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Comment (BEIJING, SALTSPRING ISLAND, B.C. -- Less than 48 hours after the killing of Diana Gabrielle O'Brien, the modelling agency that lured her to China has shut down its website, closed its doors, and vanished into the depths of Shanghai.
Its phones ring without answer. Its low-rent offices are abandoned. Those with apparent connections to the agency are refusing to talk. Even the Shanghai police are unwilling to speak of the case. The slaying of Ms. O'Brien, the 22-year-old model from Saltspring Island, B.C., has exposed the dark and dangerous side of China's fast-growing modelling business. Dozens of modelling agencies have sprung up in China's biggest cities in recent years, recruiting hundreds of models from North America and Europe, but many are small fly-by-night agencies that send their models to dubious jobs at nightclubs and bars.
Ms. O'Brien was unhappy with her Shanghai assignment because she was often asked to work as a bar dancer on promotional gigs for liquor prod...
