Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising.

You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon music included with Prime,

Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and Supercast.

The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language.

It's not for everyone.

An additional content warning.

This episode includes details of sexual assault. And while

not the focus of the case, there is also reference to incest and sexual assault of a child

or underage person. Please take care when listening. It was the night of April 14th, 2011, in a Toronto student rooming house close to the York University campus.

One of the students who lived there was a 23-year-old called Cheyenne, and she was feeling a bit lonely that night.

Cheyenne occupied a tiny dorm room in the basement, and that night she was studying in front of her laptop.

As midnight approached, she clicked on the name of her high school boyfriend.

They had recently broken up for mutual reasons, but they'd stayed friends,

and that night, Cheyenne wanted some company on Skype as she studied.

Her family and friends were back in Beijing, China,

and she'd only been in Canada for about seven months. She was one of 50,000 Chinese

students who were in Canada for university at the time. Chien's surname was Liu. It's customary in

China to list the surname first, so her correct full name was Liu Qian.

Sometimes international students pick an English-sounding name for use when studying abroad,

and she also went by Nicole, but in this episode we'll call her Cheyenne for consistency.

So, why did 23-year-old Cheyenne come to Canada by herself to study?

Well, she was a talented writer and artist, and after she got her undergrad degree at Beijing

...