She was sick for two years - then a hidden camera revealed what her colleague did to her

An engineer from California, Rong Yuan, suffered for two years from vomiting, hair loss, and mysterious symptoms. Her mother noticed a strange smell from her water bottle, and Yuan placed a hidden camera at work. The footage revealed a colleague, David Xu, pouring cadmium into her bottle. Xu was convicted of poisoning in a plea deal and received two years of probation. Recently, a California court overturned his conviction.

An engineer from California, Rong Yuan, suffered for nearly two years from vomiting, hair loss, and mysterious symptoms, going from doctor to doctor and undergoing tests without answers. Her mother noticed a strange smell from the water bottle Yuan used to take to work. Yuan, an engineer by profession, placed a small camera near her desk. The footage revealed her coworker, David Xu, pouring a substance from a small white container into her water bottle. Lab tests showed the substance was cadmium, a toxic heavy metal, at a level 3.5 million times the permissible level in drinking water. Xu was arrested in March 2019 and charged with attempted murder, but the case ended in a plea deal in 2023: he pleaded guilty to one count of poisoning, and the attempted murder charge was dropped. His sentence: two years of probation, no prison time. Recently, on October 12, a California court overturned his conviction, a step that reduces its impact on job searches. Yuan, who still suffers from health problems and works part-time, says the system has failed her again. She received about $7,000 in compensation out of the half million she sought.