Latest / Crime Night / The Embodiment of Evil: A True Crime in Egypt
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Imagine this.
- 0:00Speaker 2: You're stepping into a desolate ancient cemetery. It's shrouded in
- 0:04Speaker 2: this really oppressive, inky blackness. We're talking nineteen ninety nine
- 0:07Speaker 2: Kaba Baate Village at Fi Giza. The air is just heavy,
- 0:11Speaker 2: you know, thick with dust, in the silence of fIF
- 0:13Speaker 2: you well forgotten lives. But then it starts a faint sound,
- 0:18Speaker 2: rhythmic thump thump, muffled at first, but it's definitely coming
- 0:21Speaker 2: from under the earth. It gets louder, closer, it almost
- 0:24Speaker 2: echoes your own heartbeat. The villager is drawn by this,
- 0:27Speaker 2: this unnatural sound. They're frozen at first, huddled together, just
- 0:30Speaker 2: pure terror. But then that pair it starts to shift.
- 0:33Speaker 2: It gives way to this desperate, almost morbid curiosity. They
- 0:37Speaker 2: can hear it distinctly now, a voice, strained, weak, a
- 0:40Speaker 2: cry for help from beneath the ground. Someone is trying
- 0:42Speaker 2: to get out. Suddenly the fear turns into frantic action.
- 0:45Speaker 2: Shovels start tearing at the loose soil. It's dark, every
- 0:47Speaker 2: stupid dirt, every clang of metal hitting stone. Maybe it
- 0:50Speaker 2: just fuels this this unbearable hope, but mixed with this
- 0:54Speaker 2: icy dread, what are they gonna find and then the
- 0:56Speaker 2: earth gives away. They break through. It's not a ghost,
- 0:59Speaker 2: not some phantom. It's human, a boy about fourteen years old.
- 1:02Speaker 1: He's disoriented, covered in dirt, pulled from an unearthed grave,
- 1:06Speaker 1: visibly injured. His eyes are wide with the trauma no
- 1:09Speaker 1: kid should ever see. He can't speak, he can barely move,
- 1:11Speaker 1: just just dude's gasping for air.
- 1:13Speaker 3: It's a scene straight out of a nightmare, really just horrifying.
- 1:17Speaker 3: And the boy's condition, I mean, a severe blow to
- 1:19Speaker 3: the head, clearly from a sharp object, profound shock, and
- 1:22Speaker 3: he couldn't speak, couldn't remember anything, total loss of speech
- 1:25Speaker 3: and memory, no idea on him. And crucially, nobody can
- 1:28Speaker 3: come out a village, recognize him. Nobody who's like he
- 1:30Speaker 3: just appeared out of the ground. So the immediate question
- 1:32Speaker 3: hanging heavy in that pre dawn air was just stark,
- 1:35Speaker 3: who is this boy? And what kind of monstrous act
- 1:38Speaker 3: led to him being buried alive, left for dead in
- 1:41Speaker 3: a grave?
- 1:41Speaker 4: Right?
- 1:42Speaker 1: The sheer horror of finding Muhammed like that, It left
- 1:45Speaker 1: investigators with almost nothing to go on, a complete void
- 1:48Speaker 1: of information. So where do they even start? How do
- 1:50Speaker 1: you begin to piece together something? So unimaginable. Please get
- 1:53Speaker 1: to the scene pretty quickly, flashlights cutting through the dark.
- 1:57Speaker 1: The boy Mohamed is rushed to the hospital confirm the trauma,
- 2:01Speaker 1: the head injury, and his inability to communicate, I mean,
- 2:03Speaker 1: not even able to write. That's an immediate, huge barrier.
- 2:06Speaker 1: So with no other leads, they start the obvious thing,
- 2:09Speaker 1: checking local missing persons reports, kababatde village, the wider at
- 2:14Speaker 1: the area, hoping for a match. But a full day
- 2:17Speaker 1: goes by, nothing, silence, no reports of a missing fourteen
- 2:20Speaker 1: year old boy anywhere nearby. The mystery just gets deeper,
- 2:23Speaker 1: doesn't It amplifies the horror when you're faced with a
- 2:26Speaker 1: crime like that, isolated, brutal victim, unidentify. How do investigators
- 2:30Speaker 1: usually handle that initial wall of silence, especially back then,
- 2:33Speaker 1: maybe without today's.
- 2:34Speaker 4: Tech, No, that initial vacuum, that lack of information is
- 2:38Speaker 4: incredibly challenging in any major case, but especially one as
- 2:41Speaker 4: bizarre and disturbing as this. Back in nineteen ninety nine,
- 2:44Speaker 4: you know, without the sophisticated databases and instant digital communication
- 2:48Speaker 4: we rely on now, police were really using let's call
- 2:51Speaker 4: them old school methods, lots of door to door inquiries,
- 2:54Speaker 4: circulating physical descriptions, painstakingly going through local police records, paper
- 2:58Speaker 4: records often, and when those initial local searches turned up
- 3:02Speaker 4: absolutely nothing, the next vital step is always to widen
- 3:06Speaker 4: the net. It often comes down to experience, instinct, sometimes
- 3:09Speaker 4: just sheer tenacity. You have to start assuming the victim
- 3:12Speaker 4: isn't local, maybe from a neighboring district or even further away.
- 3:15Speaker 4: It becomes a race against time. Really, every hour without
- 3:18Speaker 4: an ID makes finding answers harder. And that's precisely what
- 3:21Speaker 4: happened here, because the very next day another call comes
- 3:24Speaker 4: in even more disturbing, if that's possible, This time not
- 3:27Speaker 4: from the cemetery. It was from a remote mountain area
- 3:30Speaker 4: near Utfee, a fair distance from Cobo Bat. Villagers reported
- 3:34Speaker 4: their dogs acting strangely, digging frantically at one particular spot.
- 3:38Speaker 4: They went to investigate, and they found a blood stained
- 3:40Speaker 4: sack inside. It was truly gruesome, the dismembered body of
- 3:46Speaker 4: a man looked to be in his thirties, clearly dead
- 3:48Speaker 4: for several days. For insicts quickly got involved. They confirmed
- 3:51Speaker 4: the man had been deceased for about two days, which
- 3:53Speaker 4: was eerily similar. Wasn't it to the estimated time crame
- 3:56Speaker 4: of a boy's ordeal two days. Yeah. So this immediately
- 3:59Speaker 4: raised a mass of question for the investigators. Could these
- 4:02Speaker 4: two horrific events, the boy buried alive the dismembered man,
- 4:06Speaker 4: possibly be connected even though they were found in different
- 4:09Speaker 4: places different methods used. That chilling time overlap just couldn't
- 4:13Speaker 4: be ignored. It demanded immediate attention.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Okay, so this is where it gets well even more complex.
- 4:18Speaker 1: Two victims, no names at first, brutal distinct injuries found
- 4:23Speaker 1: in different spots, but that timeline that overlap is chilling.
- 4:27Speaker 1: The police are basically facing a wall of silence from
- 4:29Speaker 1: both victims in different ways. How do you even begin
- 4:32Speaker 1: to connect dots that seem so so desparate, especially when
- 4:36Speaker 1: the clues are so fragmented and horrifying. Well, with no
- 4:40Speaker 1: local leads in Giza for either the boy or the man,
- 4:43Speaker 1: investigators made that crucial call widen the search, cast the
- 4:47Speaker 1: net way beyond the governorate. They started meticulously combing through
- 4:49Speaker 1: missing persons reports from neighboring regions, just desperate for anything,
- 4:53Speaker 1: any shred of information, and then finally a breakthrough report
- 4:56Speaker 1: filed and zephto which is in the Garbia governorate, quite
- 4:58Speaker 1: a distance away out It described a thirty three year
- 5:01Speaker 1: old microbus driver and his fourteen year old nephew, both
- 5:04Speaker 1: reported missing for over a week. The details were maybe
- 5:06Speaker 1: a bit sparse initially, but the ages they matched right.
- 5:09Speaker 4: And what's really remarkable here it isn't just luck, though
- 5:12Speaker 4: maybe there was an element of that. It's that investigative intuition,
- 5:15Speaker 4: that police work that says we have to look further
- 5:18Speaker 4: think about it. Back then, sharing missing person's reports across
- 5:21Speaker 4: government lines wasn't simple, no central computer system pinging alerts.
- 5:25Speaker 4: It took real effort coordination. Yet this report seemingly unrelated
- 5:30Speaker 4: from miles away, it turned out to be the absolute key,
- 5:34Speaker 4: the lynchpin for the whole mystery. The photo of the
- 5:36Speaker 4: fourteen year old boy in that Garbiye report. It was
- 5:39Speaker 4: an exact match for the traumatized boy found in the grave,
- 5:42Speaker 4: young Mohammed, and the description of the thirty three year
- 5:44Speaker 4: old driver it matched the dismembered body found in the
- 5:47Speaker 4: sack regab Hassan abdel Reshek. Finally they had names, victims identified,
- 5:51Speaker 4: and their connection was suddenly horrifyingly clear.
- 5:54Speaker 1: Uncle and nephew Okay, so now they have names Regab
- 5:58Speaker 1: and Mohammed and a definite terrible link between them. Police
- 6:02Speaker 1: from Giza and Garbia they joined forces. Now their investigation
- 6:05Speaker 1: gets really focused. First stop the Zefta microbus station. That's
- 6:10Speaker 1: where Regab and Mohammad worked their usual spot, and sure enough,
- 6:14Speaker 1: other drivers there remembered seeing them on the day they vanished.
- 6:17Speaker 1: They described a young man approaching Regab and Mohammed talking
- 6:20Speaker 1: to them, and then the three of them left together
- 6:22Speaker 1: in Regob's microbus, which was empty at the time. It
- 6:25Speaker 1: looked like they'd agreed on a private fare off the
- 6:27Speaker 1: usual route. One driver, a guy named Hiba. He provided
- 6:31Speaker 1: this really crucial detail. He noticed Forgob actually gave up
- 6:34Speaker 1: his turn in the queue, which drivers almost never do
- 6:36Speaker 1: unless the money's really good to take this unknown passenger.
- 6:40Speaker 1: That suggested the fare offered must have been unusually high rate.
- 6:43Speaker 4: Tempt exactly a big incentive.
- 6:45Speaker 1: And Heba gave a surprisingly detailed description of this mysterious
- 6:49Speaker 1: young man. This witness. Heba. He was absolutely pivotal, wasn't he.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Without that description, who knows the case might have just
- 6:55Speaker 1: stalled right there.
- 6:56Speaker 4: Absolutely pivotal in cases like this where maybe forensic evidence
- 6:59Speaker 4: is limited or leader scarce, A good eyewitness account, even
- 7:03Speaker 4: from a casual observation like Ciba's, could be the single
- 7:06Speaker 4: most critical piece. It gives investigators a face, a tangible lead,
- 7:10Speaker 4: something concrete to pursue. In this instance, that description was
- 7:13Speaker 4: immediately relaid back to the investigators in Giza and there boom,
- 7:17Speaker 4: it clicked. Detectives recognized the description instantly. It matched a
- 7:20Speaker 4: known local criminal, Ramadan Ali, thirty five years old. And
- 7:23Speaker 4: get this, he was from Kababa Te village Baba bade Yes,
- 7:27Speaker 4: the exact same village where young Muhammad was found literally
- 7:30Speaker 4: pulled from a grave. That connection a known criminal from
- 7:34Speaker 4: the very place one victim was discovered. That must have
- 7:36Speaker 4: been a massive moment for the police team.
- 7:38Speaker 1: Wow, so not just some random criminal one they knew,
- 7:42Speaker 1: and from the village where the boy was found buried alive.
- 7:44Speaker 1: The pieces are really starting to slot into place now
- 7:47Speaker 1: in a truly horrifying way. A bit more digging quickly
- 7:50Speaker 1: revealed that Ramadan had very recently acquired a microbus himself,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and then just like that, he disappeared. All the evidence,
- 7:56Speaker 1: everything was now pointing squarely at him. So the police
- 8:00Speaker 1: move fast. They raided Ramadan's sister's houses where you live.
- 8:02Speaker 1: Ramandon himself isn't there, gone, but his sister is, and
- 8:05Speaker 1: she's visibly distressed, agitated. Initially, she denies everything, knows nothing,
- 8:09Speaker 1: saw nothing, the usual denials. But under persistent questioning, you know,
- 8:12Speaker 1: strategic pressure, the story starts to crack, the truth begins
- 8:16Speaker 1: to seep out, and then she just breaks down completely.
- 8:20Speaker 1: She confesses Ramanan killed Regab, the Microbis driver, and not
- 8:24Speaker 1: just killed him, he did it right there in her house,
- 8:27Speaker 1: right from of her eyes.
- 8:28Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
- 8:28Speaker 1: Yeah, but she claimed or insisted, she didn't know what
- 8:31Speaker 1: happened to Ramanon after that, after he left with the microbus.
- 8:34Speaker 4: Well, that confession was enough. Ramadan was apprehended shortly after,
- 8:38Speaker 4: still actually in possession of where gob stolen microbus. So
- 8:42Speaker 4: the immediate questions for the police and really for us
- 8:44Speaker 4: trying to understand this whole grim story were piercing. Who
- 8:48Speaker 4: was this Raman on Eli? Really? What kind of person
- 8:51Speaker 4: commits such brutal, calculated acts against strangers, a double act
- 8:55Speaker 4: of violence, And maybe the most chilling question of all,
- 8:58Speaker 4: what did he possibly gain from some so monstrous what
- 9:01Speaker 4: drove him to such extreme horrific lengths Ramadan and Eli's background.
- 9:05Speaker 4: When they looked into it, it revealed a pattern, a
- 9:07Speaker 4: long history of petty crimes, yes, theft, maybe some minor assault,
- 9:11Speaker 4: but importantly nothing on his record indicated murder or even
- 9:15Speaker 4: attempted murder. This was a huge escalation. He was unemployed,
- 9:19Speaker 4: basically living off his sister being a burden, and after
- 9:22Speaker 4: his last dit in prison, he did briefly get a
- 9:24Speaker 4: job at a brick factory in Zepta Zefta. There it
- 9:27Speaker 4: is again exactly the same town where Gobin Muhammad worked
- 9:30Speaker 4: their microbus route. This seemingly small details actually crucial. It
- 9:34Speaker 4: unlocks his motive and is planning right.
- 9:36Speaker 1: That detail about working in Zepta, It's absolutely key, isn't it.
- 9:40Speaker 1: It explains the bizarre, calculated choice of victims from a
- 9:43Speaker 1: completely different governorate. Ramadan clearly thought this was clever. Bring
- 9:47Speaker 1: victims from Garbia commit the crimes in his home turf
- 9:50Speaker 1: of Giza, dispose of the body separately. He probably figured
- 9:54Speaker 1: the police would never connect the.
- 9:55Speaker 4: Dots geographic separation as an.
- 9:57Speaker 1: Alibi exactly he thought he was untouchable. It really speaks
- 10:01Speaker 1: to a chilling level of calculated arrogance, doesn't it? A
- 10:04Speaker 1: belief in his own cunning thinking he could outsmart everyone.
- 10:08Speaker 1: So Ramadan, during that short time working in Zepta, he
- 10:11Speaker 1: saw the microbus drivers, he saw them making what looked
- 10:14Speaker 1: like decent money, and he wanted it. He coveted it.
- 10:16Speaker 1: But instead of you working for it, earning his own way,
- 10:19Speaker 1: he came up with this cold calculated plant, just steal
- 10:22Speaker 1: a microboss, and he specifically chose REGB not just for
- 10:25Speaker 1: the vehicle itself, but because Gob had his fourteen year
- 10:27Speaker 1: old nephew Muhammed working with him. Ramadan just callously saw
- 10:30Speaker 1: Mohammed as a as an easy target, maybe easily intimidated
- 10:34Speaker 1: or worse, just expendable.
- 10:35Speaker 4: Collateral damage in his plan.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Yeah, his entire plan was rooted in this really depraved
- 10:41Speaker 1: kind of opportunism, seeing vulnerability where he should have seen humanity.
- 10:46Speaker 4: And the execution of his plan he was chillingly precise.
- 10:49Speaker 4: It really shows his cold calculation. He apparently stalked Reragab
- 10:52Speaker 4: and Muhammad for days, learned their routine, their habits, figured
- 10:56Speaker 4: out their vulnerabilities. Then he approached them, made up this
- 10:59Speaker 4: story about eating a ride for workers going from Giza
- 11:02Speaker 4: back to Zepta, and he offered that enticing fare one
- 11:04Speaker 4: hundred and twenty Egyptian pounds, which back in nineteen ninety
- 11:08Speaker 4: nine was a significant amount enough to make Regab break
- 11:11Speaker 4: his routine give up his place in the queue exactly. Ragab, trusting,
- 11:15Speaker 4: seeing a good opportunity, he agreed readily, So they drive
- 11:18Speaker 4: all the way from Zephta to oz Fee, then to
- 11:21Speaker 4: Ramadan's home village Kababade. They stop right at his sister's house.
- 11:25Speaker 4: Ramadan invites for Gob inside, just for tea, he says,
- 11:28Speaker 4: tells him the supposed workers will gather there shortly. Ragab,
- 11:31Speaker 4: still completely trusting, leaves Mohammed waiting in the microbus, tells
- 11:35Speaker 4: the way they won't belong inside the house. As Regab
- 11:38Speaker 4: is just innocently getting ready to drink the tea offered him,
- 11:40Speaker 4: Ramadan produces an axe. He strikes for God kills him instantly,
- 11:44Speaker 4: right there in front of.
- 11:45Speaker 1: His sister, god Im a sister.
- 11:47Speaker 4: The account suggest she was just frozen in terror, but
- 11:50Speaker 4: ultimately she did nothing. It really raises questions about the
- 11:52Speaker 4: kind of psychological grip someone like Ramadan can have on
- 11:55Speaker 4: those around them, fear, perhaps coercion. Then, with Gob dead
- 12:00Speaker 4: inside the house, Ramadan goes back down to the microbels.
- 12:03Speaker 4: Mohammad is probably getting worried now, wondering why his uncle
- 12:06Speaker 4: is taking so long. Ramadan just tells him re Gob
- 12:08Speaker 4: is tired. Resting inside lausible enough maybe for a moment.
- 12:12Speaker 4: Then Ramadan gets in and drives Mohammed away, not towards
- 12:15Speaker 4: any workers, but to that desolate cemetery. He orders the
- 12:18Speaker 4: boy out of the microbass and as Mohammed steps onto
- 12:20Speaker 4: that ancient ground, Ramadan hits him hard with a heavy stone,
- 12:24Speaker 4: crushing his skull. He drags the unconscious boy, assuming he's
- 12:28Speaker 4: dead or dying, and throws him into an open grave
- 12:30Speaker 4: he must have spotted earlier. Just leaves him there a
- 12:33Speaker 4: cold efficient attempt to get rid of the only witness
- 12:35Speaker 4: to GOB's murder. Then he drives back to his sister's house,
- 12:38Speaker 4: where reg GOB's body still lies. Using the same axe,
- 12:41Speaker 4: he he dismembers rag GOB's body, cuts it into pieces.
- 12:44Speaker 4: He puts the remains into a sack, drives out to
- 12:47Speaker 4: that remote mountain area near ant Fee finds a sewage
- 12:50Speaker 4: excavation site, basically a convenient forgotten hole in the ground.
- 12:53Speaker 4: He dumps the sack in there, buries it, tries to
- 12:56Speaker 4: completely erase any trace of his crime. Then Ramadan flees
- 12:59Speaker 4: with the stolen myndus. His plan now is probably to
- 13:02Speaker 4: forge the papers, use it himself, start making money, start
- 13:06Speaker 4: his new life built on murder and theft. But the
- 13:08Speaker 4: authorities were closing in too fast. His arrogance, his belief
- 13:11Speaker 4: he'd gotten away with it, the head of blind spot.
- 13:13Speaker 4: He was caught before he could fully disappear.
- 13:15Speaker 1: It's just the brutality is staggering. Why why take two
- 13:19Speaker 1: lives for a micro for this, for what was relatively speaking,
- 13:22Speaker 1: not a huge fortune. What kind of depravity drives that
- 13:24Speaker 1: When simple theft, while still wrong, obviously might have achieved
- 13:28Speaker 1: his basic goal of getting the vehicle, it feels like
- 13:31Speaker 1: such an unnecessary, horrific escalation.
- 13:33Speaker 4: That's a really crucial question, and it gets into the
- 13:36Speaker 4: criminal psychology here. For individuals like Ramadan, people who show
- 13:40Speaker 4: that history of petty crime, maybe a lack of empathy.
- 13:44Speaker 4: The decision to escalate to extreme violence like this often
- 13:47Speaker 4: stems from a few things. One is the perceived need
- 13:49Speaker 4: to eliminate witnesses. Mouhammad was simply there, and inconvenience to
- 13:53Speaker 4: Ramadan's plan, he had to be dealt with in Ramadan's mind.
- 13:56Speaker 4: But beyond that, for some individuals, there can be the
- 13:59Speaker 4: sense of power involved, a feeling of absolute control over
- 14:02Speaker 4: life and death that, for some warped personalities becomes its
- 14:06Speaker 4: own twisted reward. His careful planning, choosing a remote location
- 14:09Speaker 4: the dismemberment. These actions suggest a cold, calculated approach, a
- 14:13Speaker 4: desire to fully erase the crime, leave absolutely no trace,
- 14:16Speaker 4: not just impulsive anger. He truly believed he was smarter
- 14:19Speaker 4: than everyone else.
- 14:20Speaker 1: And Muhammad, I mean, he miraculously survived this absolutely unfathomable ordeal,
- 14:25Speaker 1: but he'll carry those psychological scars forever. No fourteen year
- 14:28Speaker 1: old should ever experience anything like that. What does this
- 14:31Speaker 1: case tell us more broadly, especially considering the sisters in
- 14:34Speaker 1: action that shilling indifference as a murder literally unfolded in
- 14:38Speaker 1: her home.
- 14:38Speaker 4: Yeah, this case is a really stark reminder of the
- 14:40Speaker 4: complexities that can exist within communities, particularly when dealing with
- 14:44Speaker 4: individuals who operate so far outside normal societal bounds. The
- 14:49Speaker 4: sister's inaction, it's hard for us to comprehend, but it
- 14:52Speaker 4: could stem from a really complex mix of things, intense fear,
- 14:56Speaker 4: maybe coersion over time, maybe even a form of learned
- 14:58Speaker 4: helplessness that you sometimes se environments where violence or serious
- 15:02Speaker 4: criminal activity is normalized. Sadly, it does raise that important,
- 15:06Speaker 4: difficult question about how exposure to violence can potentially desensitize
- 15:09Speaker 4: people or create such a climate of fear that intervening
- 15:12Speaker 4: feels utterly impossible, even when something horrific is happening right
- 15:16Speaker 4: in front of you. It's a chilling look at the
- 15:18Speaker 4: ripple effects, isn't it One person's depravity, spreading out words,
- 15:22Speaker 4: impacting those closest to them, turning a home into a
- 15:24Speaker 4: crime scene, and a family member into well an unwilling
- 15:27Speaker 4: accessory after the fact.
- 15:29Speaker 1: This whole tragic deep dive the story of Ramadan, Ali
- 15:32Speaker 1: Regab and Mohammad. It serves as such a grim but
- 15:35Speaker 1: vital reminder the calculated deceit that some individuals are capable
- 15:40Speaker 1: of exploiting trust just for their own gain. It can
- 15:43Speaker 1: manifest in the most brutal, unthinkable ways. This wasn't just
- 15:46Speaker 1: random violence. It was a carefully constructed deception, a trap
- 15:50Speaker 1: that lured two unsuspecting people.
- 15:51Speaker 2: To their deaths.
- 15:52Speaker 1: Almost it makes you think may be wary of giving
- 15:55Speaker 1: trust too easily, especially when someone unknown presents an opportunity
- 15:59Speaker 1: that seems almost too good to be true, because the
- 16:01Speaker 1: depths of human cruelty, especially when driven by greed and
- 16:04Speaker 1: that warped sense of getting away with it, they can
- 16:06Speaker 1: be truly, truly unfathomable,