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To get to the Huangs' house in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, you have to drive a mile up a steep hillside. Once known as the poor man's Pasadena, the town has become an enclave of wealthy Asian Americans--which is what drew Huang, a Taiwan-born U.S. citizen, when he moved here in 1986, returning from a stint working in Hong Kong. Last year, when the fund-raising scandal broke, the Huangs quietly left their old house and moved farther up the hill to escape notice. It worked. Neighbors say they rarely see the couple or their two college-age sons.
It can be a lonely life waiting around for Janet Reno's Justice Department to decide whether or not to indict you (of course, the current run of special prosecutors does not appear to work any more quickly). At this point, charges in the yearlong investigation are thought to be months--perhaps many months--away. There is, however, one bit of good news for Huang: sources say the department is no longer looking into the question of whether he might have been spying for the Chinese government or his former employers at an Indonesian financial conglomerate. His lawyer says Huang keeps himself occupied managing a couple of real estate properties. But a friend, Mary Miyashita, paints a bleaker picture: Huang is out of work, facing mounting legal bills and refusing offers of help. Not that many are lining up to start, say, a big-bucks defense fund. "The Asian community is very uptight about this," says Miyashita, in tears. "He's being snubbed. Even his friends are abandoning him." --Reported by Cathy Booth/Los Angeles and Viveca Novak/Washington
THE RAMSEY CASE Cold on the Trail
A year after her garroted body was found by her father in the basement of their Boulder, Colo., home, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey's killing appears destined to join the disappearances of Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa and--as at least one well-known former defendant would argue--the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman on the roll call of America's thorniest unsolved mysteries. Amid charges of police incompetence and foot-dragging cronyism in the district attorney's office, the investigation into the young beauty queen's death continues to sputter along with no indictments in sight. Though questions concerning the possible guilt of JonBenet's parents John and Patsy Ramsey have been the subject of lively debate in the press, the most police will say is that the two remain under "an umbrella of suspicion"--an inept metaphor, given that umbrellas are meant to protect, but maybe apt, given the increasing public frustration surrounding the handling of this case.
The problem, sources say, is that there simply isn't enough evidence to bring charges against the Ramseys or anyone else, though investigators may have a few new leads--including the possible use of a stun gun. Police have recently been asking friends of the Ramseys about footwear they may have worn in and around the house, suggesting police may have shoe-print evidence. Incredibly, they waited until only a few weeks ago to interview certain neighbors about what they may have observed on the night of the murder, including a woman who told reporters that she heard screams coming from the Ramsey house.