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Radia: The Moroccan She-Devil Murders · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine this, Martil Morocco. A nice house, comfortable build up
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: over thirty years of marriage, hard work.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a seemingly normal life.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You've got a zoo's. The husband, a decorator turned successful contractor.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: He's providing well for his wife, Radia and their three kids, Jerief,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Bassima and Siam.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: A picture of prosperity, really respectable family.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Thirty years building this foundation. But that foundation, that very
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: picture of stability, it became the perfect place to hide
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: something truly terrible.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: And that's what we're exploring today. We're trying to trace
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: the steps, the sheer calculation involved in an eleven year deception.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a sudden crime, was it.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. This was sustained malice hidden in
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: plain sight. It's about analyzing the well, the chilling intelligence
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: of a woman who used grief, public sympathy, everything to
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: keep dark secrets buried for over a.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Decade until one single crack brought.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: It all down exactly one betrayal.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start back in twenty twelve, thirty years of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: marriage and then poof, the Zoo's disappears.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Vanish it and Radia.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she waits two full days before going to the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: police two days after thirty years together. That feels wrong,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: It absolutely does. It suggest well, it suggests something wasn't spontaneous.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: It hints at planning maybe.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: And her story to the police it was neat.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Almost too neat. She said a man came to the
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: house in a car asking for a zoos for a job.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: A zoo's left with him and that was it. Never
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: came back.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: A story that's basically impossible to trace.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It plays on the idea that a busy contractor
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: might just leave for work unexpectedly. The police looked, of course, extensively,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: but found nothing, nothing concrete, No witnesses to this mystery man,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: no car description that led anywhere. The trail went cold,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: and eventually the investigation just stalled.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But Radio doesn't let it lie low. She keeps the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: story alive. And this next move two years later in
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, is really quite something.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. She contacts Muktaphone.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Explain for our listeners why mukdefin is such a signific choice.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just a local news.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Report, No, No, Muktafone is huge in Morocco. It's a
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: major national program. About missing people, watched by practically everyone.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It taps into deep social concerns, so going on there,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: it was a masterstroke. Really. She appears on national television,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: children beside her, looking devastated. She talks about her ruined life,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: sleepless nights, utter confusion. She sends this heartbreaking message directly
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to a Zoo's pleading for him to come home, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: the public reaction massive sympathy. How could you not feel
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: for this heartbroken wife and mother. It cemented her image
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: as the suffering victim.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't just about finding him. Maybe it was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: about managing perception.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: You could certainly argue that it effectively shielded her. Who's
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: going to suspect the weeping woman the whole country just
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: saw on TV? It deflected any potential suspicion, especially from
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: local police who might have had lingering doubts. She controlled
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the narrative brilliantly.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's jump forward six years past after a Zoos vanishes,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: it's twenty eighteen. The families adjusted to this, this absence.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: A grim new normal perhaps.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Well, then another shock, Her son Cherife disappears just.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Like that, and Sharif was important. He'd been working in
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: his father's old shop, basically keeping the family afloat financially
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: after Azeus went missing.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So his disappearance should have triggered major alarms, right, another
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: man gone from the same.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: House, you'd think so. But Radia had answers, lots of them, actually,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and they were well inconsistent.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: What did she tell people?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: It depended on who asked, it seems, and maybe when.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Sometimes she told neighbors Charif was working with his uncle
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: over in Algeria, okay. Other times she'd say, no, you
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: went to Spain or even Libya.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Algeria, Spain, Libya. Those are completely different places and situations.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: How did she keep that straight? Didn't the neighbors notice
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the contradictions?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Oh they noticed. It definitely raised eyebrows. But Radia she
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: played the victim card again very effectively. Also, eventually she
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: should did the story. She started telling people Sharif had
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: just abandoned them. She acted hurt, upset, saying she couldn't
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: believe he'd leave, knowing how much they needed him financially.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So she turns the suspicion ont Sharif himself. The missing
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: person becomes the bad guy exactly.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It's clever in a chilling way, and when people suggested,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: shouldn't you report him missing to the police.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: She refused, Why? What reason did she give?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: She apparently said something like, what's the point? Look, how
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: useless they were trying to find a zoo's She used
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the previous police failure as justification for inaction.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, and did she eventually did she give them any closure?
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Sort of to quiet down the neighbor's concerns. She later
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: claimed Sharif had called, said he was safe, confirmed he
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: was with his uncle in Algeria after all, just enough
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: to make the questions stop.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, So first the husband, then the sun. Both vanishings
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: explained away one way or another. Then we get to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, three years after Charif disappeared.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this time it's not a disappearance. Neighbors here
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: radio screaming hysterically.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: From the house, and they find her.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Daughter, Bessima is dead, suddenly Passima.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: She's the one who had recently gotten married, right, that's right.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: The wedding was even held in that same house. She
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: was just staying with Radia, temporarily waiting for her husband,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: who was in Spain, to sort out residency paperwork so
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: she could join him.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: So what was Radia's explanation for her daughter's sudden death suicide?
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: She told everyone Bassimo was depressed about a supposed divorce
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: and had taken poison.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: A divorce, but she was newly married waiting to join
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: her husband.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and initially the forensic report seemed to back up
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the poisoning part of the story. It was ruled a suicide.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: But there's always a butt in this story.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: There is, and this is where the story really starts
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: to fray. Bassima's husband hears about this, about the suicide
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and the divorce. He's adamant. He says he loved his wife,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: they were happy, looking forward to their life together, and crucially,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: he says they never divorced. There was no divorce.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: So the entire premise for the suicide, the depression over a.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Divorce, was a lie, according to the husband, Yes, a
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: complete fabrication, just like the stories about Sharif. This contradiction
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: it casts a huge shadow back over everything else that
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: happened in that house.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Three major tragedies, a missing husband, a missing son explained
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: away with conflicting stories, and now a daughter dead by
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: suicide under a fualse premise, all centered on Radio.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: You have to think about the mental fortitude, the coldness
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: required to live in that house day after day, walking
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: over the spot potentially where your husband and son are buried,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: while giving interviews, making up stories about abandonment, about suicide.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: It's difficult to comprehend.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Years go by again, the community lives with this cloud
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of tragedy and these inconsistencies. Then twenty twenty three, everything.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Changes suddenly, Yes, neighbor see police cars pull up, but
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: they're not there to ask questions about a cold case.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: They're there to make an arrest.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: They arrest Radio, They rest rate what happened, what finally
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: broke the case open?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: After all this time, the source of the information was well,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: it was the ultimate betrayal. It was Radio's own brother.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Er brother. He went to the police, walked right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: In, and he told them his sister, Radia, had murdered
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: her husband a zoos years ago, and that she had
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: buried him in the garage of the family home.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: After keeping silent for over a decade. Why then, why
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: turn her in? Now?
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: That's a key question. And there seemed to be two
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: main theories swirling around. Theory. One it was about money,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: maybe a fight over inheritance the property itself. He used
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the secret as leverage, or perhaps out of pure spite
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: after a.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Falling out, a transactional betrayal.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Possibly theory two is well, maybe conscience. The psychological weight
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: of knowing of possibly being involved just became too much
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: after all those years. He needed to confess for his
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: own peace of mind.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Guilt or greed. Either way, he talked.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: He talked, and he gave specifics enough for the police
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: to get a warrant and start digging in the garage
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: exactly where he said to look.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So they arrest Radio and they start excavating, fully expecting
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to find a Zeus's remains based on the brother's testimony.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: How was the expectation, But the first discovery they made
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: it threw everyone for a loop.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: What did they find?
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: They unearthed a skull, other skeletal remains, They sent them
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: for forensic analysis. It wasn't a.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Zoo's, not the husband than who it was.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Scharif, her son, the son she claimed had abandoned them,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the son who was supposedly working in Algeria or living
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: in Spain.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: My god, so she hadn't just lied about him leaving.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: She'd killed him, buried him right there in the garage
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: under the family home, and lived there for five years,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: literally walking over his grave while telling neighbors he'd run off.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: The level of deception is just staggering.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But the brother had specifically mentioned Azeus he had.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: So the police didn't stop digging after finding Sharif. They
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: kept going searching that same area in the garage. Eventually,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: eventually they found more remains deeper down, and this time
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: for Forensis confirmed it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: It was a Zoo's, both of them, husband and son,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: buried right there.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, faced with the bodies, the physical proof, and crucially
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: with her own brother's testimony against her radius composure, that
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: incredible eleven year facade finally.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Shattered, did she confess immediately?
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Not quite. Initially she denied everything, but the evidence was
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: literally being dug up from under her feet. Confronted with
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the bodies and her brother's statement, she collapsed and she confessed.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: To both murders, to everything. And did her confession shed
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: light on the brother's role he knew where Azou's was buried?
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: It did? She confirmed he wasn't just an informant. After
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the fact, she stated that her brother had actually helped
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: her kill and bury Azus the first victim.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So the man who exposed her was also her accomplice
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: in the original crime.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That's what her confession indicated, which explains how he knew
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: the precise location after all those years. He wasn't guessing,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: he knew because he was there.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: This is it's almost unbelievable. But even with the confession,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: there are still huge gaps, aren't there?
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely massive holes remain. We have the what two murders,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: possibly three deaths connected to her. We have the how
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: buried in the garage, the likely poisoning of Bassima, but
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the why that's still incredibly unclear.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: We don't know why she killed the Zoos. After thirty years,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: no clear.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Motive has emerged. Was it financial control something else entirely?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: We just don't have a definitive answer from the available information.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And why sheriff her own son, the one supporting her financially,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: seems counterintuitive.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It does again, the motive remains elusive. Was he getting suspicious,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: did he discover something about his father? Or was it
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: something else entirely?
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And Bassima the suicide, Given the husband's denial about the divorce,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: that whole situation looks deeply suspicious now doesn't.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: It extremely suspicious? Was it another murder disguised as suicide?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Radia confessed to the two murders, But the circumstances around
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Basma's death happening in that same house under Radia's roof,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: with a demonstrably false narrative provided by Radio, it leaves
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: a very dark question mark.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: So we're looking at potentially three deaths over nine years,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: orchestrated or covered up by one woman eleven years of deception.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: How does someone maintain that go on national TV asking
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: for sympathy two years after murdering her husband.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: That's the core of it, isn't it. The reports often
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: mentioned her devilish intelligence. It wasn't necessarily genius in the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: traditional sense, but an extraordinary capacity for cold calculation, for
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: emotional manipulation, and for compartmentalizing her life.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Using the expected role's grieving wife, worried mother as a shield.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Precisely, the lack of a clear passionate motive like rage
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: or jealousy points toward something colder. Maybe it was about control,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: property finances, decisions made with chilling detachment rather than in
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the heat of the moment. She weaponized social expectations.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: This whole case just rips apart the idea of appearance
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: versus reality, doesn't it the comfortable family home in martil
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: hiding such.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Horror, It's a stark reminder. Radio wasn't just hiding bodies.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: She was actively performing grief, manipulating neighbors, police, even the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: entire country through television. She was destroying the victim's reputations too.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Azu's the vanished husband, Cheroff, the abandoning.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Sun and using her surviving family, her daughter CM. Maybe
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you've to seem as children too, as props in this
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: long performance of victim, But it's a betrayal on so
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: many levels.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: That's perhaps the most disturbing part. It wasn't just the violence,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: but the systematic, calculated destruction of memory and truth that followed,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: which leaves us with that final nagging question.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: About the brother.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, what was the absolute borking point? After a decade
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: of shared silence, complicity, living with that secret buried in
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: the garage, what finally made him crack? Was it money? Guilt, fear?
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: What snapped inside him that made him decide to bring
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: down his own sister, knowing it likely meant destroying his
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: own life too. That's the secret that maybe still lies
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: buried