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The Fugitive Father: Nine Years, Two Massacres, and the Death Row Killer Who Vanished and Returned · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's dive in. We're going back to Cairo, specifically
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the Sharuk district. It's Sunday morning, September ninth, twenty eighteen.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Right, and the day starts with just chaos. Emergency calls
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: flooding in, reports of a mass killing inside an apartment.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Something that immediately just sounds awful. Security forces arrive, They
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: enter the apartment and what they find is, well, it's
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: unimaginable horror.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Absolutely inside the bodies of a young mother, Manal. She
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: was only twenty seven, and her four children, all very young.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Four kids. Hold were they?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: The oldest Usaying was seven, then mamod Doa and the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: youngest Honeen just two years old.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Two years old? Oh ma? And the scene itself, how
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: are they?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It was brutal. The findings pointed to slaughtering. Their heads
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: were completely severed from their bodies.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Ever good grief. That points to incredible rage, right, something
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: deeply personal?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: You think, so, yes, visceral anger. But then you look
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: at the apartment itself, and that's where things get weird.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: How so, Well, there was no sign of a break
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: in at all, doors, intack windows, fine, nothing suggested a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: struggle to get in okay.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So not a robbery gone bat, not some random attack
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: or off the street exactly.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It screams that the killer was someone known to the family,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: someone they trusted enough to let inside, or well, someone
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: who already lived there.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Which naturally brings everyone's attention to the father. Yeah, the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: man the community knew as Ahmed Abu Jabal.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And he's nowhere to be found, vanished, completely gone.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: What did the neighbors say, I mean, they must have known.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The family, they did, and they were just stunned, couldn't
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: believe it. They all described this Amed Abu Jabal as
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: you know, quiet, very respectable, kept to himself, focused.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: On his work, so the opposite of someone you'd suspect
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of this level of violence.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Precisely, the picture they painted just didn't match the crime
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: scene at all. It was baffling.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So the police put out an alert circulate his photo,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: standard procedure when someone's missing from a scene like this, right.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: His picture goes out to the media, to other police departments,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: and that single photo, that face. Yeah, that's the moment
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: this whole case cracks wide open, because it turns out
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: they weren't just looking for a missing father from Shroke
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: they were actually hunting a ghost from nearly a decade before. Okay,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: let's unpack this because it gets wild.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: A ghost Okay, I'm hooked. So the photo goes.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Public and a journalist, Sammy Abdelradi, sees it. Now, this
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: guy's a veteran crime reporter. He knows the major cases,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the faces.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: And he recognizes AHMEDA Bujabal.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: He doesn't just recognize him, He's certain, He says, I've
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: interviewed this man years ago after another horrific crime.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Wait interviewed him, so Ahmed Abujabal from Minya. The Quiet
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Trader is.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Not Ameda Abujabal at all. His real name is Karam
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Mohammed abdel Radi, And years earlier, back in two thousand
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: and nine, he'd been convicted of murder in Sohag, convicted
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: of murder and sentenced to death.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Sent since the death Okay, hold on. If he was
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: convicted sences to death, presumably imprisoned back in two thousand
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and nine, how on earth is he living a quiet
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: life in shroud in twenty eighteen.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: That's the million dollar question, isn't it. How did he escape?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: How did he build this entirely new identity, new family,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: everything right under everyone's noses, while technically being a fugitive
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: on death row.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: This is wow. Okay. To figure out the twenty eighteen horror,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: we need to understand the first one. Let's go back
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: nine years earlier.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly back two thousand and nine. Meet the original Karam
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Mohammed abdel Reddy. Grew up in Sohag, wasn't great academically,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: but ambitious, moved to Cairo, got into real estate brokerage.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: By two thousand and four, he's sort of set up
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: in Giza.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a regular guy trying to make it. What
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: led to the first.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Murder money classic motive, right, He had a business partner,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: also a friend. Apparently Karam believed the partner was cheating
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: him out of his commission, his somsara, his share of
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the deals right, and Karam felt wronged keeple but he
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: didn't just argue or sue. He decided to take his
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: share his way.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And this is where the planning comes in.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Meticulous planning. And here's the first really chilling detail for you.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: That thread we need to follow. The date he chose
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: September ninth, two thousand and nine.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: September ninth, the exact same date as a shrug masker,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: just nine years earlier.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: To the day. It's uncanny. So he buys his tools,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a new cleaver set tour and a knife, black plastic
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: bags tools. Yeah.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: He gets his friend to his place just before if
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: tar sunset during Ramadan, and then he attacks him with
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the cleaver head chest until he's dead.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Just brutal. But the story doesn't end there, does it.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: No, This is where you see that signature cruelty, that detachment.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: He drags the body near the bathroom and he dismembers it,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: cuts it into many pieces ashlck they called it.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Dismembers his own friend, puts.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: The pieces in the black plastic bags, seals them up
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: inside a big travel suitcase.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And then what panic flight.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Nothing like that. He paints over the blood stains on
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: the wall, changes his clothes, and then he goes and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: sits calmly at a coffee shop.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: Call me after that, completely calm, reportedly, just sat there
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: thinking about how he'd been wrong, feeling totally just no remorse,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: no regret, like it was just settling a business dispute.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: That level of detachment is terrifying, it really is.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Later, around three am, he gets a taxi dumps the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: suitcase with the remains at a trash heap somewhere, then
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: hops on train number nineteen oh two heading back home
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: to so Hag.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: He must have find have gotten away with it.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe for a moment, but he was caught within days
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: back in so Hag.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And that's when the journalist interviewed him, Sammy abdel Rady.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: That's right, and Karam apparently recounted the whole thing, the motive,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: the planning, the murder, the dismemberment, the disposal, with that
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: same unnerving calmness, just laying it out like it was ordinary.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Like describing his day at the office pretty much.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: That complete lack of reaction to extreme violence, that's key
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to understanding him. It's why he got the death sentence
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: so quickly.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, so death sentence confirmed in two thousand and nine.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Fast forward again, how does he get out?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Twenty eleven? The Egyptian Revolution, the January events, Remember the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: widespread chaos.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Us of upheaval. Prisons were affected, weren't they hugely?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: There was the infamous storming of the prisons. Security broke down,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: records were lost, invates escaped, and in that chaos, Kurem
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Mohammad Abd al Radi walked free from his death.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Sence, just walked out. How did he manage to actually
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: get away?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Blend in his immediate move was smart in a way.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: He got hold of a nikab, the full face veil.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Allowing him to travel completely anonymously.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He travels back to Sohag disguise like that and
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: get this, his original family, his wife and kids back there.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: They welcome him with open arms.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: They thought he was released legitimately.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: They genuinely believed, or perhaps wanted to believe that the
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: chaos and maybe lost paperwork meant he was legally out.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: He lays low for a bit, works out in the
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: mountains near Sohag, stays hidden.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: But he must have known they'd look for him eventually,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: especially a death row escaping.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure, Staying in sohaw wasn't a long term plan.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: He figured correctly, probably that the authorities wouldn't expect him
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: to hide in plain sight. So in twenty twelve, he
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: makes his move back to the crowds, back to Kayeragiza,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: the most crowded place he could find, and this is
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: where he performs the ultimate vanishing act. He sheds Karam
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Mohammed abdel Raddi completely and becomes Ahmed Abujabal.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Just like that buys fake id.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: It's even more audacious. He meets Manal, the woman he'd
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: eventually kill. Yeah, here's the gamble he took. On the
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: official marriage documents. He actually uses his real name, Karam
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Mohamed abdel Rady.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: He used his real name while being a wanted fugitive.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Why he was banking entirely on the continued bureaucratic chaos
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: that the paperwork wouldn't be properly checked, wouldn't be cross
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: referenced with fugitive lists from years ago. He told Manal
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: that Ahmed abu Jabal was just a nickname common in
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Upper Egypt, where he claimed to.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Be from, and she believed him.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Apparently so to her, he presented as this quiet, respectful trader,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: maybe a bit traditional. She didn't question the nickname story.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: She likely had no reason to suspect the man she
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was marrying was an escaped murderer, so for six years.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: This lie holds. They have four children together. They moved
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to the Schroke District in twenty sixteen. He's Ahmed abu
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Jabal family man, undetected It's.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: An incredible deception. He literally buried a death sentence under
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: a new identity and a growing family.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: But you said it yourself. The underlying issues, the pathology,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: he couldn't stay buried forever. What triggered the breakdown in
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen suspicion jealousy.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: He became convinced that his new business partner, a man
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: named Uda, was having an affair.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: With Manal, his wife. Okay, so paranoia starts creeping in
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: big time.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: It leads to a massive argument between Karam and Menal,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: and during this fight, Manal does something. She slaps him
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: hard across.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: The face, a slap. Given his history, his reaction probably
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: wasn't just anger, not even close. For Karam, that slap
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: seems to have flipped a switch. It was an intolerable offense.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: It reset him right back to that two thousand and
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: nine mindset.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: What did he do immediately?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: He formally divorced her, just like that. But then the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: neighbors intervened.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: The same neighbors who thought he was so respectable.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly, they saw this seemingly stable family falling apart. Worried
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: about the four little kids, they mediate talk to Kurham
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: convince him to take Manal back to reconcile for the
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: sake of the children.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And he agreed.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: He agreed, But that reconciliation, it was purely tactical, a facade.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: In his mind, the slap demanded revenge, ultimate revenge, not
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: just against Manels, against Minaal, all four of their children.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: He decided they all had to die.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: My God, the planning started again.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, that meticulous cold planning kicked right back in.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: He went to a pharmacy, bought a large quantity of
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: sleeping pills.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Sleeping pills.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: He crushed them up and mixed them into the apartment's
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: water cooler, the big communal jug everyone drank from. He
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: made sure they'd all ingest it, ensuring they'd be groggy, compliant.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Silent, calculated, ensuring no resistance.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Precisely, and then comes the date. He waits. He waits
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: until two am on the morning.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Of September ninth, twenty eighteen.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: The exact nine year anniversary of the first murder. He
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: enters the room where they're sleeping, likely already sedated.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He has a knife, ann he repeats the act.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: He kills man All, first severs her head. Then he
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: goes to each child. Hussein Mamoo dea little hanein and
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: does the same thing, one by one.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Repeating the exact method on his own children. It's yeah,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: there are no words.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It's the ritualistic nature of it, the date, the method.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just rage. It feels like something deeply ingrained,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: a pattern he had to follow, revenge and control executed
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: with chilling precision. He was making history repeat itself perfectly.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: What did he do after after it was done?
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: His first act was a phone call. He called UDA's sister,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the partner he suspected. He told her what he'd done,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: that he'd killed Manoal and the kids, and he threatened
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Udah two so.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Udah's sister is the one who alerted the police.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: She was She called them immediately. Meanwhile, Karen is already
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: shifting into escape mode. He puts on the Nicabagan, same.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Disguise and heads for the train station.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Straight for the train station, same plan as two thousand
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: and nine, head back down south to Sohag. He must
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: have genuinely believed he could vanish again, just like before.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Nine years of freedom must have made him feel invincible, maybe.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Perhaps, But this time he made a mistake, a small
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: one but critical. While he was on the train heading south.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: What did he do?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: He made another phone call. He called a shop owner
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: he knew back in Schroke. He pretended to be worried,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: saying he couldn't reach his family, asking if the shop
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: owner had seen them, trying to create an alibi, a
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: false timeline, okay, trying to cover his tracks by but
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: just by pure chance. A police officer happened to be
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: standing right there next to the shop owner when the.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Call came in no way, pure.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Luck, incredible luck. The officer immediately realized what this could be.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He told the shopowner, keep him talking, keep him.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: On the line long enough to trace the call exactly.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: They triangulated the signal, got the co ordinance, realized he
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: was on a train heading south, same route as before.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: They knew where he was going, they knew his.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Police intercepted the train and Karam Mohammad Abdul Radi was arrested,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: still wearing the nikob, just before he could reach his
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: village in Solhag and disappear again.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, caught by a chance encounter and a phone call
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: after everything.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: It's often the small mistakes, isn't it? Yeah, So let's
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: just recap this whole twisted cycle for you. Eight years
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: is a fugitive escaping a death sentence.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Build a whole new life, new family, seems normal, respectable.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Then trigger event the slap. First crime September ninth, two
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: thousand and nine, second crime September ninth, twenty eighteen, nine
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: years apart to the day.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Both involving extreme ritualistic violence, dismemberment in the first, decapitation
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: in the second.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Both escape attempts involved the same disguised Nikob and the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: same route that trains south to Sohak.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And that chilling calmness. He showed it again when talked
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: about killing his wife and four.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Children, exactly the same, that profound lack of emotional response.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: It's the constant thread through both horrific events.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: So he was convicted again, obviously a death sense.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, convicted for the Schroke massacre. Sentenced to death again,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: essentially adding it to the outstanding sentence he'd already escaped.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: So what does this all really mean when you step back.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean the repetition is just staggering, the date,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the method, the escape. It's like he was compelled to
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: replay it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I think that's the core takeaway here. He spent nearly
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: a decade building this elaborate facade, this entire second chance
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: at life, fatherhood, community, respectability. But underneath that fundamental psychological wiring,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: it didn't change one bit.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: The capacity for that kind of cold, calculated extreme violence
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: was just dormant, waiting.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly the lengths he went to create Ahmed agu Jabal
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: did absolutely nothing to alter the core pathology of Kuramhamed Abdelrady.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: It suggests this terrifying level of detachment.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It makes you wonder, doesn't it. Years of living normally,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: raising children, you'd think that would change a person, But
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: for him, it seems like it was all just a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: role he.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Was playing, And when the script demanded violence, he reverted
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: to the original character, the original plot, right down to
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the specific date on the calendar. What does that truly
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: say about someone when their history repeats itself with such
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: horrifying precision. What's going on inside of mind that feels
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: no remorse, only the need to follow its own brutal ritual.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: That's something to really think about.