Latest / Crime Night / The Quarter Pound Killer: Inheritance, Chlorine, and the Neighbor Who Stole One Coin

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The Quarter Pound Killer: Inheritance, Chlorine, and the Neighbor Who Stole One Coin · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture this. It's fhasal midday, blazing hot sun inside this
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: apartment building. Though it's quiet, really quiet, except for this
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: frantic pounding on a heavy wooden door, second floor.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that pounding, it's not just noise, it's pure
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: dread building up outside that door. You've got the man's
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: ex wife, another relative. They know him, Mohammed Elsamon, sixty
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: two years old, a contractor.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Very dependable, apparently like clockwork.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he hasn't answered his phone since eight pm
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the night before, missed his morning routine entirely. That's just
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: not him.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So first thought is maybe health. He's diabetic, maybe a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: coma or something. But getting to him is another issue.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: The places like Fort Knox, they even tried scaling the outside.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Walls, right, but iron gates on every window, no way in.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: So they remember something. His daughter knows her dad conscious
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: as he was kept a spare key hidden nearby for emergencies.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they find it, They find.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: The key, the lock turns, but the second that door
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: creeps open, while the whole medical emergency idea just instance,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: did they see the air hits them first? It's chemical,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: but the sight it's immediate, violent, Right there on the threshold,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: this huge splash of blood, dark.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Shocking against like the normal backdrop of an apartment entrance,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: just completely jarring totally.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And that blood at the door, that's only the start.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Doesn't just stop there.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: There's a trail, Oh.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a grim one. They follow a deeper inside, big
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: dark smears leading from the entrance through the main living area,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and then it gets really concentrated in the kitchen.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Wow, the amount of blood must have been staggering, suggests
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the real fight moving through the apartment.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly, a prolonged, maybe frantic struggle across three different rooms.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: But they still haven't found.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Them until they check the bathroom.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: That's where they find Mohammad al Sammon in the backtub.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: His head's covered and look the details here are chilling
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and crucial. There's this tiny stream of water running just
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: barely pooling in the.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Tub and a chemical smell.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Over powering chlorine. Leitch. Maybe this wasn't just violence, this
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: was calculation, someone trying to mask the smell, speed up decomposition.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: They clearly expected him to lie there for days before
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: anyone found it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, that shifts everything cold calculation. So the victim, Mohammed
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: el salmon, wealthy guy right contractor properties in Giza. So hag,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: let's unpack him a bit. What was his reputation, because
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: that really drove the first wave of the investigation.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Well, he was known for being incredibly cautious, borderline paranoid,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: especially about his money. People close to him, family, they
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: often said he was stingy, even greedy.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: He still had ties to the ex wife though through
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the kids.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maintained a decent relationship because their kids lived right
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: there in the same building. Yeah, but trust, especially with
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: his assets, he trusted almost no one.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: So you've got significant wealth, complex family dynamics, friction over
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: money inheritance seems like the obvious place to look first exactly.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: The police thought so too high stakes hit targeted and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: the timing supported it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: When was he last heard from?
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Saturday night? Around eight pm? He actually told his eldest
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: daughter he had a large sum of cash in the
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: apartment ready to buy a new building the next morning,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: and then then silence. But crucially Sunday morning, he doesn't
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: show up for Fodger prayers. That was absolutely old Claude
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: routine for him, never missed it.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So it screams either robbery gone wrong, or someone in
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the family making a move for the inheritance.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: That was the working theory, but the crime scene itself
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: started throwing curve balls almost immediately. Yeah, big ones. It
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: didn't quite fit that neat narrative.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Like the entry you said, no forced entry, right.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: None, whoever did this was let in or they had
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: a key. And then the attack itself door, kitchen, bathroom
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: That suggest control, not some panic smashing ground.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: But the biggest contradiction was the bedroom, right, Yes, the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: hidden safe, this is key, despite knowing El Samin had
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: this pile of cash ready, despite the apparent planning, the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: killer didn't get into the safe.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It was still locked.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Wait, he was still there the money he told his
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: daughter about.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, when investigators finally got it open, the cash was there,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: important documents too untouched.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Hold on. That blows the simple robbery or inheritance motive
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: wide open, doesn't it. If the goal was that cash,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: why leave it? Why go through the cleanup with chlorine
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and everything? If you didn't get the main prize.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It's a huge pivot point. But investigators were kind of
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: stuck on the most logical motive the family, the inheritance.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: It made so much sense on the surface. They struggled
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: initially to see it as maybe a completely botched, maybe
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: desperate robbery attempt instead.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So what was missing then, if not the big cash pile,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: just a.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Few things really the victims keys, house car, safe, keys,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: and both of his mobile phones.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Taking the keys and phones, maybe trying to buy time,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: prevent identification, maybe hoping to come back for the safe
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: with the key, or just panic.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Could be any of those. It definitely confused things, but
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: it forced them to think, Okay, if it wasn't necessarily
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: a the big score inside, who else could have done this?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: And that led them back to the building itself. That
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: locked main entrance between ten pm and seven am was
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a major constraint.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It meant the killer was almost certainly a resident
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: or someone who had easy access a key, and the
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: time frame pointed to late Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Suddenly the focus shifts from the family to the neighbors.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Right the pool of suspects gets much smaller, much closer
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to home.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And this is where the seemingly normal surface starts to crack.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So who were they looking at? Among the residents?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: There was one family that zeroed in on eventually lived
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: there for twenty years. A divorced mother, her daughter who
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: was in college, and her son, Mohammed twenty two years old.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: He was a maintenance technician.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: What was the perception of them in the building?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, totally respectable, hard working folk. Everyone knew they were
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: struggling financially. The son, Mohammed had apparently just broken off
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: in engagement because he couldn't afford it. Just sympathetic, unassuming neighbors.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: The classic red herring, the.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Ultimate red herring, which makes the next step so crucial.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Security forces decided, despite this reputation, to run a deep
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: background check on them. They didn't just accept the struggling
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: but respectable story.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And that background check that's where everything showed. This is
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Absolutely fascinating and horrifying. It just shattered that whole twenty
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: year facade. Remember the divorced mother. The story was the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: father was a car dealer who just abandoned them years ago.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Turns out, no, not a car dealer. He's a major
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: drug trafficker. Arrested back in two thousand and eight, got
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: a life sentence, and then he escaped prison during the
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: chaos of the January Revolution.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: He escaped and was ware.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Hiding, potentially hiding right there or certainly being protected by
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the family's normal life. Yeah, for years living under this
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: total cloak of secrecy.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Wow. So the whole family life, the struggling single mom,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it was all built around hiding a fugitive drug lord.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That's immense pressure on everyone, especially the sun.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: And he gets even darker the sun. Mohammed, the quiet,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: twenty two year old maintenance tech. He wasn't just the
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: son of a fugitive. He himself had faced a murdered
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: charge before cat Yes, though he was acquitted, not enough
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: evidence apparently. But now you look at him, desperate for money,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a history of violence, plus this, this inherited knowledge of
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: how to operate outside the law, how to hide things
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: from his father's life. He shoots right to the top
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: of the suspect list.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the police get a warrant. They go to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the neighbor's apartment. Mohammed isn't there at first.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Not initially. They search his room and there on the floor, Yeah,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: they find a pair of trousers with fresh bloodstains clearly visible.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Game over pretty much.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: They seize them immediately. Forensics gets involved, and just as
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: they're processing everything, Mohammed comes home.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: How did he react? You mentioned he had this sort
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of inherited criminal savvy. Did he play it cool?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: He tried. He definitely tried to mask it, put on
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: a show of composure, like he knew how to act
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: if suspected. But the officers there said the tension was palpable,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: grippling anxiety underneath. He knew the moment he saw them
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Over and the blood on the trousers.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Forensics came back fast, a perfect match for the victim,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Mohammad al Sama. No question. Mohammad was arrested. Did he
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: confess immediately? Laid it all out and the level of
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: planning was chilling.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: This wasn't spontaneous at all, then, not even close.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: He admitted he'd been watching El Samon for some time,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: studying his routines. He was actually counting on everyone assuming
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: it was the family, the inheritance. He thought that assumption
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: would be.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: His cover spart in a twisted way.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: He even bought a brand new knife specifically for this,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: something easy to get rid of afterwards, and.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: The timing he waited for the prayer.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Time right the hours he told him. He hit on
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the stairs outside El Samon's door from about three point
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: thirty in the morning until seven am, just waiting to
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: ambush him when he came out for fad your prayers.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: But El Simon didn't come out that morning, no.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And by seven am, Mohammad couldn't wait any longer, couldn't
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: risk leaving. He'd somehow gotten a key, maybe copied one earlier,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: maybe stole it, It's not entirely clear how, but he
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: used it to open the door quietly.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Eh Samon was awake, yes, heard.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: The door, came to see who it was, and found
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: his neighbor, the quiet maintenance kid, standing there with a knife.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: The attack was instant, right at the door. He dragged
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: him into the kitchen to muffle the noise, and then
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: into the tub and.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The chlorine, the water that was all part of the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: plane too.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Absolutely he confirmed it to speed up decomposition, kill the smell.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: He thought it would be days, maybe longer before anyone
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: found the body, giving him plenty of.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Time time to do what, get away, sell whatever he.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Stole, time to benefit from the robbery he thought he
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: was committing.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean. We've got the detailed planning,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the surveillance, the weapon, hours of waiting, this brutal, multi
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: stage attack, the calculated cleanup, all aimed at getting that
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: big pile of cash. El Salmon mentioned, After all that risk,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: all that violence, what did he actually get? What was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the hall?
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: This is where the story just becomes well, utterly absurd
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and tragic. His search for that cash total failure. He
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: couldn't get the safe open. Frantic searching turned up nothing
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: of real value.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: He went through all that for nothing.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Worse than nothing financially speaking, he confessed. The only things
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: he managed to actually steal were the victim's keys, which
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: he ditched, the two mobile phones, ditched those two, and
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: one other item, a single coin insignificant, a quarter pound
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: on a quarter pound pound coin.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's all he got.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: That's it. He dumped everything, the knife, phones, keys, the
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: coin near the Almyriuta Canal. The press later dubbed him
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: the quarter pound Killer.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable, a man known for his wealth, his extreme caution,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: killed so violently, and the killer walks away with basically nothing,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: just a quarter pound. Meanwhile, the whole neighborhood wakes up
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to the fact they'd been living next to this hidden
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: criminal element for twenty years.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the shock was immense. That facade of respectability just crumbled.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yea.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: And it really highlights the danger of assumption, doesn't it.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely everyone police included, jump to the most logical conclusion inheritance,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: family feud. That assumption that red herring almost let him
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: get away with it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: It blinded them to the desperate person hiding in plain
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: sight right next door, someone who's hidden history actually made
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: him a far more likely suspect if only they'd look
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: past the surface sooner.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: It really makes you think, doesn't it. How much do
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: we really know about the people around us? We trust
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the surface, the image they project. This wealthy man wasn't
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: killed for his millions. He was killed ultimately over loose change,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: by a neighbor hiding an incredible secret. It just leaves
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you wondering what hidden histories might be concealed behind the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: ordinary faces we see every day