Cecilia Chang had always been a meticulous planner, so it made sense that she left three notes at the scene of her suicide, each prepared for a specific audience. The previous day (Monday, November 5, 2012), she’d tied up a loose end, testifying at her own trial and admitting to defrauding her employer, St John’s, a private, Roman Catholic university in Queens, New York, in the United States. She’d stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars, living a super-rich life on a university salary that at its peak was US$120,000. On the Tuesday, as on every other day, she was flawlessly put together, her hair carefully arranged to conceal a thinning spot. She wore one of her flowery, silky blouses with a fitted black jacket.
Then, in her Queens home, where the government said she’d forced scholarship students to clean and cook, she turned on the gas in the kitchen, slit her wrists and, when the desired result didn’t come quickly enough, tossed a stereo cord over the ladder to the attic and hanged herself. The notes, carefully written in Chinese, were found at the scene. One was to her only son: “I love you,” she wrote, and she apologised to him. Another, addressed to the judge and jury, with a politeness she maintained till the end, thanked them for their time and attention. The third, the most elaborate, she addressed to her employer, for whom she reserved her fury. She’d been a fundraiser at St John’s for three decades, bringing in millions of dollars. And in the end, she felt the school had abandoned her. In her note, she described herself as a scapegoat.