San Francisco Slaying Hits Home

The grisly murder of a hospital secretary, allegedly by the quiet student who shared her apartment, is hitting home in this city, where high rents force even well-paid professionals to share homes with strangers.

Ella Wong, who was last seen alive at Sunday morning Mass, welcomed Vadim Mieseges into the extra room in her apartment several months ago. The computer science student at San Francisco State University seemed like a good tenant --”a really nice guy,” she told her co-workers.

As it turns out, Mieseges, 27, had been institutionalized in his native Switzerland for mental illness. He told police after his arrest Monday that he killed Wong, skinned and disemboweled her, then cut her up and scattered her body parts across the city. He was in custody at the San Francisco Jail pending a May 19 arraignment on a murder charge.

“It’s absolutely unreal. An act this insane blows your mind,” said Wong’s boss, Robert Christmas, the chief operating officer of Laguna Honda Hospital.

Wong, 47, earned between $40,000 and $45,000 as an administrative assistant at the hospital, and lived for eight years at the four-unit apartment complex overlooking Golden Gate Park. A Hong Kong native, she collected rent there for the owners, who live in Southern California, and saved money by sharing her apartment with college students.

Such living arrangements are common in San Francisco, where small one-bedroom apartments rent for about $1,400 a month, two-bedrooms for $2,200 and rooms in shared apartments rent for about $700.

Because of the cost, people of much different ages, interests and ideologies are forced to live together, a trend that can lend itself to troubling and even life-threatening roommate situations.

“Often tenants have to move quickly, and they feel pressure to get someone within 30 days, and if they don’t they are going to be evicted,” said Ted Gullickson of the Tenants Union, a nonprofit group that seeks to preserve affordable rental housing and educate tenants about their rights.

“Sometimes people accept people quicker than they should,” he added.

Roommate conflicts are among the top problems counselors deal with at the group’s clinic. “We definitely see people coming in from time to time who feel like they’re being threatened and are concerned about their personal safety,” he said.

Wong was last seen attending Mass at St. Monica Church in the city’s Richmond District, where she was known as a faithful parishioner. She was not reported missing until Tuesday, after failing to show up for work a second straight day.

In the meantime, Mieseges had been taken into custody, but not for murder. Speaking in gibberish and acting strangely Monday at the city’s Stonestown Galleria mall, he was taken into custody by security guards, who found him carrying a knife, methamphetamine and marijuana.

After kicking and biting arresting officers, he blurted out that he had killed and chopped up Wong. Then he led investigators to at least three locations, including a dumpster at Golden Gate Park, where a torso was found.

Police said Thursday they had not positively identified the body parts and were searching for other remains. Possible motives ranged from a rent dispute to the possibility that Wong stumbled upon Mieseges doing something illegal.

If Wong felt threatened by Mieseges, she gave no indication to her colleagues at Laguna, where black ribbons were being handed out and worn in her memory.

“From all accounts, Ella talking to other secretaries, he was a nice guy. A quiet guy,” Christmas said. “And that’s what we’re seeing on the news--the neighbors are supporting that.”

Gullickson said the Tenants Union, which distributes handbooks and holds workshops, advises clients to do thorough background checks and interviews before moving in together. Depending on a person’s resources, criminal checks might be a worthy safeguard too.

“Probably the easiest and simplest thing to do is get references from past roommates and past landlords,” he said. “There’s a lot of stuff that can be identified at the beginning.”

Others say there’s no foolproof strategy.

“We couldn’t possibly assure someone that the person they’re going to room with is going to be OK,” said Grey Todd, president of Rent Tech, one of the city’s leading rental agencies. “No matter what degree of screening we may do . . . it would be impossible for us to filter out the psychopaths.”