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Jakarta, January 2016. Two friends meet a third at a stylish downtown cafe. Coffee is ordered. One sip later, a young woman is in agony. Within minutes, she is dead.
That is the opening scene of the Jakarta cyanide coffee case, one of the most talked-about criminal trials in Indonesian history. In episode #277 of Rotten Mango, host Stephanie Soo walks through the story of an Indonesian woman accused of killing her best friend with poisoned coffee. Soo is known for her deep-dive, conversational style, and she lays out the timeline step by step: who ordered, who paid, who sat where, and what the cafe's security cameras captured.
What makes this case so gripping is how little anyone could agree on. The case was extensively covered in the Indonesian press, and the courtroom drama drew huge audiences. There was no confession, and the debate over the evidence was fierce. Was it a calculated killing, or a case built on shaky ground? The trial ended in a conviction, yet the questions people still ask about motive and proof have never fully gone away. Soo doesn't hand you a neat answer. She hands you the pieces and lets you wrestle with them.
Fair warning: you will start picking sides before the episode ends. Press play tonight and listen on Apple Podcasts, or find it wherever you get your podcasts.
