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The Stench of Betrayal: How Egypt's "Assassin of the Fifties" Buried Her Brother Under the Bed · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's transport ourselves. Imagine a rural village in Egypt,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: early nineteen fifties. Think dry heat houses packed really close together.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very tight knit communities back then exactly.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But then add this this awful smell, not just a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: bad whiff, but something thick, pervasive, getting worse every single day.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: We're talking about the village of Shotano and this unbearable stench.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It's all coming from one specific place, a small, simple.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Three roomhouse home to a woman named Swad right.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: And her neighbors. They were beyond fed up, constant complaining,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: asking what on earth was going on.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And Swad she seems to have had an answer, or
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: rather an excuse for everything. Really erratic ones too.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. First she claimed it was dead rabbits didn't work.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Then it was geese ducks, saying they died from the heat.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: But the smell just kept getting stronger, didn't it. It never
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: actually went away.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Never. And here's where you really see her, well, her
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: calculating side to try and throw people off the scent.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Literally what she get that she actually killed some of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: her own poultry geese ducks and put their bodies up
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: on her rooftop.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: No way as like fake evidence.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a gruesome decoy, trying to suggest the smell was
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: coming from up there, from those dead birds, not from
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: inside the house.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Wow. That level of deception is something else.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: But it didn't work, not for long. The smell was
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: just too overpowering, too specific to the house itself. One
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: neighbor finally reached their limit, couldn't.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Take it anymore, so they went to the authorities.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Straight to the village chief, the AMDA, the main local official.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, so things are escalating.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Now, definitely, and this is crucial. The OMDA was already
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: a bit suspicious. Why because Swad's younger brother, Mohammed Sali
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: al Karati, he'd been missing for days.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Ah. So now you have the smell and a missing
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: person connected to the same house.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Precisely that combination set off major alarm bells. The OMDA
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: didn't go alone. He brought this a bit on our cause,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: the local police officer.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So the chief and the police arrive at Sward's house.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: What happens the.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Second they step inside, The stench just hits them. It's overwhelming,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: almost unbearable, and.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It leads them somewhere specific, straight to Swad's bedroom.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: The smell was clearly strongest right there, concentrated in one spot,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: specifically under.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Her bed, under the bed.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Oh no, the Amda tellt some local farmers who had
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: gathered around to start digging right there would neat the
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: bed frame and they find they find him the body
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: of a young man, completely unclothed, showing signs of well
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: horrific blunt force trauma to the head, and decomposition had
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: already set in.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: How long had he been there?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Fifteen days? Fifteen days that body lay buried under her bed.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Fifteen days she slept above him. The question is who
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: was he and how did it come to this?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It was her brother Mohammad, the very same brother whose
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: well being she once seemed so fiercely protective of. To
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: understand that twist, if we need to rewind.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back, where does this story really again?
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Nearly ten years earlier, nineteen forty three, we're in Giza
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: at the home day market. It's bustling, busy, and there
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: are Swad and her younger brother, Mohammad, their orphans, selling.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Cotton to get bye, just trying to survive.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Right and into this market walks Mohammed Hindaui he's a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: farmer from Menufia, there for.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Supplies, and he sees Swad.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Instantly captivated, just completely struck by her. He was there
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: for work, but suddenly all he could focus.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: On was her love at first sight or something like it.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Seems like it for him. He came back just one
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: week later, not for supplies, this time to propose exactly.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: He asked her to marry him, and Swat agreed, but
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: there was a condition, a deal breaker, which was her
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: brother Mohammad. He had to live with them. She insisted
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: she was his only family, his sole caretaker, non.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Negotiable, and Hindawi agreed immediately.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He actually sought as a sign of her incredible character,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: loyalty strength. He apparently said she was a woman worth
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: a hundred men.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Looking back now knowing what happens, maybe wasn't just loyalty.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: That's the troubling part, isn't it? Was it devotion? Or
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: was it perhaps control ensuring her only dependent remained under
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: her influence. It's hard to say for sure back then,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: but it.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Cast a shadow. So the three of them, Swad, Hindawi
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and young Muhammad, they moved to Hindawi's village in Manufia, yes, and.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: For about four years, on the surface, things seemed normal.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Swad took up work as a seamstress. Hindawi gave Mohammed
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: work on the farm. They even had two children.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Together, a family unit, seemingly seemingly.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: But the reality was very different. Almost from the start,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: from that very first year of marriage, Swad was unfaithful
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: right away, continuously. The sources describe her as having no
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: sense of sin or shame. This wasn't the slip up.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It was a pattern, a double life established early on.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So how long could that possibly last in a small village.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Well, for about four years. Hindawi seems to have either
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: ignored it or been unaware. But eventually the signs became
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: impossible to.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Like what what did he notice?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Several things? He started noticing the children didn't really resemble
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: him or interestingly, Mohammed her brother.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: That was strange, hmm, okay, what else?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: The house felt disturbed, like people were coming and going
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: when he wasn't there unauthorized.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Visitors in money. You mentioned she was a seamstress.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but she always seemed to have way more cash
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: than her sewing could possibly breed, in excess funds with
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: no clear source.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: That's a big red flag.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Huge and maybe the most bizarre or perhaps telling detail.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Sometimes she'd apparently get confused and call him Dowie by
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the wrong name.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Wow, just complete detachments.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It suggests a profound disconnect. Yeah. And eventually the village gossip,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: which must have been swirling, became unavoidable, and Dowie started
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: confronting her directly.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And how did Swad react to being confronted?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Not with remorse? Apparently she saw her lifestyle, her independence,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: her secrets, all of it was threatened. So instead of
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: changing her behavior.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: She decided to get rid of the threat.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: She decided to murder her husband, silence him permanently.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: So infidelity turns into attempted murder. How did she try? First?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Poison? She started putting poison in his food, his drinks.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Repeatedly, and he just kept getting sick.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Terribly ill, near fatal illnesses multiple times, but somehow, miraculously
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: he survived each attempt.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: He must have known it was her, Oh.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He was certain it was her, which leads to your
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: earlier point. Why didn't he leave? Why stay with someone
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: actively trying to kill you?
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: It's baffling from our perspective, it is.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: But think about the context, the intense social pressure, the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: shame associated with divorce, with admitting your wife was well
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: out of control and trying to murder you. For some
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: men in that era, that public shame felt almost worse
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: than death itself.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: So he stayed tolerated the attempts on his life.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Until she escalated. Clearly frustrated that the poison wasn't working,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: she changed her method dramatically.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: What did she do?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: She waited for a time when her brother Mohammed and
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the children were out of the house. She waited until
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Hindaui was asleep. Then she doused him him in the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: entire house in Kerosene, lit a match and fled Carson.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: She tried to burn him alive.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, but again incredible luck or maybe fate, neighbors saw
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: the flames reacted instantly. They managed to put out the
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: fire and pull Hindawi out alive.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: He survived again. Poison now Arson.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: He survived again, but this time it was the absolute
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: breaking point that terror finally outweighed the shame.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: So now he takes action.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Immediately he went straight for divorce, and he went back
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: to the Amda, the village chief, and told him everything.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: The poison, the fire, all of it.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: What did he want?
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: He demanded that Swad, her children, and her brother Mohammad
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: leave the village permanently. He wanted them gone, expelled, and
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: with everything out in the open, she had no choice.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: The public knowledge was overwhelming. So Swad packed up her kids,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: her brother and moved where to the neighboring village Chatanuf.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: The place where this whole story started with the smell exactly.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: She lands in Chatanuf, and over the next two years
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: she somehow manages to save up forty pounds, which was
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: quite a sum back then.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: What did she do with it?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: She bought that small three room house we mentioned at
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: the start, the source of the eventual.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Stench, and she set up her life there.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, but in a very specific way. She decided one
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: of those three rooms would be for rent. Specifically, she
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: planned to rent it out to young men from the village.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, I can see where this might be going. Did
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: her brother object he was older now?
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: He absolutely did. Mohammed was no longer a naive child.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: He was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of strange men
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: renting a room in their house. He saw the risk
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to their reputation to the family.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: But Swad.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Swad was the homeowner, the older sister. She overruled him.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: She was in control.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And did she actually just rent the room out?
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Well, Durental was just a cover. Immediately she fell back
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: into her old patterns. The room wasn't just for rent,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: It became a place for her paid ilicit affairs.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: So she basically turned her home into a pretty much.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: She reportedly stopped her seamstress work entirely and just focused
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: on renting that room out daily, sometimes to multiple men
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: for money. Her reputation in Shotriff quickly became notorious.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: How did Mohammed Handel Seeing all this his own sister.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: He was horrified. He saw the complete collapse of her
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: morals right in front of his eyes in their own home.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: He confronted her.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Again and again, begging her to stop.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Pleading with her for her own sake, for her children's sake,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: for his reputation, but she wouldn't listen.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: She just ignored him, so he felt he hadn't choice.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: He felt desperate. He took one last drastic step. He
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: traveled all the way back to Giza to find their family. Specifically,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: they're two maternal uncles. He hoped that bringing the elders
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: into it, the family authority figures, maybe they could get
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: through to her.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Did the uncles come.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They did. They came to shot Enough confronted Swad. They
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: basically told her this has to stop. Pack your things,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: you're coming to live with us.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And what did Swad say?
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: She actually agreed. She told him, okay, just give me
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: two days to sort things out here and I'll come
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: with you.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: But she didn't mean it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It seems not, because as soon as the uncle's left,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Swat had this chilling moment of realization. Mohammed had gone
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: behind her back. He had told the family everything. He
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: had betrayed her.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Secrets, and in her mind, betrayal meant.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Betrayal meant he was now an obstacle. The brother she
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: once insisted must live with her, the ones she supposedly protected,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: had now threatened her control, her lifestyle. He had become disposable.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So this leads directly to the murder.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Directly, Mohammed returns from Giza, probably thinking he'd done the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: right thing, maybe even saved her, But Swatt had already decided, quietly, calmly.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: How does she do it?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: The sources say, She waited for her moment that retrieved
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: a heavy farming axe called a fast and she struck
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: her brother multiple times on the head until he was dead.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Oh God, brutal, incredibly brutal, and the most horrifying part
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: her children. Her two small children witness the entire thing,
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: including her six year old son Fatty.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: They saw their mother kill their uncle.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: They saw everything, And then the calculation continues. She didn't panic.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: She stripped Mohammed's body naked.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: To make identification harder, or just dehumanize.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Them, perhaps both. Then she dug that deep hole right
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: there under her own bed and buried him in it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And the children, how does she keep them quiet?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Pure terror? She threatened them, told them if they ever
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: said a single word about what they saw, she would
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: do the same thing to.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Them, threaten her own small children with murder.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: The same fate as their uncle. Imagine the psychological weight.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: On a six year old, which brings us back to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the beginning. The police arrive, the smell the digging, and.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: They find the bottom. Their attention naturally turns to the children,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: especially little Fatty. He must have been completely traumatized.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Could he even speak?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: It took time to calm him down apparently. But eventually
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the six year old boy confirmed the unthinkable.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: He confirmed the body was his uncle Mohammed, and he
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: confirmed who killed him, his mother, Swad.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: The testimony of her own child. Was there other evidence?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, The police searched the house. Inside the oven, of
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: all places, they found Mohammad's clothes, bloodied, hidden away, just tying.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Up loose ends. The timeline is still the most shocking
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: part for me.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Fifteen days sleeping every night directly above her brother's decomposing body,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: the brother she demanded accompany her into marriage. The shift
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: is just staggering.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: From protector to murderer.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: All seemingly driven by this absolute need for control and
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: the preservation of her secrets at any cost.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: So Swad was arrested immediately and.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: The whole story came out, The attempts on her husband's life,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: the final brutal murder of her brother.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: What was the verdict?
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: The newspapers at the time needed a label for this
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: kind of calculated evil. They called her the assassin of
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: the fifties.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: The assassin of the fifties. It's a chilling title. When
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: you look back at this whole thing, what's the main
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: takeaway for me?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It's this terrifying idea of selective loyalty. Her initial insistence
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: on keeping Mohammed with her wasn't really about love or family,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: was it. It seems it was about keeping asset close,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: someone dependent.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: On her, an asset she controlled exactly, And.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: The moment that asset became a liability, someone who threatened
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: her control by exposing her reality, he was eliminated without hesitation.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It really makes you think. We often hear about crimes
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of passion, spur the moment acts. This was different.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: This was cold, calculated, repeated attempts on one life, a
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: successful brutal execution of another. It raises that disturbing question,
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: you know one people must have asked then, too, How
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: does this level of darkness fester within a family, within
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: someone who presented, at least initially as fiercely loyal.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: A reminder that the most dangerous threats can sometimes come
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: from those closest to us, masking calculation with claims of protection.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: A truly dark story from that era.