September 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Welcome back, our lovely spooky squad, to another episode of Scream and Sugar, your true crime coffee hour.
In today's episode, we cover the shocking case of Xuming Li, a Chinese chemistry doctoral student in Tampa, Florida, accused of poisoning his upstairs neighbor. What started as noise complaints and ongoing disputes escalated into a dangerous pattern of chemical attacks—captured on hidden cameras.
We dive into the background of the case, the evidence investigators uncovered, and the disturbing reality of how stress and mental health can cause seemingly normal people to do the extreme.
Stay spooky, babes!
Case Notes:
https://hover.hillsclerk.com/html/case/caseSummary.htmlhttps://lawandcrime.com/crime/florida-man-who-allegedly-injected-chemical-agent-into-neighbors-condo-over-noise-complaints-is-deported-to-china/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/27/us/florida-neighbor-chemical-agent.htmlhttps://www.reddit.com/r/ChilluminatiPod/comments/1iwbta4/footage_shows_former_phd_chemistry_student_xuming/https://www.fox13news.com/news/former-usf-chemistry-student-accused-of-trying-to-poison-neighbor-deported-to-chinahttps://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/19/graduate-student-sentenced-to-three-year-probation-after-poisoning-case/https://nct-cbnw.com/li-xuming-and-the-abdullah-family-the-risk-of-student-lab-access-abuses/https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/31/german-student-detained-on-suspicion-of-poisoning-seven-people-at-university
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scream-and-sugar-true-crime-coffee-hour--6015946/support.
This content is not appropriate for all viewers; viewer discretion is advised. PS. Let's just umbrella all our content with a blanket statement: allegedly, supposedly! Stay spooky, squad.
In today's episode, we cover the shocking case of Xuming Li, a Chinese chemistry doctoral student in Tampa, Florida, accused of poisoning his upstairs neighbor. What started as noise complaints and ongoing disputes escalated into a dangerous pattern of chemical attacks—captured on hidden cameras.
We dive into the background of the case, the evidence investigators uncovered, and the disturbing reality of how stress and mental health can cause seemingly normal people to do the extreme.
Stay spooky, babes!
Case Notes:
https://hover.hillsclerk.com/html/case/caseSummary.htmlhttps://lawandcrime.com/crime/florida-man-who-allegedly-injected-chemical-agent-into-neighbors-condo-over-noise-complaints-is-deported-to-china/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/27/us/florida-neighbor-chemical-agent.htmlhttps://www.reddit.com/r/ChilluminatiPod/comments/1iwbta4/footage_shows_former_phd_chemistry_student_xuming/https://www.fox13news.com/news/former-usf-chemistry-student-accused-of-trying-to-poison-neighbor-deported-to-chinahttps://stanforddaily.com/2016/01/19/graduate-student-sentenced-to-three-year-probation-after-poisoning-case/https://nct-cbnw.com/li-xuming-and-the-abdullah-family-the-risk-of-student-lab-access-abuses/https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/31/german-student-detained-on-suspicion-of-poisoning-seven-people-at-university
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/scream-and-sugar-true-crime-coffee-hour--6015946/support.
This content is not appropriate for all viewers; viewer discretion is advised. PS. Let's just umbrella all our content with a blanket statement: allegedly, supposedly! Stay spooky, squad.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Scream and Sugar,
your true crime coffee hour, where we dive into the
darker side of humanity while enjoying a little something sweet
on the side. I am your host, Saharah.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Candace, and today we.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Are going to be covering zoomingly the neighbor from Help. Hi, Candace,
(00:51):
Hey Sarah, how are y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I am okay? How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I am okay? What can I say? Just a woman
living my life the best I can turn my best
out here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
However, in the third week of the semester, how's tia
in going?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's rough, brother, Yeah, yeah, already. My two classes they're
both completely full. Oh one of them thinks I'm funny,
the other one does not. Did I show you the
stampy go?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
No, you gotta read the room. Oh no, We're gonna
take a picture of this because it's Sarah's likeness holding
up a thumb saying.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Dang, good job, being good job all our case and
no flunctuation.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We're in college, no one cares anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Instead of like because most of the time my students
get pretty good grades on their quizzes, and so I
was having to write like good job, and then twelve
out of twelve like a thousand times, and I would
just stamp it with my face and the thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I love it. You're saving time.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm saving so much.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is yeah, efficiency at its finest, And I think.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I think too, if I got that stamp on one
of my papers, I would be so stoked to be like,
this is hilarious.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I think one of my classes is gonna think it's
very funny, and I think the other one is gonna
be like this lady's weird, ma'am. Have you considered a
job in the circus? However? Whatever screwed them kids.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
She's a clown lady.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So, as all of you know, I did recently go
to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. I figured
I would just add a little shout out to a
couple of the coffee shops that I hit up while
I was there that I just thought were amazing. So
the first one, I cannot truly cannot talk this place
up enough. It's called Cafe Hub. It's a tiny little
(02:49):
spot right next to the Museum of Death in Los Angeles,
and it's just like a place to Reclaim Yourself Cafe Hub,
and they have a little sign out front said we
have cold brew colder than your ex's soul.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love it and I think it's.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So funny and everything that they had in there. I
actually got a legit latte this time. I got an
orange blossom latte with a oh it was so good. Anna,
I got a pistachio latte favorite. It was amazing. The
man who was serving us, I assume he was the owner,
so funny, so nice, so kind. He actually puts candied
(03:26):
oranges and the lemon bloss or in the orange blossom latte. Unreal.
And then he saw Anna like looked at and she's like, oh,
that looks good, and he said, oh, let me get
you one, and then he gave us both like candied
orange rines and stuff. It was very very nice, skaty pie,
and everybody who went in there while we were there,
they were clearly like regulars. It was just a very
(03:46):
lovely spot. So I wanted to give that place a
shout out. And then also we hit another place before
we left called Horror Vibes Coffee. Horror Vibes, the whole
thing is horror. The it is so cute in there.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It's all horror themed, the drinks are horror themed. The
murals in the art is amazing. Anna said, it's like
the best artist ever out there doing these giant horror murals. Yeah,
it's just gorgeous in there.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We will link those for y'all.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Absolutely, But in the meantime, this one should be pretty quick.
We are talking about zooming lee this case. It's pretty
resance from twenty twenty two, okay, or I'm sorry twenty
twenty three. Yeah, okay, And it shook my shook me
to my core. Shiver your timbers, yes, it tr did
(04:44):
my timbers? Or shiverar my flowers were gasted.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
This place take or this case takes place in Tampa, Florida,
at a condo community called the Oxford Place at Tampa Palms.
These units are mostly owned, sometimes rented out, and and
it surrounds the Abdullah family. So Umar Abdullah and his
pregnant wife Sumira moved into a third floor condo in
(05:09):
June of twenty twenty two. So they were really happy
with their new place. They were excited to bring their
daughter into the world. She was very pregnant. The couple
was happy and seemingly pretty friendly with their neighbors, including
their downstairs neighbor, Zooming Lee So. Lee was a Chinese
international graduate student who was attending the University of South Florida,
(05:31):
where he was completing his doctorate degree in chemistry. He
actually had less than a semester to go when this
takes place.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Oh, so esh distress.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, I'm sure he was very stressed. But this thing,
this dang, this dang case, this case, this case, this
old case, this old case. He was born in nineteen
eighty seven. He's born on seven to one, so July first.
I think that makes him a cancer right, And from
what I can gather, he was relatively friendly, if not
a rather serious man. He lived in the second floor
(06:05):
apartment with his wife and two small children, and appeared
to be pretty happy for the Abdullah family. He and
Umar exchanged numbers earlier on, and Lee texted him about
the well being of his family, and he gave them
a gift address when their daughter was born and like
checked in on them.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Okay, So, by all accounts, he was a decent downstairs
neighbor to have. There were no red flags at this point.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
At this point, no, no, However, after the Abdullah's daughter
was born in September of twenty twenty two, something started
to happen with Lee. Okay, So, Lee became obsessive about
noise he described coming from upstairs. He asked Umar not
to move furniture after eleven PM and to walk slower
across the floors, as the noise was keeping him awake
(06:52):
at night.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So at first, I'm like, Okay, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I would hate to have an upstairs neighbor.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I have one right now. And it's really funny to
say that their dog has been barking all morning.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh no, I know.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And I almost went up there and just butted my
face in and be like, is everything okay cause she's
normally really quiet.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I was like, I do true crime, and I
worry when things are.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Out of there. Yeah, just checking in.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, And if you ever want me to come up
and pick her out for you could do so, I understand.
I digress, he started. Lee started to say that he
could hear the family all hours of the day, moving furniture,
walking loudly dropping things. He texted Umar multiple times, asking
him walk slower or softer and not to slam doors
(07:37):
and cabinets. He complained about hearing a toilet seat like
he could hear like the toilet seat creak all the time.
And he complained at one time about addresser drawer closing,
Oh my god, a phone dropping on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
People live their lives and they don't say contain space
of their apartment, like there's gonna be noise.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Also, that's ex tessive mm hm.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Lord Umar said he tried to go and it like,
apologized to Lee and talk it over. They bought house
slippers for wearing in the house and they put down
rugs to try.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
To consider it and very considerate, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But it didn't seem to help the situation very much
at all. Then Lee began to report the noise to
the homeowners association. In fact, he made an absurd number
of noise complaints over the period of about a year. Finally,
Umar and the landlord actually came down to Lee's unit
and while standing in Lee's unit, asked Umar's wife Sumara,
(08:33):
to simulate the noise from upstairs so they could try
to figure out like what was going on, and they
both stated that the noise was minimal and not at
all what Lee was stating that he was hearing so
In Marsh of twenty twenty three, Lee called the police
on the Abdullahs just fifteen minutes after they returned home
because they were picking up family who had come to
see the new baby. Lee complained that he could hear
(08:56):
luggage scraping across their floor.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Oh my god, dude.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Seriously. Eventually the HOA and everyone else was like, sir,
you need to be patient. You need to be understanding.
Living in a basically an apartment complex is difficult, and
noises to be expected when your neighbors have a new baby, yeah,
and when they're just living their lives.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Absolutely regular routine lives, like, like I said, you're not
going to be in one like you're not going to
be standing in one spot, yeah, making any noise, right, and.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
With a new baby, you're going to be up walking
around with the baby at night. Like there's just oh yeah,
that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Man.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I got a new puppy right now and I'm up
with her, so I can completely relate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, and it's interesting because Lee lived in his apartment,
in his unit with his wife and two small children,
so so like he didn't know.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
That there's gonna be noise exactly. I wonder if they're
downstairs neighbors were complaining about it. It just worked its
way up.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It wouldn't surprise me. Actually I did a little diggert later,
but I figured I just bring it up now. I
found the apartment complex on the internet and I looked
up some reviews, and the first review on there is
from two months ago. Yeah, it starts out with it
(10:14):
looks nice, but the noise between units is horrible. You
hear every sound your neighbor makes, especially bad if you
have someone above you, you hear every step they take.
That's like the first part of his review. His review,
This is like some random guy from two months ago.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Oh yeah, well maybe they just they probably cut corners
and didn't put a proper insulation in place.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I mean, I'm assuming so because that sucks. And they
are hardwood floors. I noticed, so maybe that's part of
it as well. But either way, I think there was
probably noise, but not maybe to this extent, but we'll
get into it. Incidentally, the Abdullah family decided to go
like on a short vacation. I believe Umar was going
(10:59):
to some kind of conference to Ohio, and this was
in May of twenty twenty three. So while on vacation,
they had a family friend stop by to grab a
package for them. On May thirty. First, the friend calls
Umar and they are talking to him and they're you know,
there's a really bad smell in your apartment, like it's
burning my eyes. I don't know what's going on, and
(11:20):
whore I was, Okay, we'll look at it when we
get home. Upon returning home, Umer's family noticed the same
unusual smell in their apartment. At first, they thought maybe
the landlord had done some like painting or something, and
somehow those renovations had.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I know what this case is now, Oh my god,
feel I was just like, I just watched a video
on this so crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Okay, sorry, some renovating maybe painting was being done near
the unit that was causing the smell. It was very pungent,
(12:05):
stung the eyes and the throat, and their little baby
daughter began coughing and started to refuse to eat. They
quickly opened the windows and turned on the fans and
the condo and tried to get the air moving, and
that seemed to dissipate a lot of the smell. Just
a few days later, though, the smell returned, this time
stronger than ever. They contacted both their landlord and eventually
(12:27):
they contacted the Tampa Fire Rescue Team to come check
on the residents because they were like, this is unbearable.
The landlord explained, we have not done any renovations near here,
and we do not know where the smell is coming
from or what could be causing it. The fire rescue
team was also unable to determine what could be causing
the smell or what could be causing their symptoms. The
(12:48):
smell would return at least weekly, if not more often.
As the month progressed, the family experienced even more side effects,
including shortness of breath, severe severe headaches, coffee and vomiting
in their infant, oh, horrible eye and skin irritation into
their horror hair loss. At one point, Umar's wife picked
up the baby from her crib and noticed that the
(13:10):
ten month old had left behind hair all over her pillow. God,
I know, at first they thought it was due to
the fact, you know, some babies do lose hair sure
in their early months, but she was almost a year
old and soon both the wife and Umar noticed their
hair was also falling out in the shower. What the
heck freaky right, Obviously something had to change. They couldn't
(13:30):
keep living like this, so they started by bringing out
repair men to see if it was one of the
appliances in their unit that were causing these problems. Okay,
they started by bringing out like an AC guy and
the HVAC tech noticed nothing wrong with air AC, but
did make a note of a chemical odor. Supposedly Allegedly,
the plumber who came out to the unit wrote in
(13:52):
his report that he felt lightheaded and nauseous from being
in the room. They had their air ducts and air
vents completely cleaned the landlord's page to have the heater
replaced in case that was it, but the smell just
continued to come back, over and over again. When the
family next smelled the horrible smell, instead of immediately trying
to clear it out, they started to try following it
(14:14):
to its source.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, smart.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
At first, it appeared like maybe a vent might have
been the culprit, but they soon determined that it was
actually coming from around the front door of their home.
In fact, at one point when they called the fire
department crew in the fire department then called in a
hazmat team and that has Matt team said that there
was something near the front door that was causing their
(14:36):
eyes to water, some kind of liquid. This was in
an incident report that Umar has, so that really helped
to kind of focus and narrow down his investigation. Umar
started to spend a lot of time looking at all
the nooks and crannies that could be leaking near his
front door, and he noticed that there was a small
crack in the bottom corner of his door. He started
(15:00):
to wonder if something wasn't coming through that crack into
his home. He decided to do something that would end
up shocking everyone, mostly the Internet, because we all lost
our my as on. He hid a small security camera
in the plant outside his front door. On June twenty sixth,
they saw their neighbor, Zooming Lee, approach the door and
(15:21):
crouched down near it. They couldn't exactly see what he
was doing, but Umer thought it looked really suspicious, and
so he adjusted the camera camera angle Afterwards. The next day,
they watched in horror as Lee approached the door, crouched down,
and produced a syringe full of a liquid that he
then injected into the small gap in the corner of
their door.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Oh terrifying, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Ultimately, obviously, Umar called the police, who, after watching the video,
arrested Lee. The investigators were able to determine that inside
the syringe was a compound of multiple materials, including two opioids,
methadone and hydrocodone, plus an unknown noxious substance considered hazardous,
so they still don't know what it was. They just
(16:05):
know that part of it was methodone and hydrocodone. At first,
my thought was, you know, like, it seems like so
much damage for such a small amount of liquid, right,
But I found some people talking about it on Reddit,
and you know, and one Reddit user who is a
(16:28):
chemist noted that, for comparison, captain or captain is a
chemical that's added to natural gas that makes it smell
like rotten eggs. It's only at a concentration of like
thirteen parts per million, so like point zero zero one
three percent. So with the right chemical, it really doesn't
take much to cause a very noticeable effect. So whatever
(16:50):
was in there, it didn't have to be a whole
lot of it for it to cause these very intense reactions.
Not all of the Abdullah symptoms can even be explained
by the methodone and hydrocodon, So that does tell us
that there is something else in there and it could
potentially affect them or their daughter for years to come.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
We have no idea using chemical warfare against this family
upstairs because he claims that they're being too loud. I
wonder why the last tenants moved out?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I know, I have that same thing here. I'm like,
I wonder what, like if somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Lived there before, Yeah, they were like, we're good.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Did he do this before? Like, we have no idea.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I can only imagine that he did. I mean, how
do you escalate to that so quickly? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's very interesting. But there's some theories here we're gonna
chat about. But first of all, talk a little bit
about the charges that were filed. So charges were filed
against Lee by the state on six, eighteen twenty four.
You can find this all on the website. I'll post
it up for you guys, the state's website. So these
are considered a felony. Let me just go ahead and
(17:59):
say that straightaway burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. There are
two counts of aggravated stocking. Each of those had a
two thousand dollars bail possession of a controlled substance, which
was two hundred and fifty dollars bond. There was one
two three counts of battery at five hundred dollars each
for a bond, and then there was actually a battery
(18:21):
on a law enforcement officer. So I thought that was
really interesting. That's normally a two thousand dollars bond. I
believe it was taken off since I didn't see that
amount paid. So they actually added this because the officer
who arrived on scene interacted with the chemical agent and
experienced like skin irritation from it, and so what immediately
becomes battery on a law enforcement officer. Umor had originally
(18:43):
filed two domestic violent cases against Lee, I think, so
they were all marked the same day, so I think
he filed them and then they once they saw the video,
they realized what actually was going on and like what
was really happening, so it got moved. Those were both
closed and now it's just this one big felony case
that's opened. So I think that's why there was that adjustment.
(19:05):
Lee was released on a cash bond of over five
thousand dollars after his arrest on June twenty seventh of
twenty three. The open case shows that Lee was supposed
to appear before the court's on December fifth of twenty
twenty three at eight thirty am, but he did not appear,
and thus the entirety of his cash bond was for
a fit. Over seven hundred and fifty dollars in cash
(19:26):
was posted by Linlan Wrenn, who I assume is his wife.
Of course, the judge then issued a pace warrant cap
pace warrant capiche capiche warrant CAPE, which allows law enforcement
to detain or hold someone until they appear in court,
so he has a worn out However, I also found
that it was likely he was not able to attend
this hearing because he was detained by US Immigration and
(19:49):
Customs aka ICE stop what so I just picked his
butt up and they deported him back to China so
he didn't have to can you believe that? Obviously, the
media frenzied over this situation and went viral on social media.
The people were calling for justice for the Abdullah family.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, So apparently how this all came about is Lee
was almost immediately expelled from the university for this. Right,
but when you're on a student visa, you must be
supported by your institution to remain in the country. Right.
So once his support was removed via the institution.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
University swooped in.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, they swooped in and shot his butt back to China,
and he was told that he's really not allowed to
come back. If he ever tries to come back to
the United States, will detain him, and they will detain
him because he would have to face these open charges.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, as he should.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. I feel like they should have put his butt
in jail first, right, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Had him stand trial and then service time and then deported.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Sorry, booty, I know I've said, but like the eight
times to like his butt is that that's so frustrating bonkers. Yeah,
And I like his wife.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And child are still children are still in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I assume they probably went back with him. I imagine
they were on dependency, he says, Okay, yeah, absolutely wild bonkers. Interestingly,
Oxford Place actually failed a breach of contract with Lee
on seven nineteen of twenty three, So this was in
order to evict him from the property. I guess I
think he owned the condo. Okay, so this got him
(21:23):
off the property and he rented it out after he moved. Yeah,
so that condo did go up before rent on one
of the walls in the listing was a six line
quote from Steve Jobs. Okay, part of this quote said,
don't let the noise from other's opinions drown out your
own inner pose. Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
So coincidence? March?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Sure? I don't know. Oh so that's kind of where
(22:06):
the case is standing. But I wanted to talk just
about a couple thoughts I had. Okay, yeah, so I
first things versus this all happened after the baby was born.
But you don't ever hear like complaining about baby.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Noises, not specifically.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
It's like everyday normal life sounds. It's never like the
baby was up crying all night, You.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Dropped your phone, you walked across the living room too fast.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Like on, that's what I'm saying, slow your steps, like
slow down? Like what was he hearing down there? Like?
I wonder if the chemicals he used at work were
maybe yeah, it maybe caused them to hallucinate, or potentially
the stress of his career caused them to hallucinate and
(22:51):
was preventing him from sleeping because I know sleep deprivation
can make people like lose their minds.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Okay, I don't know. I've never lived in a downstairs.
I've always been on the top floor because I specifically
ask for that because I know myself I will lose
my mind as well. So I don't know. I kind
of get it. But at the same time, you don't
poison people with noxious chemicals, right because you're a little.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Because you're ear too with their the amount of noise
they're making.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it just doesn't make any sense to me, No,
I think. Yeah, so you think it's the combination of
him having sleep aperation and coming into contact with these
chemicals that are affecting baby.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I do know that these specific chemicals that he had
concocted he doesn't have in his lab at work.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Oh interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So either he got them from somebody else's lab, or
he purchased them specifically on the internet or something to.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Get purchasing methadone and what was.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You can do it on yeah, methodone hydrocodone. You can
get it on the black the black market, dark web,
dark web, that's the word. The dark the black web.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Okay, that's wild to me.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do you want to hear many? My biggest evidence for this, yes, okay, absolutely,
The biggest evidence that I feel that this is actually
hallucinatory is the fact that he started doing this whole
thing with the chemicals, allegedly while the family was on vacation.
They weren't even there. They weren't making noise because they
weren't physically in the unit, but he was injecting this
crap into their apartment.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Did you think he could just build it up enough
to the point to where they would get home and
just leave, like move out because it was so so.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Gross when when they got home. I don't know if
it was me, like I'm trying to like put myself
in his shoes, and I was like freaking out. I
would start doing it when I felt like the noise
was at its most intense.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I wouldn't do it at all, and I would get
noise canceling headphones because those are a thing in twenty
twenty three.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You have to put yourself in the perpetrators shoe. I
am he's You're assuming that he's normal, So this man
is not normal?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Okay, Well that's gonna be mean, Like what less than
a year moving into an apartment and trying to deal
to co with having to deal with neighbor and noise,
deal with neighbor news, Like I hear my neighbor occasionally,
but I'm sure she hears us all of the time
and she never complains so.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Because she understands that you're a normal person living in
a normal life.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Supeasely she hasn't complained about OPO yet.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Oh Opie, it's not her fault, I know. And then
another question that I have is what was his end result?
Like he wanted them to move out, but that would
just mean somebody else was going to move in, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I don't think he knew what he wanted. Maybe he
thought if he could get them to move out, the
smell would be so bad and continuous that they wouldn't
be able to rent out the.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Apartment, Like he would just keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, that's kind of a maniacal. But and like I
wouldn't move into a rotten egg smelling apartment.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, something like this very cry You're.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Going to see the articles and smells like it makes
you woozy, Like I'd be like, no, Nope, this isn't
for me.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, it's possible.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
It don't see. Maybe he wanted to move them out
and then they would move upstairs.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Because I'm going to buy the Yeah, I don't know
a graduate student salary. I don't freaking think, so I
don't know. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And that's why I would love to know if there
was somebody in there beforehand, and if they experienced something
similar or what you know, if.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
You lived in this apartment above.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
If you've ever lived in the Oxford Place, that Florida
Palms and there's.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
All tell us about your experience, and if you ever
had to run in with this guy, my god.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I know well. And it brings into clear focus this
idea that Lee used his knowledge of chemicals to exploit
the system and then used his access at USF Labs
to do physical harm to his neighbors.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So he's capable of worse. I feel like I feel
like that wasn't even probably that bad far as he
would have escalated if he hadn't gotten caught.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh, I think I agree? And are we watching our
graduate students enough? Should the advisor have noticed that something
was off with this man?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Are these materials, assuming he got them from the university.
How did nobody noticed that they would missing inventory?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, so how does it operate in your lab? Do
you guys have to take into account?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Great question?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I don't know if you guys, you probably don't have
like crazy chemicals, but.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
We do use some. From what I've gathered, there were
protocols in place for these types of chemicals on USF's
like campus. But some professors are like very hands off
with their students, sure, and they just want them to
handle their business. So without gidance. Who knows how easy
(28:01):
it is to bypass the oversight of these protocols, especially
because everything at the university is like old school like
for the most part, handhand.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Absolutely, like you were expected.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
To just be honest and write down like the stuff
that you're trusted.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Enough to become a PhD or a graduate student, then
you should be trust rereadly enough not to steal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Do you heard about the guy at our campus of
the medical school.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
No, so there was.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
A a gentleman who was in the medical the med
school who I guess was snitching on some of the
other med students for cheating, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
However, not snitches get the stitches.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
The snitchers then found out that he had killed a
man lied on his application. What he had killed a
man led on his application because he got manslaughter and
then got him kicked out of medical school.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Laughter, sorry just laughed.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, man's laughter. I can't. And so he started making
a bunch of threats towards the university. Oh but like
he was like going to come shoot people, like shoot
the school and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
When was this?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
This was like last year, girl, I cannot really, you
don't know lomb with this, And so that's why they
locked down all of the buildings over there. You have
to have a key card to get in. It is
because of him. Holy but the school also knew about
it for almost six months before they did anything. So
here we are, I know, why does it.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Take so long for them to do anything litigious in
the school?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I do not know, girl, But I mean grad students
can go off their rocker. In fact, I have a
(29:55):
couple of cases here.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I was gonna say, like, are you good? You need
I'm good, Jessa. Here.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I don't have a terrible PI so I'm usually pretty okay.
So this is not the first time that something like
this has happened, though it is incredibly rare. So In
twenty fourteen, a graduate student at Stanford's biochemistry program poisoned
multiple of her lab mats' water bottles with para formaldehyde,
which is a carcinogenic formaldehyde compound that I actually use
in my lab. She was ironically also from mainland China,
(30:26):
and was arrested for slowly poisoning her lab mates and
herself for over two months in the news laboratory at
the stem Cell Research Building.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
What the heck?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
It turns out that she actually was suffering from a
severe mental health problem and received three year probation sentence
with mandatory mental health treatment. Unlikely, she was actually not deported.
She's still I don't think she's still at school. I mean,
although she must be if that's what her visa is,
so she must still be working there. But yeah, they
(30:56):
she was poisoning people with that. That material we have
in our lab. Nobody makes any record of it. We
purchase it, it stays in our lab. We use it
for fixing like tissues and things.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
How toxic is it? Like? How long would it have
taken people to get like severely sick?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
But I think it also for the most part depends
on the amount that it was the water too. Yeah,
so she was just slowly poisoning people over two months
and herself, Like I said, I do think so.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
They all have the same symptoms, so it wouldn't be
pointing back at her, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Or she wanted to felt like she was doing everybody
like a favor somehow, Like it sounds like she was
very sick. Yeah, so that's one we use a lot
of these things. They go into fixing like tissues that
we are staining, and then once we take it out,
it goes into a big bucket labeled like hazardous waste,
(31:54):
and then that gets taken out. But I would never
do it, but if I wanted to, like, it would
be very easy for me to steal chemicals like this,
And it kind of makes you think about why that
is so easy in academia. I don't know if it's
that easy in corporate America in industry, but I imagine
it probably.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Is, I would imagine. So, Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
All about having to trust your coworkers, I guess.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah. I mean there's a reason why most jobs give
background checks, Yeah, especially if you're dealing with I feel
like they hazardous chemicals like that. I don't know. I
don't feel like they would give anyone access to that,
but I don't know, right, you never know. We don't know, no, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And then another case, which occurred in Germany in twenty
twenty one, was of a thirty two year old German
material science graduate, a graduate student who poisoned seven people
at the Technical University in Darmstad. She was also found
to be mentally ill in having a psychotic episode where
she believed her co workers were persecuting her. She poisoned
multiple water and milk containers on campus the night before.
(32:59):
And this was a poisoning that was immediate pretty much.
These people drank it. They all developed symptoms of poisoning.
They had big blue splotches.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
On our limbs, terrifying.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Some of them went into critical condition at the time,
but they have all now recovered. It's hard to say
like if this will have impact later on, right, right,
but it is. It does happen, and people often, at
least in America, they'll shoot up their workplaces or just
do it slightly differently. But it's just beg the question,
(33:34):
are we watching these types of materials closely enough, especially
in academia. And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I don't know. I don't think so, I don't think so.
I don't think so. No, I feel like most professors
with grad students, at least some of the ones that
I know have, they have so many grad students that
I'm sure it's difficult to keep up with each and
every one of them and how their mental health is.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
And yeah, especially if your hands off, if you're not
in a lot a lot, you have no idea.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Like yeah, obviously you still have your own papers to write,
research to do. So yeah, I don't know, mm hmm,
especially because.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Like grad school is known for being super stressful. Yeah,
and there's a lot of pressure. And tom My PI
has told me multiple times like he's been in or
he's seen like other labs where the professor will actually
encourage stealing, like stealing each other's work so that you
can get ahead, so people won't talk about it with
each other and they'll just all work on things separately
(34:29):
and toxic and it's super common, especially in medical fields. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Watch off of your professor, check on your grad students.
Please never leave your drink cell no, yeah, I mean
that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
And probably just put a camera outside your house just
for fun, because what the hell.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
A couple of them at least.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, So that's the crazy story of this man's his
freaking neighbors with a tiny, tiny baby assumingly is bonkers.
I wish that he could have gone to trials, that
we could at least get some idea on what was happening.
I'm assuming, like I said, I'm assuming it's mental absolute issue,
(35:16):
But who knows. Maybe he's just a vindictive pos Maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
A little combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Comebo. Okay, Well, thank you all so much for hanging
with us on this little half calf. We very much
appreciate you. Just a little reminder, we do have some
merch up. We put up our wizard shirts, so if
you haven't seen those, give those a little looxie.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Dueling wizards. They're so sick.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And we appreciate all of you so much who have
been with us since the beginning, or if you're just
getting here, hello, welcome to the Spooky Squad. I love
you and that's it. If you want to reach out
to us at all, hit us up on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Scream dot and Dot Sugar Dot podcast on Facebook, Scream
and Sugar True Crime, Coffee Hour on TikTok, scream dot
and Dot Sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Hit us up on Gmail, scream and.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Sugar Reno at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Or shoot us a voicemail.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
At seven seven five three eight six two one eight five.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Otherwise we'll see you guys in the next one and
remember say spooky bye bye bye bye bye bye
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Scream and Sugar,
your true crime coffee hour, where we dive into the
darker side of humanity while enjoying a little something sweet
on the side. I am your host, Saharah.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Candace, and today we.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Are going to be covering zoomingly the neighbor from Help. Hi, Candace,
(00:51):
Hey Sarah, how are y'all?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I am okay? How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I am okay? What can I say? Just a woman
living my life the best I can turn my best
out here.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
However, in the third week of the semester, how's tia
in going?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
It's rough, brother, Yeah, yeah, already. My two classes they're
both completely full. Oh one of them thinks I'm funny,
the other one does not. Did I show you the
stampy go?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
No, you gotta read the room. Oh no, We're gonna
take a picture of this because it's Sarah's likeness holding
up a thumb saying.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Dang, good job, being good job all our case and
no flunctuation.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We're in college, no one cares anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Instead of like because most of the time my students
get pretty good grades on their quizzes, and so I
was having to write like good job, and then twelve
out of twelve like a thousand times, and I would
just stamp it with my face and the thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I love it. You're saving time.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm saving so much.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is yeah, efficiency at its finest, And I think.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I think too, if I got that stamp on one
of my papers, I would be so stoked to be like,
this is hilarious.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I think one of my classes is gonna think it's
very funny, and I think the other one is gonna
be like this lady's weird, ma'am. Have you considered a
job in the circus? However? Whatever screwed them kids.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
She's a clown lady.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So, as all of you know, I did recently go
to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. I figured
I would just add a little shout out to a
couple of the coffee shops that I hit up while
I was there that I just thought were amazing. So
the first one, I cannot truly cannot talk this place
up enough. It's called Cafe Hub. It's a tiny little
(02:49):
spot right next to the Museum of Death in Los Angeles,
and it's just like a place to Reclaim Yourself Cafe Hub,
and they have a little sign out front said we
have cold brew colder than your ex's soul.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I love it and I think it's.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So funny and everything that they had in there. I
actually got a legit latte this time. I got an
orange blossom latte with a oh it was so good. Anna,
I got a pistachio latte favorite. It was amazing. The
man who was serving us, I assume he was the owner,
so funny, so nice, so kind. He actually puts candied
(03:26):
oranges and the lemon bloss or in the orange blossom latte. Unreal.
And then he saw Anna like looked at and she's like, oh,
that looks good, and he said, oh, let me get
you one, and then he gave us both like candied
orange rines and stuff. It was very very nice, skaty pie,
and everybody who went in there while we were there,
they were clearly like regulars. It was just a very
(03:46):
lovely spot. So I wanted to give that place a
shout out. And then also we hit another place before
we left called Horror Vibes Coffee. Horror Vibes, the whole
thing is horror. The it is so cute in there.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
It's all horror themed, the drinks are horror themed. The
murals in the art is amazing. Anna said, it's like
the best artist ever out there doing these giant horror murals. Yeah,
it's just gorgeous in there.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
We will link those for y'all.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Absolutely, But in the meantime, this one should be pretty quick.
We are talking about zooming lee this case. It's pretty
resance from twenty twenty two, okay, or I'm sorry twenty
twenty three. Yeah, okay, And it shook my shook me
to my core. Shiver your timbers, yes, it tr did
(04:44):
my timbers? Or shiverar my flowers were gasted.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
This place take or this case takes place in Tampa, Florida,
at a condo community called the Oxford Place at Tampa Palms.
These units are mostly owned, sometimes rented out, and and
it surrounds the Abdullah family. So Umar Abdullah and his
pregnant wife Sumira moved into a third floor condo in
(05:09):
June of twenty twenty two. So they were really happy
with their new place. They were excited to bring their
daughter into the world. She was very pregnant. The couple
was happy and seemingly pretty friendly with their neighbors, including
their downstairs neighbor, Zooming Lee So. Lee was a Chinese
international graduate student who was attending the University of South Florida,
(05:31):
where he was completing his doctorate degree in chemistry. He
actually had less than a semester to go when this
takes place.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Oh, so esh distress.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, I'm sure he was very stressed. But this thing,
this dang, this dang case, this case, this case, this
old case, this old case. He was born in nineteen
eighty seven. He's born on seven to one, so July first.
I think that makes him a cancer right, And from
what I can gather, he was relatively friendly, if not
a rather serious man. He lived in the second floor
(06:05):
apartment with his wife and two small children, and appeared
to be pretty happy for the Abdullah family. He and
Umar exchanged numbers earlier on, and Lee texted him about
the well being of his family, and he gave them
a gift address when their daughter was born and like
checked in on them.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Okay, So, by all accounts, he was a decent downstairs
neighbor to have. There were no red flags at this point.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
At this point, no, no, However, after the Abdullah's daughter
was born in September of twenty twenty two, something started
to happen with Lee. Okay, So, Lee became obsessive about
noise he described coming from upstairs. He asked Umar not
to move furniture after eleven PM and to walk slower
across the floors, as the noise was keeping him awake
(06:52):
at night.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
So at first, I'm like, Okay, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I would hate to have an upstairs neighbor.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I have one right now. And it's really funny to
say that their dog has been barking all morning.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh no, I know.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And I almost went up there and just butted my
face in and be like, is everything okay cause she's
normally really quiet.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And I was like, I do true crime, and I
worry when things are.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Out of there. Yeah, just checking in.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, And if you ever want me to come up
and pick her out for you could do so, I understand.
I digress, he started. Lee started to say that he
could hear the family all hours of the day, moving furniture,
walking loudly dropping things. He texted Umar multiple times, asking
him walk slower or softer and not to slam doors
(07:37):
and cabinets. He complained about hearing a toilet seat like
he could hear like the toilet seat creak all the time.
And he complained at one time about addresser drawer closing,
Oh my god, a phone dropping on the ground.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
People live their lives and they don't say contain space
of their apartment, like there's gonna be noise.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Also, that's ex tessive mm hm.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Lord Umar said he tried to go and it like,
apologized to Lee and talk it over. They bought house
slippers for wearing in the house and they put down
rugs to try.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
To consider it and very considerate, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But it didn't seem to help the situation very much
at all. Then Lee began to report the noise to
the homeowners association. In fact, he made an absurd number
of noise complaints over the period of about a year. Finally,
Umar and the landlord actually came down to Lee's unit
and while standing in Lee's unit, asked Umar's wife Sumara,
(08:33):
to simulate the noise from upstairs so they could try
to figure out like what was going on, and they
both stated that the noise was minimal and not at
all what Lee was stating that he was hearing so
In Marsh of twenty twenty three, Lee called the police
on the Abdullahs just fifteen minutes after they returned home
because they were picking up family who had come to
see the new baby. Lee complained that he could hear
(08:56):
luggage scraping across their floor.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Oh my god, dude.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Seriously. Eventually the HOA and everyone else was like, sir,
you need to be patient. You need to be understanding.
Living in a basically an apartment complex is difficult, and
noises to be expected when your neighbors have a new baby, yeah,
and when they're just living their lives.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Absolutely regular routine lives, like, like I said, you're not
going to be in one like you're not going to
be standing in one spot, yeah, making any noise, right, and.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
With a new baby, you're going to be up walking
around with the baby at night. Like there's just oh yeah,
that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Man.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I got a new puppy right now and I'm up
with her, so I can completely relate. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Well, and it's interesting because Lee lived in his apartment,
in his unit with his wife and two small children,
so so like he didn't know.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
That there's gonna be noise exactly. I wonder if they're
downstairs neighbors were complaining about it. It just worked its
way up.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It wouldn't surprise me. Actually I did a little diggert later,
but I figured I just bring it up now. I
found the apartment complex on the internet and I looked
up some reviews, and the first review on there is
from two months ago. Yeah, it starts out with it
(10:14):
looks nice, but the noise between units is horrible. You
hear every sound your neighbor makes, especially bad if you
have someone above you, you hear every step they take.
That's like the first part of his review. His review,
This is like some random guy from two months ago.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Oh yeah, well maybe they just they probably cut corners
and didn't put a proper insulation in place.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I mean, I'm assuming so because that sucks. And they
are hardwood floors. I noticed, so maybe that's part of
it as well. But either way, I think there was
probably noise, but not maybe to this extent, but we'll
get into it. Incidentally, the Abdullah family decided to go
like on a short vacation. I believe Umar was going
(10:59):
to some kind of conference to Ohio, and this was
in May of twenty twenty three. So while on vacation,
they had a family friend stop by to grab a
package for them. On May thirty. First, the friend calls
Umar and they are talking to him and they're you know,
there's a really bad smell in your apartment, like it's
burning my eyes. I don't know what's going on, and
(11:20):
whore I was, Okay, we'll look at it when we
get home. Upon returning home, Umer's family noticed the same
unusual smell in their apartment. At first, they thought maybe
the landlord had done some like painting or something, and
somehow those renovations had.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I know what this case is now, Oh my god,
feel I was just like, I just watched a video
on this so crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Okay, sorry, some renovating maybe painting was being done near
the unit that was causing the smell. It was very pungent,
(12:05):
stung the eyes and the throat, and their little baby
daughter began coughing and started to refuse to eat. They
quickly opened the windows and turned on the fans and
the condo and tried to get the air moving, and
that seemed to dissipate a lot of the smell. Just
a few days later, though, the smell returned, this time
stronger than ever. They contacted both their landlord and eventually
(12:27):
they contacted the Tampa Fire Rescue Team to come check
on the residents because they were like, this is unbearable.
The landlord explained, we have not done any renovations near here,
and we do not know where the smell is coming
from or what could be causing it. The fire rescue
team was also unable to determine what could be causing
the smell or what could be causing their symptoms. The
(12:48):
smell would return at least weekly, if not more often.
As the month progressed, the family experienced even more side effects,
including shortness of breath, severe severe headaches, coffee and vomiting
in their infant, oh, horrible eye and skin irritation into
their horror hair loss. At one point, Umar's wife picked
up the baby from her crib and noticed that the
(13:10):
ten month old had left behind hair all over her pillow. God,
I know, at first they thought it was due to
the fact, you know, some babies do lose hair sure
in their early months, but she was almost a year
old and soon both the wife and Umar noticed their
hair was also falling out in the shower. What the
heck freaky right, Obviously something had to change. They couldn't
(13:30):
keep living like this, so they started by bringing out
repair men to see if it was one of the
appliances in their unit that were causing these problems. Okay,
they started by bringing out like an AC guy and
the HVAC tech noticed nothing wrong with air AC, but
did make a note of a chemical odor. Supposedly Allegedly,
the plumber who came out to the unit wrote in
(13:52):
his report that he felt lightheaded and nauseous from being
in the room. They had their air ducts and air
vents completely cleaned the landlord's page to have the heater
replaced in case that was it, but the smell just
continued to come back, over and over again. When the
family next smelled the horrible smell, instead of immediately trying
to clear it out, they started to try following it
(14:14):
to its source.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Okay, smart.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
At first, it appeared like maybe a vent might have
been the culprit, but they soon determined that it was
actually coming from around the front door of their home.
In fact, at one point when they called the fire
department crew in the fire department then called in a
hazmat team and that has Matt team said that there
was something near the front door that was causing their
(14:36):
eyes to water, some kind of liquid. This was in
an incident report that Umar has, so that really helped
to kind of focus and narrow down his investigation. Umar
started to spend a lot of time looking at all
the nooks and crannies that could be leaking near his
front door, and he noticed that there was a small
crack in the bottom corner of his door. He started
(15:00):
to wonder if something wasn't coming through that crack into
his home. He decided to do something that would end
up shocking everyone, mostly the Internet, because we all lost
our my as on. He hid a small security camera
in the plant outside his front door. On June twenty sixth,
they saw their neighbor, Zooming Lee, approach the door and
(15:21):
crouched down near it. They couldn't exactly see what he
was doing, but Umer thought it looked really suspicious, and
so he adjusted the camera camera angle Afterwards. The next day,
they watched in horror as Lee approached the door, crouched down,
and produced a syringe full of a liquid that he
then injected into the small gap in the corner of
their door.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Oh terrifying, I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Ultimately, obviously, Umar called the police, who, after watching the video,
arrested Lee. The investigators were able to determine that inside
the syringe was a compound of multiple materials, including two opioids,
methadone and hydrocodone, plus an unknown noxious substance considered hazardous,
so they still don't know what it was. They just
(16:05):
know that part of it was methodone and hydrocodone. At first,
my thought was, you know, like, it seems like so
much damage for such a small amount of liquid, right,
But I found some people talking about it on Reddit,
and you know, and one Reddit user who is a
(16:28):
chemist noted that, for comparison, captain or captain is a
chemical that's added to natural gas that makes it smell
like rotten eggs. It's only at a concentration of like
thirteen parts per million, so like point zero zero one
three percent. So with the right chemical, it really doesn't
take much to cause a very noticeable effect. So whatever
(16:50):
was in there, it didn't have to be a whole
lot of it for it to cause these very intense reactions.
Not all of the Abdullah symptoms can even be explained
by the methodone and hydrocodon, So that does tell us
that there is something else in there and it could
potentially affect them or their daughter for years to come.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
We have no idea using chemical warfare against this family
upstairs because he claims that they're being too loud. I
wonder why the last tenants moved out?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I know, I have that same thing here. I'm like,
I wonder what, like if somebody.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Lived there before, Yeah, they were like, we're good.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Did he do this before? Like, we have no idea.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I can only imagine that he did. I mean, how
do you escalate to that so quickly? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's very interesting. But there's some theories here we're gonna
chat about. But first of all, talk a little bit
about the charges that were filed. So charges were filed
against Lee by the state on six, eighteen twenty four.
You can find this all on the website. I'll post
it up for you guys, the state's website. So these
are considered a felony. Let me just go ahead and
(17:59):
say that straightaway burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. There are
two counts of aggravated stocking. Each of those had a
two thousand dollars bail possession of a controlled substance, which
was two hundred and fifty dollars bond. There was one
two three counts of battery at five hundred dollars each
for a bond, and then there was actually a battery
(18:21):
on a law enforcement officer. So I thought that was
really interesting. That's normally a two thousand dollars bond. I
believe it was taken off since I didn't see that
amount paid. So they actually added this because the officer
who arrived on scene interacted with the chemical agent and
experienced like skin irritation from it, and so what immediately
becomes battery on a law enforcement officer. Umor had originally
(18:43):
filed two domestic violent cases against Lee, I think, so
they were all marked the same day, so I think
he filed them and then they once they saw the video,
they realized what actually was going on and like what
was really happening, so it got moved. Those were both
closed and now it's just this one big felony case
that's opened. So I think that's why there was that adjustment.
(19:05):
Lee was released on a cash bond of over five
thousand dollars after his arrest on June twenty seventh of
twenty three. The open case shows that Lee was supposed
to appear before the court's on December fifth of twenty
twenty three at eight thirty am, but he did not appear,
and thus the entirety of his cash bond was for
a fit. Over seven hundred and fifty dollars in cash
(19:26):
was posted by Linlan Wrenn, who I assume is his wife.
Of course, the judge then issued a pace warrant cap
pace warrant capiche capiche warrant CAPE, which allows law enforcement
to detain or hold someone until they appear in court,
so he has a worn out However, I also found
that it was likely he was not able to attend
this hearing because he was detained by US Immigration and
(19:49):
Customs aka ICE stop what so I just picked his
butt up and they deported him back to China so
he didn't have to can you believe that? Obviously, the
media frenzied over this situation and went viral on social media.
The people were calling for justice for the Abdullah family.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, So apparently how this all came about is Lee
was almost immediately expelled from the university for this. Right,
but when you're on a student visa, you must be
supported by your institution to remain in the country. Right.
So once his support was removed via the institution.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
University swooped in.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, they swooped in and shot his butt back to China,
and he was told that he's really not allowed to
come back. If he ever tries to come back to
the United States, will detain him, and they will detain
him because he would have to face these open charges.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, as he should.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah. I feel like they should have put his butt
in jail first, right, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Had him stand trial and then service time and then deported.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Sorry, booty, I know I've said, but like the eight
times to like his butt is that that's so frustrating bonkers. Yeah,
And I like his wife.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And child are still children are still in the United States.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
I assume they probably went back with him. I imagine
they were on dependency, he says, Okay, yeah, absolutely wild bonkers. Interestingly,
Oxford Place actually failed a breach of contract with Lee
on seven nineteen of twenty three, So this was in
order to evict him from the property. I guess I
think he owned the condo. Okay, so this got him
(21:23):
off the property and he rented it out after he moved. Yeah,
so that condo did go up before rent on one
of the walls in the listing was a six line
quote from Steve Jobs. Okay, part of this quote said,
don't let the noise from other's opinions drown out your
own inner pose. Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
So coincidence? March?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Sure? I don't know. Oh so that's kind of where
(22:06):
the case is standing. But I wanted to talk just
about a couple thoughts I had. Okay, yeah, so I
first things versus this all happened after the baby was born.
But you don't ever hear like complaining about baby.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Noises, not specifically.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
It's like everyday normal life sounds. It's never like the
baby was up crying all night, You.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Dropped your phone, you walked across the living room too fast.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Like on, that's what I'm saying, slow your steps, like
slow down? Like what was he hearing down there? Like?
I wonder if the chemicals he used at work were
maybe yeah, it maybe caused them to hallucinate, or potentially
the stress of his career caused them to hallucinate and
(22:51):
was preventing him from sleeping because I know sleep deprivation
can make people like lose their minds.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Okay, I don't know. I've never lived in a downstairs.
I've always been on the top floor because I specifically
ask for that because I know myself I will lose
my mind as well. So I don't know. I kind
of get it. But at the same time, you don't
poison people with noxious chemicals, right because you're a little.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Because you're ear too with their the amount of noise
they're making.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it just doesn't make any sense to me, No,
I think. Yeah, so you think it's the combination of
him having sleep aperation and coming into contact with these
chemicals that are affecting baby.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I do know that these specific chemicals that he had
concocted he doesn't have in his lab at work.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Oh interesting, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
So either he got them from somebody else's lab, or
he purchased them specifically on the internet or something to.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Get purchasing methadone and what was.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You can do it on yeah, methodone hydrocodone. You can
get it on the black the black market, dark web,
dark web, that's the word. The dark the black web.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Okay, that's wild to me.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do you want to hear many? My biggest evidence for this, yes, okay, absolutely,
The biggest evidence that I feel that this is actually
hallucinatory is the fact that he started doing this whole
thing with the chemicals, allegedly while the family was on vacation.
They weren't even there. They weren't making noise because they
weren't physically in the unit, but he was injecting this
crap into their apartment.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Did you think he could just build it up enough
to the point to where they would get home and
just leave, like move out because it was so so.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Gross when when they got home. I don't know if
it was me, like I'm trying to like put myself
in his shoes, and I was like freaking out. I
would start doing it when I felt like the noise
was at its most intense.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I wouldn't do it at all, and I would get
noise canceling headphones because those are a thing in twenty
twenty three.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You have to put yourself in the perpetrators shoe. I
am he's You're assuming that he's normal, So this man
is not normal?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Okay, Well that's gonna be mean, Like what less than
a year moving into an apartment and trying to deal
to co with having to deal with neighbor and noise,
deal with neighbor news, Like I hear my neighbor occasionally,
but I'm sure she hears us all of the time
and she never complains so.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Because she understands that you're a normal person living in
a normal life.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Supeasely she hasn't complained about OPO yet.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Oh Opie, it's not her fault, I know. And then
another question that I have is what was his end result?
Like he wanted them to move out, but that would
just mean somebody else was going to move in, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
I don't think he knew what he wanted. Maybe he
thought if he could get them to move out, the
smell would be so bad and continuous that they wouldn't
be able to rent out the.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Apartment, Like he would just keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, that's kind of a maniacal. But and like I
wouldn't move into a rotten egg smelling apartment.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, something like this very cry You're.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Going to see the articles and smells like it makes
you woozy, Like I'd be like, no, Nope, this isn't
for me.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, it's possible.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
It don't see. Maybe he wanted to move them out
and then they would move upstairs.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Because I'm going to buy the Yeah, I don't know
a graduate student salary. I don't freaking think, so I
don't know. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And that's why I would love to know if there
was somebody in there beforehand, and if they experienced something
similar or what you know, if.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
You lived in this apartment above.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
If you've ever lived in the Oxford Place, that Florida
Palms and there's.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
All tell us about your experience, and if you ever
had to run in with this guy, my god.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I know well. And it brings into clear focus this
idea that Lee used his knowledge of chemicals to exploit
the system and then used his access at USF Labs
to do physical harm to his neighbors.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So he's capable of worse. I feel like I feel
like that wasn't even probably that bad far as he
would have escalated if he hadn't gotten caught.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh, I think I agree? And are we watching our
graduate students enough? Should the advisor have noticed that something
was off with this man?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Like?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Are these materials, assuming he got them from the university.
How did nobody noticed that they would missing inventory?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, so how does it operate in your lab? Do
you guys have to take into account?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Great question?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I don't know if you guys, you probably don't have
like crazy chemicals, but.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
We do use some. From what I've gathered, there were
protocols in place for these types of chemicals on USF's
like campus. But some professors are like very hands off
with their students, sure, and they just want them to
handle their business. So without gidance. Who knows how easy
(28:01):
it is to bypass the oversight of these protocols, especially
because everything at the university is like old school like
for the most part, handhand.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Absolutely, like you were expected.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
To just be honest and write down like the stuff
that you're trusted.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Enough to become a PhD or a graduate student, then
you should be trust rereadly enough not to steal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Do you heard about the guy at our campus of
the medical school.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
No, so there was.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
A a gentleman who was in the medical the med
school who I guess was snitching on some of the
other med students for cheating, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
However, not snitches get the stitches.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
The snitchers then found out that he had killed a
man lied on his application. What he had killed a
man led on his application because he got manslaughter and
then got him kicked out of medical school.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Laughter, sorry just laughed.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, man's laughter. I can't. And so he started making
a bunch of threats towards the university. Oh but like
he was like going to come shoot people, like shoot
the school and stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
When was this?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
This was like last year, girl, I cannot really, you
don't know lomb with this, And so that's why they
locked down all of the buildings over there. You have
to have a key card to get in. It is
because of him. Holy but the school also knew about
it for almost six months before they did anything. So
here we are, I know, why does it.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Take so long for them to do anything litigious in
the school?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I do not know, girl, But I mean grad students
can go off their rocker. In fact, I have a
(29:55):
couple of cases here.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I was gonna say, like, are you good? You need
I'm good, Jessa. Here.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I don't have a terrible PI so I'm usually pretty okay.
So this is not the first time that something like
this has happened, though it is incredibly rare. So In
twenty fourteen, a graduate student at Stanford's biochemistry program poisoned
multiple of her lab mats' water bottles with para formaldehyde,
which is a carcinogenic formaldehyde compound that I actually use
in my lab. She was ironically also from mainland China,
(30:26):
and was arrested for slowly poisoning her lab mates and
herself for over two months in the news laboratory at
the stem Cell Research Building.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
What the heck?
Speaker 1 (30:36):
It turns out that she actually was suffering from a
severe mental health problem and received three year probation sentence
with mandatory mental health treatment. Unlikely, she was actually not deported.
She's still I don't think she's still at school. I mean,
although she must be if that's what her visa is,
so she must still be working there. But yeah, they
(30:56):
she was poisoning people with that. That material we have
in our lab. Nobody makes any record of it. We
purchase it, it stays in our lab. We use it
for fixing like tissues and things.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
How toxic is it? Like? How long would it have
taken people to get like severely sick?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
But I think it also for the most part depends
on the amount that it was the water too. Yeah,
so she was just slowly poisoning people over two months
and herself, Like I said, I do think so.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
They all have the same symptoms, so it wouldn't be
pointing back at her, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Or she wanted to felt like she was doing everybody
like a favor somehow, Like it sounds like she was
very sick. Yeah, so that's one we use a lot
of these things. They go into fixing like tissues that
we are staining, and then once we take it out,
it goes into a big bucket labeled like hazardous waste,
(31:54):
and then that gets taken out. But I would never
do it, but if I wanted to, like, it would
be very easy for me to steal chemicals like this,
And it kind of makes you think about why that
is so easy in academia. I don't know if it's
that easy in corporate America in industry, but I imagine
it probably.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Is, I would imagine. So, Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
All about having to trust your coworkers, I guess.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah. I mean there's a reason why most jobs give
background checks, Yeah, especially if you're dealing with I feel
like they hazardous chemicals like that. I don't know. I
don't feel like they would give anyone access to that,
but I don't know, right, you never know. We don't know, no, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And then another case, which occurred in Germany in twenty
twenty one, was of a thirty two year old German
material science graduate, a graduate student who poisoned seven people
at the Technical University in Darmstad. She was also found
to be mentally ill in having a psychotic episode where
she believed her co workers were persecuting her. She poisoned
multiple water and milk containers on campus the night before.
(32:59):
And this was a poisoning that was immediate pretty much.
These people drank it. They all developed symptoms of poisoning.
They had big blue splotches.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
On our limbs, terrifying.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Some of them went into critical condition at the time,
but they have all now recovered. It's hard to say
like if this will have impact later on, right, right,
but it is. It does happen, and people often, at
least in America, they'll shoot up their workplaces or just
do it slightly differently. But it's just beg the question,
(33:34):
are we watching these types of materials closely enough, especially
in academia. And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
I don't know. I don't think so, I don't think so.
I don't think so. No, I feel like most professors
with grad students, at least some of the ones that
I know have, they have so many grad students that
I'm sure it's difficult to keep up with each and
every one of them and how their mental health is.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
And yeah, especially if your hands off, if you're not
in a lot a lot, you have no idea.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Like yeah, obviously you still have your own papers to write,
research to do. So yeah, I don't know, mm hmm,
especially because.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Like grad school is known for being super stressful. Yeah,
and there's a lot of pressure. And tom My PI
has told me multiple times like he's been in or
he's seen like other labs where the professor will actually
encourage stealing, like stealing each other's work so that you
can get ahead, so people won't talk about it with
each other and they'll just all work on things separately
(34:29):
and toxic and it's super common, especially in medical fields. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Watch off of your professor, check on your grad students.
Please never leave your drink cell no, yeah, I mean
that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
And probably just put a camera outside your house just
for fun, because what the hell.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
A couple of them at least.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, So that's the crazy story of this man's his
freaking neighbors with a tiny, tiny baby assumingly is bonkers.
I wish that he could have gone to trials, that
we could at least get some idea on what was happening.
I'm assuming, like I said, I'm assuming it's mental absolute issue,
(35:16):
But who knows. Maybe he's just a vindictive pos Maybe maybe.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
A little combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Comebo. Okay, Well, thank you all so much for hanging
with us on this little half calf. We very much
appreciate you. Just a little reminder, we do have some
merch up. We put up our wizard shirts, so if
you haven't seen those, give those a little looxie.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Dueling wizards. They're so sick.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And we appreciate all of you so much who have
been with us since the beginning, or if you're just
getting here, hello, welcome to the Spooky Squad. I love
you and that's it. If you want to reach out
to us at all, hit us up on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Scream dot and Dot Sugar Dot podcast on Facebook, Scream
and Sugar True Crime, Coffee Hour on TikTok, scream dot
and Dot Sugar.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Hit us up on Gmail, scream and.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Sugar Reno at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Or shoot us a voicemail.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
At seven seven five three eight six two one eight five.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Otherwise we'll see you guys in the next one and
remember say spooky bye bye bye bye bye bye
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