it but now they've fixed it so that you can actually delete specific rides from your ride history so when you go to your account and go to ride history you can delete specific rides but one of the more common ways as of recently is in the files the what people will cheat in the files what file google documents it sounds so strange but it's rather common these days people will use a google doc like a shared doc to have conversations in real time oh my god because when you share a google doc people can comment and it updates instantly yeah so people use that as a text message yes and no one goes through their partner's google docs because you're like what's in there nothing work stuff i guess that's very on brand with their job right so i mean but one person on reddit posts my husband used google docs for three years to communicate with his affair partner they had a shared google doc where they would talk and make plans i mean it was simple but effective i read it all the virtual sex the i love you's the secret meetings i had my soon-to-be ex-husband's password and i would occasionally snoop on his phone to ease my mind.

25:47But in three years, I never thought to check Google Docs. In a shared document, you can type back and forth like a chat, even leaving comments to things, and it gets updated in real time. Because typically, people use it to collaborate on work or school projects, and it's unconventional, but that's the whole point. That way, nobody will know who you're talking to. Your partner's going through your text messages. Highly unlikely they're going through your Google Docs to make sure you're doing anything weird there. So she's just letting everyone know, hey just so you know check the google docs wow well we know someone who use oh cash transfer app right yes so there's like this cash transfer app where you can message someone i guess to like send money and they were using that chat which is crazy yeah but it's not public but still and google docs is also i think both of them are equally so insane especially if it's titled like Google Docs.

26:41If it's titled something as boring as like budget sheet for Q2, Q3, who's going to look at it? If you want to look at something very private, someone's inner thoughts, something they're hiding, you might even go through the Apple Notes app. You're not going to go into Google Docs. You're not going to go through somebody's Google Docs unless, unless you're Ivy and you happen to stumble upon a Google Doc file between Tony and his first love from college, jang the ex-girlfriend it is a nearly 20 000 word document detailing how tony and jang the ex-girlfriend miss each other how right before tony proposed to ivy he had first asked jang the ex-girlfriend if she would consider transferring to work at google instead of working at waymo which is all part of the same umbrella company but instead of working at waymo yes that's like the driverless cars she works at waymo transfer to google move to the bay area because she's working at waymo in Seattle, moved to the Bay Area and they could buy a house together.

27:40They talk about how Jiang the ex-girlfriend said, no, I don't want to do that. And that's why he does everything else with Ivy instead. So once the ex-girlfriend said no, he proposes to Ivy, he gets married to her and they buy a house in the Bay Area together. But he would still be commenting and writing in the Google Doc saying things like, I miss the old days, which is already bad enough because, you know, why are they still talking to each other? Jiang the ex-girlfriend also writes that This is supposed to be like a, she started this Google Doc to send it as a, let's get rid of the past feelings and get some closure on our relationship.

28:12She says it's more like a personal diary for herself to just hold on to the things and then write it down and let go of the past. Which she feels the need to send this Google Doc to Tony. And that's how they start this weird conversation, this 20 ,000 word conversation on Google Docs. Wait, so this mess, this whole doc was sent by Jiang. The ex-girlfriend. When did she send this? This is way after Tony's married, bought the house, has two cats, everything. Oh. This is like two, three months before Ivy is killed. So Zhang reached out first? Yeah. Really? She reached out first because she said she was just going through a really tough time in her life.

28:54She says out of everyone in her life, he's really the only one that she can confide in. she writes in the document that before all of this before tony married ivy before jung the ex-girlfriend got engaged to her boyfriend tony was the only one that was there for her and they were just at different places in their lives she thought it would be okay to move on but then she found out that her boyfriend turned fiance that she's dating he also works for alphabet he works for deep mind google deep mind yeah this is crazy yeah they all work in the same building No, no, no, no. So they live in Seattle.