Chinese man arrested in Canadian's death
Friday, July 11, 2008 10:01:18 AM
By CARA ANNA

A young Chinese man confessed to killing a Canadian model during a robbery at her apartment, police in Shanghai said Friday.

The killing of a foreigner so close to next month's Beijing Olympic Games was an embarrassment for Shanghai police, who at first only released a two-sentence statement after the discovery of her body on Monday.

Diana O'Brien, 22, arrived in the city to work as a model less than two weeks ago and friends said she was unhappy and planned to return home early.

The circumstances of her death remain largely unclear, but 18-year-old Chen Jun was arrested Friday in nearby Anhui province. He was in possession of O'Brien's laptop and other belongings, a police statement said.

Chen told police he followed O'Brien into her shared apartment Sunday night, it said without giving further details.

Wang Jiwei, an official in the news department of Shanghai's Public Security Bureau, declined to comment.

The Foreign Affairs department in Ottawa -- which is representing O'Brien's family in the case -- could not immediately provide additional information.

The small Shanghai-based modeling agency where she had been working could not be reached by telephone, but her friends did not believe her death was work related.

"This was just really bad luck," said Barry Kazakoff, a friend and former employer in Canada, who said O'Brien had scheduled one more job before heading home. "She wanted to see the world, and the way to do that was to step out of her comfort zone and be a model."

O'Brien's modeling agency in Victoria, Canada, earlier this week released a statement denying she had been asked to dance in bars.

"She often said it was a dream come true for her and wanted to travel the world with her career," the Barbara Coultish agency's statement said. "She told us that she was happy in Shanghai and enjoyed the agency, the city and her roommates."

Shanghai has a rapidly growing but often unregulated modeling industry. The same city that hosted Salvatore Ferragamo's 80-year retrospective this spring also has foreign models, some just teenagers, dancing in bars and promoting alcohol.

But models and agencies say the industry is quickly leaving its past behind. Where backpackers and English teachers made up a large number of the modeling gigs even a half-decade ago, between 50 and 70 foreign models are now contracted to local agencies.

Foreigners bring in about one-tenth of the estimated $14.6 million the local industry makes a year, according Johnny Zheng, the director of Esee Model Management, one of Shanghai's largest agencies.