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The Dammam Kidnapper: Unraveling Decades of Deceit and Stolen Identities · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine this a quiet evening in Damum. You can almost
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: smell the food cooking, hear the TV murmuring in the background.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Just a typical family scene on the surface, yes, But
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: for two young men living there, Yusuf and Musa, something
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: was deeply wrong. They're in their early twenties. They feel loved,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: part of the family, but legally they just don't exist.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Wow. No official identity at.
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  Speaker 1: All, none for over twenty years, no birth certificates, no
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  Speaker 1: ID cards. Think about that. Unable to get a proper job,
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  Speaker 1: can't really function fully in society. It's more than just inconvenient.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a huge piece of them is missing, complete
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  Speaker 1: void exactly. So they keep pushing their mother Mariam for answers.
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  Speaker 1: They have no idea. They're about to unravel a secret
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  Speaker 1: kept for decades.
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  Speaker 2: It's a kind of nightmare, isn't it. An awakening from
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: that takes incredible strength. What's fascinating here, I think, is
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  Speaker 2: that fundamental human need for identity, for belonging, and.
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  Speaker 1: What happens when that foundation turns out to be a.
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  Speaker 2: Lie, catastrophe, but also resilience. The sheer drive to find
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  Speaker 2: the truth is powerful.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go to twenty nineteen. The first real
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  Speaker 1: crack appears. Mariam, she's in her sixties now, goes to
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  Speaker 1: the Civil Affairs office in demm Right. She's there for
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  Speaker 1: Yusuf and Musa, her sons. Says they finally need ID cards,
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  Speaker 1: mentions some problems with their papers, just problems. Yeah, But
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the civil servant he picks up on something odds straight away.
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  Speaker 1: Yusuf is twenty, Musa is twenty.
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  Speaker 2: Two, and in Saudi Arabia you get IDs from fifteen,
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  Speaker 2: don't you.
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  Speaker 1: Precisely verifying birth certificates against the national registry is standard,
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  Speaker 1: so why wait so long? It just doesn't make sense.
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  Speaker 2: A huge red flag.
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  Speaker 1: He asks for their birth certificates. Marim gets flustered, says
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  Speaker 1: they were lost ages ago, blames it on her being
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  Speaker 1: old not getting around to replacing them.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: That sounds thin, because missing certificates for adult isn't just
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: an advent issue. It means they've never been.
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  Speaker 1: Registered, never essentially invisible to the.
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  Speaker 2: State, identityless yet, no legal existence, no services, no official work,
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  Speaker 2: no travel, ghost citizens. Any official would see this as serious.
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  Speaker 1: So Miriam feels the pressure and her story starts to change.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Ah the narrative shift now.
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  Speaker 1: She blames her second ex husband, claims he refused to
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  Speaker 1: register the boys said he doubted her conduct during their marriage.
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  Speaker 2: So she's painting herself as the victim, the protective mother.
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  Speaker 1: Trying to yeah, protecting her sons from his refusal.
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  Speaker 2: But the official isn't buying it. Too many holes. The
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: story keeps changing.
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  Speaker 1: Right, He insists, Look, this isn't just lost paperwork. This
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  Speaker 1: needs to go to public prosecution. It's a legal matter now.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And Miriam's reaction, she's clearly agitated, doesn't want any Shashara,
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  Speaker 1: any trouble, any fuss, which of.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Course only makes her look more suspicious. Her resistance tells
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  Speaker 2: him there's something bigger she's hiding.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: So the case is officially escalated. Public prosecution takes over.
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  Speaker 1: They interview Mary him again. She sticks to the news story,
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  Speaker 1: the one about the difficult X husband.
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  Speaker 2: Standard procedure interviewer first.
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  Speaker 1: Then they summon the ex husband to get his side.
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  Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting.
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  Speaker 2: The moment of truth arrives.
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  Speaker 1: His arrival just flips the whole thing on its head.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, because he doesn't corroborate her story at all.
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  Speaker 2: He completely denies it, flat out tells them under oath
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  Speaker 2: he had zero children with Mariam, let alone Yusuf and Musa. Wow,
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  Speaker 2: and he's prepared, has documents, says they'll take a DNA
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  Speaker 2: test right now to prove it.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So this isn't just a domestic spat anymore, not even close.
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  Speaker 2: It's something much, much darker.
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  Speaker 1: DNA tests are ordered immediately Mariam, the ex husband, Yusuf, Musa,
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  Speaker 1: everyone swabbed. Then comes the wait, just two days, but
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  Speaker 1: imagine what those two days felt like for Yusuf and.
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  Speaker 2: Musa, excruciating their entire reality hanging in the balance.
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  Speaker 1: The first results come back and they confirm the ex.
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  Speaker 2: Husband was telling the truth. He is not their biological father.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so that part in Miriam's story is completely debunked.
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  Speaker 2: Which just deepens the mystery. Right, if he's not the
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  Speaker 2: father and Mariam claims she's the mother, then who are they?
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  Speaker 2: It forces the next question.
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  Speaker 1: And the next result. It's the earth shattering one. The
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  Speaker 1: DNA also proves definitively Yusef and Musa are not Miriam's
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  Speaker 1: biological children either.
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  Speaker 2: Just devastating. Imagine hearing that the woman you've called mother
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  Speaker 2: your entire life isn't.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty plus years your whole sense of self, your family,
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  Speaker 1: your history gone instantly psychologically. What does that even do
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  Speaker 1: to a person.
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  Speaker 2: It's an identity implosion, a catastrophic level of trauma. You'd
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  Speaker 2: feel betrayed, lost, angry, confused, questioning everything. Who am I?
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  Speaker 2: Where do I belong? Can I trust anyone? Ever? Again?
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  Speaker 1: Your mind must just real.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely shock denial, trying to reconcile two impossible realities. It's
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  Speaker 2: an unimaginable appeaval.
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  Speaker 1: Mariam, completely cornered now by the science, has to change
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  Speaker 1: her story again.
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  Speaker 2: Of course she does. What's the new version now?
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  Speaker 1: She claims she found them as infants abandoned near a
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  Speaker 1: mosque and damnum, so she raised them out of pure charity.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, the foundling story, convenience.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason they weren't real Still the ex husband's fault.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently he refused and she didn't want to break the
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  Speaker 1: boy's hearts by telling them the truth.
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  Speaker 2: Right, So, finding two unrelated babies years apart near the
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  Speaker 2: same mosque, and the ex husband is still the villain
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  Speaker 2: preventing registration. Please aren't buying that for a second.
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  Speaker 1: No way. It screams pattern, It screams deception.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly this inconsistency, this elaborate tale, It signals something far
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  Speaker 2: more sinister is going on. This prompts the investigators to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: widen the net. Oh, so they decided to test Miriam's
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: other children. She had three others, Manar, Mohammed, and Naif.
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  Speaker 2: Let's see if the DNA matches.
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  Speaker 1: Though, and guess what another twists Manar and Mohammad. They
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  Speaker 1: are her biological children from her first husband, just like
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: she said.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so some part of her story checks out. That
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  Speaker 2: makes it even stranger.
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  Speaker 1: But then there's Naif. Now Naif has official papers, he's
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  Speaker 1: registered under Miriam's third husband's name. But the DNA yes,
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  Speaker 1: not her biological son either, bingo. Naif is also not
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  Speaker 1: biologically related to Mariam.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, this is huge pattern dismantles everything. Three young men
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  Speaker 2: she raised, Yusuf, Musa, and Naive, none of them are
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  Speaker 2: biologically hers, and Naif even having papers under a husband's name.
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  Speaker 2: That suggests something highly calculated.
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  Speaker 1: Not just finding abandoned kids.
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  Speaker 2: No, this points towards orchestrated deception. This is the trigger.
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  Speaker 2: Please realize they need to pull all the old files
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: missing persons kidnappings going back twenty maybe twenty five. Twenty
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  Speaker 2: six years. They're looking for a connection.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so now we need to step back. We're going
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  Speaker 1: twenty six years into the past into a series of
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  Speaker 1: events so chilling they sound like fiction.
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  Speaker 2: These are the original tragedies related.
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  Speaker 1: Incidents back then, but now they start to connect. First stop,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Katif hospital. Okay, picture a new mother
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  Speaker 1: exhausted after childbirth, maybe drifting in and out of sleep.
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  Speaker 1: The room smells like hospital cleaner, vulnerable, very A nurse
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  Speaker 1: comes in, calm, professional looking, so she needs to take
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  Speaker 1: the baby little knife for routine vaccinations. The mother, trusting lets.
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  Speaker 2: Her standard procedure. She thinks.
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  Speaker 1: Hours pass. The mother starts to feel uneasy. Where's her baby?
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  Speaker 1: She asks the real nurses. They have no idea what
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  Speaker 1: she's talking about. Panic sets in. Oh no, the horrific
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  Speaker 1: truth dawns. No nurse took Naif for shots. The nurse
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  Speaker 1: and the baby vanished, gone, just like that. Police are called.
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  Speaker 1: The mother describes her Saudi accent, seemed to know the
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  Speaker 1: visiting hours slipped in just before they started, but nothing
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  Speaker 1: case filed, Unknown perpetrator Naif is gone. Fast forward about
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  Speaker 1: four years nineteen ninety seven. Damn, I'm hospital, this time
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  Speaker 1: King City is Marriam's home. Now, Yes, another new mother
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  Speaker 1: wakes up, reaches for her newborn son, Yusuf. The crib
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  Speaker 1: is empty, but this time there's something left behind. A
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: handwritten note right by the crib did say it promised
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  Speaker 1: the baby would be returned in ten days.
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  Speaker 2: Cold comfort, chilling.
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  Speaker 1: They preserve the note, clinging to that tiny hope. But
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  Speaker 1: Yusef never comes back. The mother was asleep, she saw nothing.
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  Speaker 1: Then maybe two year later, in nineteen ninety nine, it
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  Speaker 1: happens again. Damn m Hospital, the same hospital, the same hospital.
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  Speaker 1: Another mother, groggy after delivery, Another nurse takes her baby Musa,
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  Speaker 1: this time saying it's for a change in sterilization.
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  Speaker 2: Exploiting that post delivery of vulnerability again.
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  Speaker 1: This mother remembers one specific detail about the nurse though.
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  Speaker 1: She was carrying a plastic bag, a very distinctive one
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  Speaker 1: from a famous local supermarket.
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  Speaker 2: An odd detail but maybe crucial.
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  Speaker 1: By now, fear is spreading like wildfire in the community.
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  Speaker 1: Hospital kidnappings unsolved, terrifying. People are clutching their babies tight,
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  Speaker 1: but no one knows who's doing it or why.
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  Speaker 2: And for years these remained separate tragedies, unconnected nightmares. But
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  Speaker 2: now with the DNA results back in twenty nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly, suddenly they form.
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  Speaker 2: A pattern, the terrifyingly clear pattern. The descriptions of the nurse,
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  Speaker 2: the locations, the method. It all starts pointing towards one person,
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  Speaker 2: operating calmly, methodically across different hospitals.
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  Speaker 1: For US investigators are now looking at Mariam with fresh eyes,
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  Speaker 1: comparing everything. The descriptions of the nurse, they match Miriam.
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  Speaker 2: Perfectly, physical descriptions.
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  Speaker 1: A line, the handwritten note left for Yusuf's mother back
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  Speaker 1: in ninety seven. Handwriting experts analyze it against Mariam's known writing,
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  Speaker 1: a one hundred percent match. It's her handwriting, undeniable, Wow,
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  Speaker 1: forensic proof. And remember that distinctive supermarket bag MOS's.
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  Speaker 2: Mother mentioned, the one the nurse was carrying.
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  Speaker 1: They find bags exactly like it, same brand, same style
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  Speaker 1: during a search of Mariam's.
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  Speaker 2: House, putting all the pieces together.
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  Speaker 1: Then comes perhaps the most powerful moment. They arrange for
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  Speaker 1: Yusuf's biological mother, the one who received the note to
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  Speaker 1: see Mariam. Decades have passed, twenty two years. The mother
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  Speaker 1: looks at Miriam and there's immediate recognition. Tears streaming. She points,
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  Speaker 1: that's her, that's the woman who took my son.
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  Speaker 2: A face burned into her memory. The trauma never faded.
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  Speaker 1: That identification, combined with the DNA, the handwriting, the bag,
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  Speaker 1: the evidence is overwhelming.
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  Speaker 2: There's nowhere left for Miriam to hide. She has to confess.
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  Speaker 1: She does. She admits it. She is the damn kidnapper.
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  Speaker 1: She confesses to taking the babies, and she reveals she
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  Speaker 1: wasn't working alone. That accomplice, yes, a woman named Sultana.
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  Speaker 1: This was an operation, and the motive as horrifying as
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you might imagine. Mariam and Sultana weren't just taking babies, they.
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  Speaker 2: Were selling them, selling infants to.
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  Speaker 1: Wealthy families who couldn't conceive a black market for babies. Yusuf,
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  Speaker 1: Musa and Naif. They were the ones who, for some
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: reason weren't sold, so marm just kept them, raised them
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  Speaker 1: as her own, built this incredibly elaborate lie around them
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  Speaker 1: to cover her tracks. And there was more. The investigation
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  Speaker 1: uncovered another layer to their crimes. Mariam and Sultana weren't
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  Speaker 1: just kidnappers. What else They were involved in? Sorcery, witchcraft,
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  Speaker 1: fortune telling. They had affluent clients, coming to them, paying
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: huge sums for these services.
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  Speaker 2: So preying on desperation on multiple fronts, kidnapping and superstition.
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  Speaker 2: It paints a picture of calculated long term criminality.
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  Speaker 1: Now think about the reunions Naive Yusuf Mussa now adults
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: in their twenties, after twenty to twenty six years, they
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  Speaker 1: meet their biological family.
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  Speaker 2: It's the moment everyone hoped for, but the reality must
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: be incredibly complex. It raised that important question again, how
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: do you navigate that?
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  Speaker 1: It can't just be instant joy?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. You're meeting strangers who are your parents, your siblings.
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  Speaker 2: You have a whole life, a whole identity built elsewhere.
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  Speaker 2: There's grief for the lost time, confusion about where you
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: fit different family cultures, maybe even dialects.
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  Speaker 1: And the biological families too, welcoming back a grown child
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  Speaker 1: they never.
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  Speaker 2: Knew, immense emotional challenges on both sides. Adapting after decades
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: apart under such traumatic circumstances. It's a lifelong process.
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  Speaker 1: And remember how the sons always felt something was off,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that sense of being different. Yeah, like a genetic whisper.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: They couldn't ignore liking things Mariam's family didn't feeling connections
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to things they couldn't explain, that innate poll towards their
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  Speaker 1: real heritage, even when they didn't know what it was.
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  Speaker 2: That deep sense of identity trying to surface.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Perhaps, so Miriam goes on trial in twenty twenty, given
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  Speaker 1: the evidence, the multiple kidnappings, the decades of deceit, She's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: found guilty and sentenced to death, the.
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  Speaker 2: Expected outcome for such horrific crimes.
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  Speaker 1: But then something truly astonishing happens. What Naif Yusef and Musa,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: the very men whose lives she stole. They appeal to
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  Speaker 1: the court.
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  Speaker 2: They appeal for her for leniency.
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  Speaker 1: They acknowledge the unspeakable things she did, but they also
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  Speaker 1: say she did raise them, she cared for them, provided
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  Speaker 1: for them in her own twisted way. She was the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: only mother they knew.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: That's incredibly complex, forgiveness on a level that's hard to comprehend.
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  Speaker 1: Their plea makes a difference. Because of their appeal, Miriam's
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, that adds another layer entirely. What ultimately stands out
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: to you in this unbelievable story. For me, it's that
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: relentless search for identity that biological imperative almost that drove
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: this whole thing into the light.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Or maybe the strange, disturbing paradox of human connection, how
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: even a bond forged through such a terrible crime could
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: still hold some kind of complicated weight for the victims.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps it's just the sheer power of truth, how
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: no matter how deep you bury it, no matter how
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: many lies you build on top, it somehow eventually finds
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: its way out. It forces us to look at the messy,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: contradictory nature of people and how our origins shape us
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: no matter what