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Pills, Knives, and Karama: The Newlywed Murder Plot Undone by a Single Phone Call · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, picture this. It's one in the morning, an apartment
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in Arab Gamaza Elsaf city. It's dark, eerily quiet, but
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: it's the kind of quiet that follows violence, you know.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Not peace right and inside I'm at Nassar. He's twenty two,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: successful guy, scrap metal trader. He's supposed to be completely out.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, his wife Warda made sure of it, gave him
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: juice laced with sleeping pills about an hour earlier midnight.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: The whole plan hinged on him being unconscious, totally helpless
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: if it had to be silent quick, But it wasn't enough.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe the pills weren't strong enough. Maybe it was just
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: pure survival instinct kicking in. He suddenly shocked.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Awake, not by a noise though.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: No by a feeling a shirt prick on his skin.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He's groggy, confused, fighting the drugs, and he forces his
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: eyes open.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: And that must have been just sheer terror. He sees
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: his wife Warda standing right over him, and there's another
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: man with her, Mohammed.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Before Ahma can even yell or really process this absolute betrayal,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Mohammed lunges clamps a handle his mouth, trying to choke.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Him stop him from making any noise exactly.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Ahmed starts struggling, fighting back instinctively, and that's when Warda
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: she steps in. She was ready for this. She had
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: bought knives, two new ones. Yeah, very sharp. She pulls
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: one out and just starts stabbing him in the chest
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: again and again.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: It's brutal. He manages to twist away, trying to breathe,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: trying to escape, and she stabs him in the back.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Then Mohammed grabs the knife from her and keeps going
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: uh huh until almaed, until he's still dead on the floor.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So much blood.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: This is horrific. And this is only four months into
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: their marriage. Four months.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It's staggering. So that's our deep dive today. How does
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: this happen? How does it get to this point? It's
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: not just an affair gone wrong. This was a plan,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a calculated plot.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it speaks to this complete almost void of
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: self respect, of dignity, what they call karama in that culture.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: How does this young woman from a seemingly quiet background
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: in Bullock eldacrr end up here?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back Bullock Eldacro two thousand and seven.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Ward is eighteen, living with her family, respectable neighborhood.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And she gets involved with Mohammed Hassan. He's twenty two,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: works in a local coffee shop, a neighbor.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: But there's a big difference in their situations right financially,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: socially he doesn't really have good prospects, not at all.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: And crucially, they decide this relationship has to be a
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: complete secret hit her from both families.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Why because it wouldn't be approved.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and Mohammed his excuse for never making it official,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: for not proposing was always the same, I'm not financially
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: ready yet.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: But you're saying he knew, he knew he probably never
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: would be ready or never intended to marry her properly.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: The analysis suggests he knew he couldn't really offer her
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the kind of marriage her family expected, but he kept
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the relationship going anyway for himself. It was secret, illicit,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and that secrecy itself was undermining her position her karam.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Up keeping her in limbo waiting for something that just
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't coming. That secrecy really set the stage, didn't it.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It absolutely did, because then someone else walks in through
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: the front door the proper way.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Ahmed Nassar also twenty two like them, but completely different story.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: World's apart. Ahmed's a successful scrap trader. He's got his
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: own business, money and importantly, a furnished apartment ready to
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: go an air of gamaza.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: He's stable, respectable, ready to commit right now. He goes
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to Warda's family, does everything properly.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Presents himself well, shows he's financially secure the family. Naturally,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: they welcome him. This is what they want for their daughter.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And Warda. What does she do?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Well? She panics, this forces her hand, right, She's got
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: these two completely separate lives. So she rushes to.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Mohammed, thinking, maybe, just maybe this is the moment he'll
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: finally step up, propose, make their relationship legitimate before she's
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: pushed into this other marriage.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: You'd think so, But his reaction, it's just incredibly cold.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: He looks at her, this woman supposedly he's been involved
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: with all this time, and just says congratulations.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Wow, no fight, no plead, congratulations.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Worse, he immediately suggests a plan, a really cynical one.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: He tells her, go on, marry Ahmed, get the money,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: get the apartment, and they'll just carry on their secret
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: affair like before. Use Ahmed's resources while betraying him.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, hold on you mentioned earlier, maybe divorce wasn't simple.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Could this be tied to that Karama thing again? Like
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: divorce would bring shame, ruin her reputation, cent her back home,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a failure. So maybe marrying Ahmed, even with the secret plan,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: felt like like preserving some kind of outer respectability while
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: getting security.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: That's a really important point. It seems Warda realized in
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: that moment Mohammed only cared about the secret relationship, not
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: about giving her a respectable life. The sources suggest she
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: actually had a moment where she thought, Okay, I need
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to cut ties with him, marry Ahmed, do the right
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: thing for my family, for myself.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: He chose the respectable path for a minute.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Outwardly, yes, the engagement was fast. Two months later they're married.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: She moves into the new apartment in LCEF City.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: And this apartment, it's on the second floor, right above
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Ahmed's brother on the first floor.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly built in supervision, almost constant risk of being seen.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So how long did her resolve to be respectable? Last?
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: About two weeks? Two weeks, just two weeks after the wedding,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Mohammad calls her and she answers instantly, no hesitation.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: What she say? Did she tell him to leave her alone?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Quite the opposite. She apparently told him she was miserable
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: living in torment and hell without him. Just like that,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: the marriage commitment, the karama all out the window.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So the affair was back on basically over the phone.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the calls went on for about two months. Then inevitably,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Mohammad suggests meeting up at.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: The apartment, her husband's apartment with the brother downstairs, right,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: And this is.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Telling Warda refuses. But why does she refuse?
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Not because it's wrong, No.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Because she's scared, scared the brother in law will catch
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: them or the neighbors will see. It's fear of exposure,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: not moral principle. The betrayal itself isn't the issue for
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: her anymore.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: That's a dark turn from wanting respect to this.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And then she takes it even further. It's Warda apparently
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: who proposes the final solution. She says, they can't just
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: sneak around.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: They need to get rid of the obstacle, eliminate Ahmed.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Eliminate Ahmed, kill him, stage the scene. Then she suggests
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: they wait a year, give Mohammed time to supposedly get
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: his finances in order, and then they can get married.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: She rejected divorce outright, just jumped straight to murder.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: That's the chilling part. Divorce was an option, ahm. It
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: seems like the kind of guy who might have granted it,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: maybe not happily, but probably without violence. Yeah, but they
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: didn't choose that path. Why.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Fear of the shing was that strong, stronger than the
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: fear of execution, it seems.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: So they opted for the most extreme, complicated, high risk
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: path imaginable, seemingly to avoid the social fallout of a
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: simple divorce. It's baffling logic.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So they decide on murder. How did they plan to
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: get away with that? They need a cover story, and they.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Find one already made. Unfortunately, Elsaf city was in turmoil.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: There was this huge violent feud going on between Ahmed's village,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Arab Goamaza and a rival village, Arabel Hissar.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Real violence like people getting killed.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, it was serious, guns, deaths, long running vendettas,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: what they call tar deep seated conflict, and.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Warda saw this chaos as an opportunity exactly.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: She tells Mohammad, Yeah, this is our cover. We kill Ahmed,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: make it look like attackers from Arabellahissar did it as revenge,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: part of the feud.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Using genuine community tragedy. That's incredibly cynical, using their neighbors
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: suffering to hide their own.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Crime profoundly so it shows a terrifying level of detachment.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: So the plan is set. Now the preparations. This is
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: about four months after the wedding.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Great Muhammad gets the sleeping pills and you mentioned an
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: empty syringe.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, empty syringe. Bizarre right. It suggests maybe he had
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: this idea of an air injection, something quick and hard to.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Trace, but didn't actually know how to do it or
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: get the right stuff.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Seems likely. It points to flawed planning, focusing on the
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: drama maybe not the practicalities. Meanwhile, Warda buys the knives
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: two new sharks.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so execution Night walks through the timeline again.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Right nine zero zero pm. Muhammad gets to l saf
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: drops off the kit pills syringe somewhere for ward to.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Pick up midnight. She gives Ahmed the juice with pills.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Then one zero zero am Mohammad lets himself in the
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: door's unlocked waiting for him.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: He goes for the silent method. First, the syringe.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Tries to but instead of silently calling Ahmed, the needle
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: prick just hurts him, wakes him.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Up, and the whole silent plan instantly collapses into that
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: violent struggle we started with.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly the struggle, the stabbing chaos.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so Ahmed's dead, the deed is done. But now
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: they have to sell the cover story.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Right stage the scene. So Mohammed hits Warda on ahead
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: enough to injure her, make it look like she fought
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: back or was assaulted, guys her up too, yeah, but
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: apparently quite loosely, suspiciously. Then he grabs her gold jewelry,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: her mobile phone, makes it look like a robbery gone
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: wrong tied to the feud, and then he flees.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: And Warda waits how long?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: About thirty minutes? Then she starts screaming loudly, alerting the
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: brother downstairs.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: The neighbors, and tells them the story. They rehearsed. Attackers
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: from the rival village broke in, tied her up, stole valuables,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: killed Ahmed, and revenge.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: That was the official story, but it didn't hold up.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: For long, why not? What went wrong?
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Well, the police and forensic teams arrive and they immediately
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: see problems, big ones like what first? Zero signs of
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: forced entry? None? A gang of vengeful villagers isn't going
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: to just knock politely, right, they'd break down the door,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: smash a window. There was nothing.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's suspicious. What else?
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: The way warda was tied up. It looked fake, m staged,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: not like someone genuinely restrained during a violent attack, and
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: her injuries seemed a bit too convenient.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe professionals would spot that kind of thing quickly.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I guess absolutely. It's often the small details in the
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: staging they give it away. They're so focused on the
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: big lie, they mess up the simple things like making
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: the break in look real.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: So the physical evidence was already shaky. Did they find
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: anything else?
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: They didn't even need complex forensics. Initially they did the
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: most basic standard check imaginable, which was her phone records.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: They look at the recent calls, last number dialed or received.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Let me guess, mohammed, bingo, It was mohammed. The simplest
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: check blew the whole thing wide open.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. All that planning, the violence, the complex cover story
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: tricked up by a phone call.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It happens more often than you'd think. So they tracked
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Mohammad down.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Fast, and when they find him, he.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Still got her gold, her mobile phone. And critically, he's
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: got cuts and wounds on his hands, defensive wounds, likely
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: from the struggle with Ahmed, clear physical evidence linking him
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: directly to the violence. Plus he was apparently extremely tense.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Nervous, caught red handed, basically.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Completely, and the shock of being caught so fast it
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: seemed to break both of them.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: They confessed, immediately.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Spilled the entire story, the affair, the resentment, the plot,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the flawed.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Execution, everything just like that, and the outcome.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Trial, conviction, and the sentence was death by execution for
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: both Warda and Muhammet.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It's just such a catastrophic failure on every level, morally obviously,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: but even strategically.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Totally think about it. They chose murder arguably the highest risk,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: most complex solution to deal with what was essentially a
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: social problem wanting a divorce, wanting to be together without
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the shame.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: A problem that had simpler, non lethal solutions, however difficult
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: they might have seemed at the time.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly and the speed they were caught just highlights how
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: poorly they thought it through. They focused on the violence,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: the drama of the feud cover but missed the blindingly obvious.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Like checking phone records, like staging a convincing break in
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: basic stuff.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder, doesn't it. People plan these
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: incredibly high stakes, life altering crimes.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they overlook the simplest details. So here's something
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: for you, the listener, to think about. What does this
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: tell us about so called perfect crimes? These two tried
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to weave their personal trail into this larger tapestry of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: community violence, this ancient tradition of vendetta, but they.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Were undone by the most modern traceable piece of evidence,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: digital footprint on a phone.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe the takeaway is that when you choose the most
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: extreme destructive path to solve what seems like an impossible
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: social problem, you're already operating so far outside of rational
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: thinking that you're bound to miss the obvious. They didn't
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: just sacrifice honor. They sacrificed basic common sense, and it
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: cost them everything.