Latest / Crime Night / The Case of the Six-Fingered Baby: Murder and Deception in 1957 Cairo

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The Case of the Six-Fingered Baby: Murder and Deception in 1957 Cairo · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's take you somewhere. Imagine stepping back way back about
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: seven decades into the heart of Cairo.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: We're talking nineteen fifty seven.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Specifically the Sayye design Ab district. And this isn't some
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: quiet street. It's alive. It's this incredibly dense, chaotic market
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: a souk.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the air itself is just heck. You've got
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: roasted spices, strong coffee brewing, and this constant sweet haze
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: from incense smoke.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: It's noisy, NonStop motion, people everywhere. You'd think nothing could
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: happen unseen.
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  Speaker 2: But that's the thing, isn't it. Sometimes that exact chaos,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: that density, it provides cover, It allows the unthinkable.
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  Speaker 1: And right there in the middle of it all, near
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  Speaker 1: the mosque, there's Kyrie. She sells incense from a small stall,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: just trying.
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  Speaker 2: To make ends meet, known in the community, apparently liked.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But her real focus, her whole world, that's on
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  Speaker 1: this little matt right beside her, her baby daughter Amal, sleeping there.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: She's constantly watching her, even while dealing with customers.
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  Speaker 2: That constant divided attention, it's understandable, but creates vulnerability.
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  Speaker 1: A tiny window and that window opens a customer needs something,
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  Speaker 1: A quick haggle, maybe counting out change just takes a few.
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  Speaker 2: Seconds seconds, that's all it needed.
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  Speaker 1: Koreasinisius turns back to check on them all and the
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  Speaker 1: math it's empty. Oh god, just the impression where the
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  Speaker 1: baby was? That's silence before the sound. It must have
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  Speaker 1: been horrifying. Then this awful scream. Everything stops. The noise
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  Speaker 1: of the market just pauses. Everyone turns, a mall is gone.
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  Speaker 2: And what unfolds next, Well, it's far from a simple
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: desperate kidnapping. This deep dive. It's really about how one calculated,
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  Speaker 2: active deception spirals into something truly monstrous.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We need to unpack how cruelty was layered upon cruelty,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and how the investigation back in the fifties faced huge
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: limitations that were actually exploited.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The lack of technology, the environment, it all plays apart.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So the authorities show up, but picture the scene. It's
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  Speaker 1: a packed marketplace in the nineteen fifties, right.
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  Speaker 2: No CCTV everywhere like today, know instant DNA tests. Trying
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: to find a missing baby in that it's like searching
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  Speaker 2: for a needle in a haystack. The size of a
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  Speaker 2: city district.
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  Speaker 1: They're completely reliant on what people saw or thought they saw,
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  Speaker 1: witness testimony, and maybe just maybe some early forensic work,
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  Speaker 1: but it's.
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  Speaker 2: Primitive, very primitive fingerprints, maybe if they're lucky and clean,
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  Speaker 2: but mostly it's about observation, about unique identifiers, something someone
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: would notice and remember.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: In kyriea in her shock, she gives them the one
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  Speaker 1: thing they can cling to, the only concrete lead.
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  Speaker 2: What was it?
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  Speaker 1: Her daughter Amal was born with a very specific condition, polydactyvely,
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  Speaker 1: meaning six fingers on each hand.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, that's distinctive, highly distinctive.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely Suddenly that's not just a missing baby case, it's
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  Speaker 1: the case of the missing six fingered baby. Becomes the
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  Speaker 1: single thread they can pull.
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  Speaker 2: That detail changes everything. It makes her identifiable far beyond
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the immediate area. Without that, hope fades much faster. It
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: becomes the absolute cornerstone of the investigation.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But finding the kidnapper is still a nightmare. As the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: police are scrambling, Kyrie's mind is racing. It takes about
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: a day the shock starts to wear off, justin night.
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  Speaker 2: But she remembers something.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, she recalls this woman, someone who had been sort
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  Speaker 1: of hanging around her stall for a few days before
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  Speaker 1: Amal disappeared, lurking pretty much. Yeah, Perry had described her
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  Speaker 1: as having frightening features, dark skin, average height, a noticeable squint.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, a distinct description too.
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  Speaker 1: But it was more than just how she looked. It
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  Speaker 1: was the behavior. This woman kept buying, tiny amounts of incense,
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  Speaker 1: like barely anything, over and over, just excuses to be
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  Speaker 1: there exactly. And Carrie remembered her staring, staring intently at
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  Speaker 1: the wall while she slept.
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  Speaker 2: That's chilling. It shows premeditation. This wasn't impulsive, No, it.
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  Speaker 1: Feels incredibly methodical, the surveillance identifying the target, waiting for
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  Speaker 1: that brief lapse and attention.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Which makes you wonder, doesn't it why this specific baby?
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  Speaker 2: Was it just convenience the location or was there something
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: else drawing this woman to Kyria and a mall something
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: for you listening to think about.
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  Speaker 1: So the investigation hits a wall. Weeks turn into months,
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  Speaker 1: three long, agonizing months pass, no sign of them all.
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  Speaker 2: Imagine Kyrie's state. The reports say she was at the
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: police station almost constantly, just waiting, hoping.
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  Speaker 1: That kind of waiting must be torture, reliving that moment
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: over and over, but.
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  Speaker 2: The police still have those descriptions logged. The woman with
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: the squint, the baby with six fingers. It's all they've got,
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  Speaker 2: hoping for a break.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And then in the fourth month it happens a tip
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  Speaker 1: comes in finally from a nearby district. Someone reports a
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  Speaker 1: woman named Hindya and guess what she matches the description,
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  Speaker 1: dark complexion, the squint.
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  Speaker 2: What was suspicious about her?
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  Speaker 1: Well, she had vanished from our neighborhood for a while.
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  Speaker 1: Then suddenly she reappeared with a baby. Ah. But then
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  Speaker 1: almost as suddenly as the baby appeared, it disappeared again.
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  Speaker 2: That sequence, Yeah, that raises red flag. Immediately appearing with
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the baby and then the baby vanishes. Highly suspicious.
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  Speaker 1: So the police track Hindia down. They'd bring Kyria in
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: instant recognition. Kyrie points her out immediately, that's her, That's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the woman from the stall.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so they have the kidnapper. Now the question is
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: why and where is a mall?
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  Speaker 1: This is where the motive starts to unravel, and it's
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: deeply disturbing. The investigators dig into Hindia's background.
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  Speaker 2: What did they find.
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  Speaker 1: She'd been married briefly to Baker, a guy named Rita
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  Speaker 1: about thirty five years old, but the marriage only lasted
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  Speaker 1: a month.
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  Speaker 2: A month why so short?
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  Speaker 1: Rita found out Hindia was infertile, and apparently he felt
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  Speaker 1: she'd deliberately hidden it from him before they married.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, so he felt deceived.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, He divorced her, cast her out basically, and that rejection,
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  Speaker 1: that humiliation, it seems so.
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  Speaker 2: Festered into a plan for revenge.
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  Speaker 1: Precisely. Hindia's entire elaborate scheme was about getting back at Rita,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: about proving him wrong, reclaiming her staff.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: How would kidnapping a baby achieve?
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  Speaker 1: That? Her plan was audacious. She intended to disappear for
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: about eight months, roughly the length of her pregnancy, and
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  Speaker 1: she'd returned to Rita with a baby and present it
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  Speaker 1: as their child, a secret pregnancy. He knew nothing.
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  Speaker 2: About good grief. She was counting on him believing her.
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  Speaker 1: She must have thought he was gullible enough or maybe
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: desperate enough to accept it. It would prove he'd abandon
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: her unfairly, that she could bear children.
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  Speaker 2: So Amal wasn't chosen for any reason other than availability.
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  Speaker 2: She was a means to an.
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  Speaker 1: End, it seems so, a prop in this twisted play
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  Speaker 1: for revenge and validation. Amal was simply there, vulnerable at
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the wrong moment.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable. So what about Rata, the ex husband.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: He's the next piece of the puzzle. The police bring
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  Speaker 1: him in and the reports describe him as just falling apart, terrified, utterly,
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  Speaker 1: visibly shaking, nervous. It apparently took almost no pressure at
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: all for him to crack. He knew something, he knew everything.
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  Speaker 1: He confessed immediately said he was hiding a catastrophe. That's
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  Speaker 1: the word used, a catastrophe.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so he was involved after the fact.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: It seems Hindia brought Amel to him, passed her off
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  Speaker 1: as his daughter. He must have believed it.
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  Speaker 2: At least initially, and bonded with the baby for how
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  Speaker 2: long about a month?
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  Speaker 1: Based on the timeline, Hindia let him get attached, thinking
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  Speaker 1: this was his child. That attachment becomes crucial.
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  Speaker 2: Tragically, Why what happened next?
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  Speaker 1: Rada leads the police somewhere completely unexpected A graveyard.
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  Speaker 2: A graveyard Why he takes.
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  Speaker 1: Him to a specific tune. It wasn't a fresh grave,
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  Speaker 1: but one that had been recently used or opened for
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: someone else. Yeah, temporary storage maybe Reddy goes into the
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  Speaker 1: tomb alone. The police wait. Minutes pass then he comes
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  Speaker 1: back out. He's carrying a small bundle. It's Almo's body.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, so she didn't survive. No.
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  Speaker 1: But the real horror, the detail that elevates this beyond
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: tragic neglect or accidental death, comes during the forensic examination.
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  Speaker 2: What did they find?
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  Speaker 1: They check the one thing that could definitively identify her,
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  Speaker 1: the single most important piece of evidence in the whole case.
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  Speaker 1: The six finger gone both hands. They now only have
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: five fingers each.
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  Speaker 2: They remove them.
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  Speaker 1: They remove the extra fingers, the unique identifier. The proof
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  Speaker 1: had been brutally deliberately erased.
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  Speaker 2: My god, so how does she actually die?
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  Speaker 1: The forensics were clear, them all didn't starve. She wasn't
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  Speaker 1: neglected to death in the traditional sense. She died about
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  Speaker 1: seven to ten days after she was kidnapped from the
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  Speaker 1: wings from the infection caused by the crude amputation of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: her extra fingers. I just can't wrap my head around
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  Speaker 1: that doing that to an infant, knowing the police are
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  Speaker 1: looking for a child specifically with that feature.
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  Speaker 2: It speaks to a terrifying level of cold calculation, and
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  Speaker 2: the confessions from both Hendia and Rita lay out the
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  Speaker 2: whole horrific sequence.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us how did it escalate to that?
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  Speaker 2: Okay? Step one, Hendia, let's riad a bond with them
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  Speaker 2: all for a month, gets him invested thinking she's his daughter.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, building the emotional connection.
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  Speaker 2: Step two. Then she reveals the truth. This isn't his baby.
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  Speaker 2: She was kidnapped. The police are looking and now Rita,
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  Speaker 2: you're involved. You're an accomplice.
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  Speaker 1: The manipulation is incredible.
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  Speaker 2: She tracks him exactly and step three the blackmail. Hindia
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  Speaker 2: tells him they know about the six fingers. It's registered.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: If they find her like this, we're both finished. So
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  Speaker 2: the solution was in their worked logic. The only way
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  Speaker 2: to save themselves was to destroy the evidence, to remove
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the extra fingers, erase them all's unique identity.
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  Speaker 1: How do they do it?
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  Speaker 2: The details are just stomach churing. They used a simple
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  Speaker 2: razor blade, no, yes, a razor blade to sever the fingers.
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  Speaker 2: The reports mentioned the baby screaming, bleeding profusely, but their
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: only concern was removing the identifying feature, hiding their crime.
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  Speaker 1: The indifference. It's monstrous.
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  Speaker 2: Amal couldn't survive that. The trauma, the inevitable infection from
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: such a crude, unsterile act. She died from those wounds,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: henrita what do you do?
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Then?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Completely wrapped desperate, he paid someone an undertaker or someone
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: who worked at the graveyard who was willing to look.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: The other way to bury her secretly.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, to place Amal's body in that tomb without any
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: official record, hoping the whole catastrophe, as he called it,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: would just disappear in Hindia.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: What was her reaction when confronted with all this?
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  Speaker 2: Reports say she showed almost complete indifference, confessed yes, but
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: without any apparent remorse for the sheer brutality of it all.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Both of them were eventually sentenced.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: To death right yes, for kidnapping, for the horrific mutilation,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: and for murder. Justice in that sense was served.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It's just the timeline, the calculated cruelty, surveillance, abduction, manipulation,
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  Speaker 1: the blackmail, and then that final unthinkable act, all driven
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: by Hindia's obsession with revenge and getting her old life back.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And the nineteen fifties setting is so key here. Think
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  Speaker 2: about it today, DNA extensive databases, it would be harder,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: maybe impossible, to rely solely on erasing one physical trait.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: But back then, back then, that unique physical marker of
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the six fingers was the high tech evidence. It was
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: the DNA of its day for this case.
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  Speaker 1: And they targeted it directly. It didn't just kill her,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: they tried to destroy the very evidence that made her identifiable.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: It shows how desperate people become to maintain a lie,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: especially when they realize a simple biological fact is the
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: biggest threat to their freedom.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So where does this leave us? What does it all
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  Speaker 1: mean for you listening?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's this. This crime wasn't committed in a moment
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: of passion or rage. It was the end result of
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: months of planning and deceit.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So the thought we want to leave you with is
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: this what happens inside a person, to their conscience when
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: they commit such an atrocity, not impulsively, but as a cold,
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  Speaker 1: calculated step, the final move in a long game of manipulation,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Willing to destroy an innocent life just to preserve their
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: own fabrication.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: That's something profound to consider.