Four days before her murder, Diana Gabrielle O'Brien went to the trendy dessert and cocktail lounge Sugar in the Xintiandi entertainment district to mix with other models in Shanghai on short-term contracts.
The DJ at Sugar, who was known in the circle, invited the models who flocked to the lounge for the free drinks, white sofas and extravagant desserts. O'Brien, 22, had a sweet tooth - especially for apple pie, which she liked to bake herself - but it never seemed to affect her stick-thin figure.
Ladies' night, or 'Girls' Club' as Sugar calls it, ended at 11pm. Since she stayed past midnight a man might have tried to buy a drink for the red-haired model in blue jeans and a black tank top. A few months ago, a fight broke out between Sugar staff and a group of eager men who tried to crash the establishment before ladies' night had ended.
The menu lists nine kinds of champagne at up to 5,000 yuan (HK$5,707) a bottle. But she wasn't a drinker - it made her throw up - so she would have refused. She might have talked to a strange man, she always had a word for everyone, but she also had a long-time boyfriend, Joel Berry, back home in Canada.
Other foreign models, some as young as 18, get into trouble in Shanghai with drugs or men. They do freelance work at bars and clubs or simply go there for fun, even though that is discouraged by more reputable agencies.
'We remind them not to violate Chinese laws, not to go out alone and to return home early in the evening,' said Johnny Zheng, director of Esee Model Management. In the last known photo of her before her death, O'Brien seemed happy in Sugar that evening. She was looking forward to going home in just two weeks to get back with her friends after cutting short her three-month contract in Shanghai, unable to cope with the pollution and the crowds.
Her most recent assignment was dancing to flamenco music in a bar while holding a bottle of whisky, far from the catwalk work she wanted. Companies like to use an exotic foreign model to sell products to a Chinese audience.