In the winter of 1919, a shocking act of violence shattered the tranquility of Washington, D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood. Theodore Ting Wong, a 42-year-old male of Chinese descent, was found murdered on January 29th in the rowhouse that served as the headquarters of the Chinese Educational Mission. Wong, the American-educated head of the mission, was not the sole victim of this brutal crime; two of his colleagues, Chang Hsi Hsie and Ben Sen Wu, were also discovered deceased at the scene, all
having been shot to death.
The investigation into the triple homicide quickly led police to a person of interest, a young Chinese student named Ziang Sung Wan. Wan had been a guest at the mission and had departed the city shortly before the bodies were discovered. Detectives from the Washington police force located Wan in New York City and brought him back for questioning. Initially, Wan's younger brother, Tsong Ing Van, was also suspected of involvement, particularly in an attempt to cash a check stolen from the mission.
Under intense interrogation, which was later described as coercive, Ziang Sung Wan confessed to the murders. However, his account of the events shifted. At one point, he claimed that Ben Sen Wu had killed the other two men and that he, in turn, had killed Wu. Despite the confession, Wan later recanted, asserting that his admission had been forced by the relentless pressure from the police.
The legal battle that followed was lengthy and landmark. Wan was tried for the murders, and his coerced confession became the centerpiece of his defense. The case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court. In a significant decision, the court overturned Wan's conviction, ruling that the confession had been obtained under duress and was therefore inadmissible. Following this ruling, Ziang Sung Wan was tried twice more, but both trials resulted in hung juries. Ultimately, in 1926, the Justice Department dropped all charges against him. No one was ever convicted for the murders of Theodore Ting Wong, Chang Hsi Hsie, and Ben Sen Wu, leaving the case officially unsolved.
