Chemistry Student Arrested After Security Camera Captures Intricate Plot Against Neighbor

A Tampa man has been arrested after surveillance video showed him putting something under the front door of a family that was having problems with a noxious chemical in their condo whose source had baffled them. Xuming…

IJR SyndicatedAug 27, 20233 min read

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“This chemical odor came back,” Abdullah said, according to WTVT. “I installed a hidden camera outside, because we were suspecting someone is basically tampering with our place from outside.”

“If we could not have found that incident on the camera, probably after a few days, we might have been dead,” Abdullah said.

Li’s attorney said Li pled not guilty and the facts will come out in time, according to WFLA.

Abdullah said he was in shock that someone they knew “was coming and harming us with chemicals. And that was very scary for us.”

Tampa police said a hazmat test found the “liquid chemical agent” put under the door to contain methodone and hydrocodone.

One officer exposed to the liquid suffered skin irritation, according to WFLA-TV.

Li is listed as a chemistry Ph. D student at the University of South Florida.

The school said he has not been active there since the summer and also said its labs do not have the chemicals found under the Abdullah family’s door.

Benjamin Chemel, a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at Eckerd College, said it is possible the two drugs were mixed with something also hazardous, such a chloroform.

“I think that that compound is a potentially better explanation as for what was responsible for the odor,” Chemel said. “As well as what may have been responsible for the effects experienced by the entire family.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.