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The Man Who Took Fifty-Seven DNA Tests · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want you to just for a second close
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: your eyes. We're going to go back in time. The
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: year's nineteen ninety two. We're in Arish, a city right
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: on the coast in north Sinai, Egypt, and it's three
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: point zero am.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Oh that hour, the dead of night exactly.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: And if you've ever been near the sea at that hour,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: you know that quiet. It's a heavy silence. All you
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: can hear is maybe the wind rattling a shutter somewhere.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: It's supposed to be the safest time the time.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: On the world is asleep, and you're eleven years old.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Your name is Islam, You're in bed, you're warm, you're safe. Oh,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: your parents are in the other room. Your two brothers,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Hechhuan Muhammed, they're nearby. Everything makes sense.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's that primal feeling of safety. You know your home
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: is your entire world. Nothing bad is supposed to get in.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And then in a single heartbeat, it does. The silence
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: is just shattered heavy boots on the pavement outside, shouting,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and then that horrible metallic crash of a door being
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: kicked right off its hinges.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: A police raid, not a knock, a full on siege.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: For a kid waking up to that, I mean, the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: confus usion must have been absolute, just a sensory overload
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: of pure fear.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Islam wakes up to total bedlam. There are men in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: uniforms everywhere. He's caroalyzed, just watching as they grab his father,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: then his mother, a woman named Isziza. She's being handcuffed,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and his brother too. His brothers are being hauled out.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The whole neighborhood is waking up now, peeking through their windows.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Imagine the shame, the noise. Yeah, and Islam is just
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: dragged out with them, shoved into a police car and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: they're all taken to the North Sinai Security Directorate.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: And in that car, his mind has to be racing.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: But he's thinking like a child, right, He's thinking, what
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: did we do? Did my dad forget to pay a bill?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Is this some mistake? He's worried about his.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Family, right, he doesn't realize that the very concept of
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: his family is what's about to be completely demolished.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So they get to the station, cold room, harsh light,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and this is where it happens. This isn't a slow burn.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: The police shit this eleven year old boy down. They
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: look at him, and they just drop a hammer that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: shatters his entire reality. They tell him, they say, the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: people you live with that woman is Eisa. She is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: not your mother. She is a wanted criminal. And those
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: boys Hesham and Mohammad not your brothers. And you we
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: have no idea who you are.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Wow, just sit with that for a second. The psychological
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: violence in that one statement, In one sentence, his entire
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: past is just deleted. It's not just that his parents
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: are criminals, it's that they never existed. The woman who
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: tucked him in at night, a stranger, a kidnapper.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: He walked into that police station as Islam, son of Aisa,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and now he's just a ghost.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: And this is where our deep dive begins, really into
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the story of that ghost, a man who would eventually
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: take fifty seven DNA tests fifty seven.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Just to answer the simple question who am I?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: But to get there, we have to understand the architect
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: of this whole nightmare, the woman the media would later
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: call the daughter of Iblis.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The daughter of Satan. That Ziza.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It sounds like a name from some old horror story,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: but when you look at the files, I mean she
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: earned it as Zisa wasn't just a kidnapper. She was
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: a psychological predator.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And when the police cracked her at the station, her
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: story just it fell apart, at least some of it did.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: She confessed pretty quickly to kidnapping the other two boys
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: hit him and Mohammed.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Great, and that part of the story it resolves so fast,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: which almost makes it crueler for Islam it does.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Haitian was stolen from Alexandria, Mohammed from Irish. The police
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: find their real families, and within twenty four hours those boys.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Are gone, just like that, reunited with their actual parents.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine standing there watching your brothers disappear into
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: these happy, tearful reunions and you're just left behind waiting
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: for your turn.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: And it never comes because when they ask Azisa, okay,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: what about this one who is Islam?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: She just ghoestone cold, complete silence.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: She admitted to the others, but for Islam nothing, refused
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: to say who he was, where he came from, anything.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And that silence is the weapon she uses to trap
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: him for the rest of his life. But before we
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: get to that, we have to talk about her methods,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: because this wasn't, you know, a crime of opportunity.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Oh no, this was a sophisticated long con.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: It was theatrical is the perfect word. She literally performed
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a pregnancy for her entire community. The report says. She'd
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: strap layers of cotton and fabric to her stomach, and she.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Was disciplined about it. This wasn't just shoving a pillow
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: under her shirt. Month by month, she'd add more padding,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: so the pregnancy progressed natural to dedication.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It's chilling in the heat of Egypt, walking around like that,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: fooling everyone. Yeah, the neighbors, the shopkeeper.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: She created the visual proof so that nobody would ever
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: question it. And then when she was in her ninth month,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: that's when the hunt began.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And she didn't just grab any kid. She had a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: very specific target. She'd go to government offices like the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Ministry of Health and look for a certain kind of victim.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Tired, poor, overwhelmed mothers exactly.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: She played on the exhaustion of poverty. She'd dress up
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: pretending to be an official. She'd see a mother struggling
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: with paperwork in a baby and say, oh, let me
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: help I work here. Just give me the baby for
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: a second while you go sign those forms.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: And she's using authority as her disguise. We're all trained
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to trust someone who looks like they're in charge.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: So the mother grateful hands over, the baby, goes inside,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: comes out five minutes later, and as easy is gone vanished.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: She also stalked hospital nurseries, just waiting for that one
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: moment of distraction. But the performance that didn't even end there.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: No, she'd take the stolen baby home, hide it and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: wait for nightfall, and then in the middle of the night,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: around three am, again, she would.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Start screaming, simulating labor. Her husband, who was completely complicit
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: in all of this, by the way, oh absolutely, he
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: would run out and announce to all the neighbors she's
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: giving birth. It's a boy.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: It's just diabolically brilliant. The neighbors hear the screams. The
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: next morning, there's a baby. Why would they ever doubt it?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And the husband's job was to forge the birth certificates.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: He created a whole fortress of paper lies. He even
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: forged documents for Aziza herself so she could change her aid,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: her identity whenever she needed to.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: To them, these children were just props, accessories, and when
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the whole show came crashing down in nineteen ninety two.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Islam was the prop that got left behind.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So the brothers go home, Aziz is off to prison,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and Islam is just sitting in a police station awarded
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the state.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: He gets bounced around. First a school director takes him
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: in for six months, then a teacher. He's terrified he's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: going to end up in an orphanage. And then a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: man shows up, a glimmer of hope.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Goma Hassan Mastafa. He comes from the Manufia governor. It
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: says his son was kidnapped years ago, back in nineteen
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: eighty four from.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: A hospital, and the timeline fits, the description fits. The police,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: wanting to close the case, bring his he's out. They
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: ask her is this the father and what does she say?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: She looks at Gomean and says, yes, that's him, that's
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the father.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Wow, just another lie to serve her own purposes.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Of course, but at the time everyone is relieved. The
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: police closed the file. Goma gets his son back, Islam
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: gets a home, He's given a new name, new papers,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and for the next twenty two years that's his life.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: He grows up. He thinks the nightmares finally over. But
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: you can't always fool your own gut.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Can you.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: No.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: For twenty two years he lived with his family, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: he always described this feeling of wrongness like a puzzle
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: piece that was just jammed into the wrong spot. He
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: never truly felt like he belonged.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And that instinct turned out to be right in.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: The most brutal way. We fast forward twenty two years.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Islam is a grown man. He's at home and he
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: overhears a conversation between Goma and his wife, the woman
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: he thinks is his mother. Oh no, they're arguing about inheritance,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and he hears the mother say, clear as day, he
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: is not our son. He shouldn't inherit anything.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: The floor must have just dropped out from under him.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Again, second time. The first time. You're eleven. Now you're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in your thirties, and the whole foundation of your life
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: just dissolves instantly. So he confronts them big heated fight.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: He demands the truth, He demands the DNA test, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you know this is where science finally catches up to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: all the lives from the nineties.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: And the test comes back negative.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Goma is not his father.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: So Aziza lied again. Back in nineteen ninety two. She
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: just handed him over to a stranger to make her
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: own problem go away.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The last twenty two years were a lie. He was
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: a placeholder, a replacement for a child they'd lost, but
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: not their own. He is back to square one, a
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: man with no history.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: This is where the story shifts, though from a tragedy
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: into like a detective thriller. Islam realizes there is only
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: one person on earth who knows the truth.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Aziza. She'd served her seven years, her husband served five.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: They were out.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Most people would just crumble at this.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Point, but he doesn't. He decides to hunt her down.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: He tracks her to Alexandria, and he finds out she
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is still living a lie. New documents, new age, new identity,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: She's a completely different person.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: So he finds her. He's thirty six years old. Now
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: he stands face to face with the woman who stole
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: his life. He has the DNA proof in his hand
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: and he asks her who am I?
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And Aziza looks him right in the eye says I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: am your mother.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: No, I mean that is gaslating on an olympic level.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: It's pathological.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: It is she and says the police were wrong, Gomo
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: was wrong. I'm your real mother. Islam knows it's impossible.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: He forces her to take a DNA test with him.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: He thinks, okay, science will finally shut her up.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: The test comes back negative, zero biological relation. He shows
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: her the paper and she still denies it, still refuses
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to break character.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: It's infuriating. She's holding the key to his entire existence
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and just won't turn it. So Islam has to go nuclear.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: He goes to the media, puts his face on TV
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: all over Egypt, tells his story, I was kidnapped by Aziza.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Do you recognize me?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: And because her case was so infamous, the daughter of Iblis,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the floodgates just open. Dozens of families, people who had
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: babies stolen in the early eighties. They start coming forward.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: They see AZA's face and they recognize her, the nurse,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: the social worker, and they think, maybe maybe he's our son.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And this begins what, for me is the most excruciating
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: part of this whole, the cycle of hope and disappointment.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Fifty seven times fifty seven families. The emotional toll of
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: that is just unimaginable.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: It's not just a number. Imagine the scene. Each time
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Islam meets a family, a mother and father who's been
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: greezing for thirty years. They're looking at his face, searching
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: for their.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Own reflection, crying, hoping, and.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: He has to let himself hope to They do the test,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: They wait, and then fifty seven times, Islam has to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: be the one to tell them, I'm sorry. It's negative.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: It's not just losing your family once, it's losing them
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again. It's a special kind
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of torture.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: In all this time, Aziza is watching, she knows the truth.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: She can end it all with a single sentence, and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: she chooses silence.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the big question, why why keep
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: the secret after all that time?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: There were two main theories that came out of the investigation.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Right The first one is the paid job theory, the
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: idea that Islam wasn't a random theft, that maybe he
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: came from a powerful or wealthy family, an affair scandal,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: and Aziza has paid a lot of money to make
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: him disappear and.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Her silence is part of the contract, or maybe she's
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: still afraid of who she was working for.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Plausible, But the second theory that one feels more personal,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: more vindictive, the revenge theory.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: The story goes that Aziza, who is barren, was relentlessly
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: mocked by another woman for not being able to have children.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: So in this version, she stole that specific woman's child Islam,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: not for money, but to inflict the maximum possible pain.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Keeping the secret is the ultimate act of spite. It
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: denies that mother closure forever.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly if she confesses, the mother gets her son back.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: If she takes the secret to the grave, Azisa wins.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: We'll never know for sure, because the story ends with
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: one last violent act.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Islam is desperate. He visits Aziza one last time.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: She's old, she's sick. He goes to her apartment, begging
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: her for the truth before she dies.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: It's a tense moment, and then Azizsa stands. She walks
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: over to her window and she throws herself out suicide.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: She takes a secret with her.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: The ultimate checkmate. But the nightmare doesn't even end there
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: for Islam. He's immediately arrested. The police assume he pushed her.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable. He spends his life looking for his mother and
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: ends up in a cell accused of killing his kidnapper.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: He spends time in custody facing a murder charge. Luckily,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: there are witnesses. Neighbors saw her jump. They confirmed he
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't even near her.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So he's acquitted.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: He's acquitted, but he's lost everything. The only person who
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: knew the truth is gone. He walks out of that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: police station again with absolutely nothing.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: The only hard drive that contained his history, her brain
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: was just completely destroyed.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to today. As far as anyone knows,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Islam is still searching. A man just suspended in time.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: He has a face, a voice, but no history to
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: connect them to.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: It really makes you think about identity, doesn't it. We
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: take it for granted. You know your birthday, you see
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: your grandfather's nose in the mirror. Islam looks in the
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: mirror and sees a stranger.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: And the part that really sticks with you is that
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Aziza didn't just steal a baby. She stole a timeline,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: She stole a lineage, and by dying, she made sure
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: he might never get it back.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It's the perfect crime. Really. The victim is alive, but
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: his life is missing.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: So as we wrap this up, I want you to
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: try something later. Go look in a mirror, really look
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: at your own face, and just Imagine for a second
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that you had no idea where any of it came from.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Imagine every older woman you pass on the street could
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: be your mother. That is the world Islam lives in.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Every single day, And somewhere out there there might be
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: a family who thinks their son died thirty or forty
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: years ago. They have no idea he's alive and looking
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: for them right now.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: A truly haunting reality. That's it for this deep dive.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: It's a heavy one, but an important one. Thanks for listening,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Stay curious, See you next time.