Latest / Crime Night / 38 Stabs and Kerosene: The Double Life of the "Auntie" Who Betrayed Her Family

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38 Stabs and Kerosene: The Double Life of the "Auntie" Who Betrayed Her Family · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's set the scene. It's May nineteen ninety nine, Giza,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: picture the Imbaba neighborhood. It's already incredibly hot, stifling almost,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: but then overlay that with this sense of sheer panic.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: There's smoke, thick black smoke pouring out of an apartment building.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Sirens are just wailing everywhere, all eyes, all the chaos.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: It's focused on this one seven story building in ard Aliwa.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was complete chaos on those upper floors. Neighbors,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: first responders, they see this awful smoke billowing from a
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: seventh floor apartment and they hear word maybe shouts that
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: there are kids inside, so you know, they don't hesitate.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: They start breaking down the main apartment door right.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Away, and as soon as they get in they see it,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the fires and everywhere. It's concentrated, really intense. In just
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: one room, you can tell immediately an accelerat was used.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Then they have to break down another door, in an
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: inner one, and just beyond that broken doorframe they find
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: little head. To hear she's only three, unconscious, smoke inhalation,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: barely breathing. They rush her out, trying to save her.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: But then inside that burning room that's where they find
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: her older sister, ten year old Shahinas, and she's already
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: gone deceased. And this right here, this is the moment
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: everything flips. This isn't just some tragic fire. The firefighters,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the first police on scene, they see it instantly. Shahinas
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: she has multiple absolutely horrific stab wounds. And the final
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: detail just so chilling. There's broken knife blades sticking out
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: of her job.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Wo okay, So that completely changes the narrative. It's not
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: an accident. It's not even just say, a robbery gone wrong.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This is where our deep dive really begins. We're looking
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: at how someone a predator really could maintain this horrifying
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: secret life operating right under everyone's noses, right inside the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: family unit, supposedly a place of safety exactly.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And the forensics what they found right away, it just
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: blew apart any idea of a you know, a typical crime.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about the level of malice here. The medical
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: examiner confirmed Shahinas suffered thirty eight stab wounds thirty eight
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and the fire itself deliberate poured right over her body.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: They found large amounts of kerosene residue.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Thirty eight wounds on a ten year old child. That
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: number is it's just staggering. Did the me give any
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: indication of why, I mean, the pattern.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Of the injuries they did? And this is where it
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: gets even more disturbing if that's possible. Only eight of
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: those wounds were actually fatal concentrated around the neck. The
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: other thirty they were non fatal, superficial, many of them
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: to her face other parts of her body. The report
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: stated clearly they were inflicted while she was alive for
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: punishment for torture.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, that detail is absolutely critical because if the motive
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: was just robbery, why torture a child? Yeah, and police
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: did confirm money was stolen, right, about three thousand Egyptian pounds.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: That's right, three thousand pounds, which back in nineteen ninety
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: nine was a pretty significant.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Some for that family.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: See, that's the immediate contradiction, isn't it. This incredibly savage
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: personal attack. It feels like rage, like revenge, but the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: apparent motive is stealing what in the grand scheme of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: violent crime, is relatively little money. It just didn't add
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: up for investigators.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Right, No ordinary burglar goes through through that level of
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: well sadistic violence. For three thousand pounds and then tries
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to burn the evidence, including the body. It makes no
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: sense exactly.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: The violence felt personal, like it was about something other
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: than cash, maybe silencing someone or preserving a secret. That
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: paradox basically forced them to scrap the stranger danger theory
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: almost immediately, so the.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Focus shifts inwards towards the family, to his people known
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to them. How quickly did they rule out outsiders completely?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Very quickly? Logistics mostly Remember the neighbors broke down the
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: main door after the fire was going, but forensics went
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: over that initial entry point, zero signs of forced entry.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Before that, the killer didn't break in. They were let in,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: plus security checks talking to people in the building. Nobody
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: saw any strangers entering or leaving around that critical time.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the killer knew the family was trusted by
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  Speaker 1: the children, even someone who could just knock on the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: door and be welcomed.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Inside precisely, and that's when the spotlight fell squarely on aff.
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  Speaker 2: She was thirty eight, she was married to the brother
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: of the girl's stepfather, and crucially she lived in the
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: same building, just two floors directly below the victim's apartment.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Wow, that close two floors. That is incredibly close proximity.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And I remember reading the mother initially defended her, said
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Afaf was slows to the girls, wouldn't hurt them.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: She did initially understandable, perhaps denial shock, but proximity, as
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: you say, creates opportunity and deception, and the physical evidence
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the little things started to cut through that emotional defense
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: pretty fast. Investigators questioning Afaft notice something right away, a
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: fresh cut, maybe a scratch, clear as day on her face.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, red flag number one. How did she explain that?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Dismissively claimed her own daughter, a young child scratched her
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: while they were playing. Plausible maybe, but convenient.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Very convenient. What else did the connector to the fire itself?
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, the accelerant kerosene. Police searched Afaft's apartment downstairs, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: what do they find a significant quantity of kerosene. Now,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: when they add asked her about it, she completely denied it,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: said she never had terracene, never used it. So now
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  Speaker 2: you have the exact substance used to start the fire
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: sitting in her apartment and she's lying about it being there.
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  Speaker 2: That's a big crack in her story.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Very big crack. So you have the scratch, the lie
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: about the kerosene. Circumstantially yes, but mounting. But for a
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: crime this horrific, they'd need something more concrete, right, something
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that tied her directly to the theft. The motive they did.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And they found it by following the money trail. It
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: turns out, almost immediately after the fire, Afft gave her
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: husband some money. Said it was to help with the
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: business project he had going on. When the police asked
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: where she got this sudden cash.
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  Speaker 1: Leby guests, she had an explanation ready.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yea. She claimed she'd just withdrawn it from
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: her bank account, a simple everyday transaction.
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  Speaker 1: Aw But investigators check those things, don't they.
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  Speaker 2: They check everything, and within hours they confirmed it. Afoff
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  Speaker 2: did not have a bank account, never did. The entire
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: story was a fabrication, which meant the money she gave
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  Speaker 2: her husband it had to be the three thousand pounds
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: stolen from upstairs.
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  Speaker 1: That's it. The lie that brings the whole facade crashing down.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: The scratch, the kerosene, now, the money.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Lie exactly face with all these contradictions one after another,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: she finally broke. Aphoff confessed, confessed to murdering Shahinas, attempting
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: to murder Haitier, setting the fire, and stealing the money.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And this is where we uncover the secret world mentioned earlier.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just about one desperate act. The investigation revealed
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: she wasn't just a relative who snapped. She had a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: hidden life.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: A deeply hidden life. Turns out Afoff was essentially a
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: career criminal, a professional thief. She had a long history
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: of convictions before she married into this family conviction she
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: had managed to completely hide from her husband, from the
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  Speaker 2: whole community ever since, her entire respectable persona. It was
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: a carefully built.
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  Speaker 1: Lie, and the murder of Shahinas it wasn't even the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: first time she'd exploited her family connection in such a
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  Speaker 1: terrifying way, was it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: No, there was another incident, almost a shock in its calculation.
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  Speaker 2: It really shows her pattern. Previously, she had targeted her
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  Speaker 2: own sister in law, invited the sister in law's children
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: over to her place. Then she drugged their food, used
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: narcotics to make sure they were completely unconscious.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: She drugged children her own relatives.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, while they were passed out, she took their house key,
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  Speaker 2: traveled quite a distance actually, to another neighborhood called Fifteenth
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: of May area, let herself into their empty house using
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: the key and stole five thousand Egyptian pounds, then traveled
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: back before anyone woke up.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: The level of premeditation there is just stunning, drugging kids,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: traveling across town, methodical theft. It was cold, calculated criminality,
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  Speaker 1: using trust as her main tool.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely betraying trust was her specialty. And get this, after
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: that theft, she even gave some of that stolen money
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  Speaker 2: to her husband too, claimed she'd found a way to
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  Speaker 2: help them out financially. It was all about propping up
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: this false image of herself. Protecting her secret identity was paramount.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, So understanding that background, that history of deception and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: calculated crime, let's walk through the final moments of Shahina's
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: life again. It starts with needing money, right the three
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: thousand pounds.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, Alfaf knew this stepfather had that cash in the apartment.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: She was broke. So around eleven am she goes upstairs,
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  Speaker 2: knocks on the door and because it's Auntie afof someone
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  Speaker 2: they know and trust, Shahinas and little Hadeir just open
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  Speaker 2: the door, no fear. They let her write in.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So she's inside. How does it escalate from a visit
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to violence.
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  Speaker 2: Afof starts casually trying to coax the information out of Shahinas.
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  Speaker 2: You know, where does your dad keep his money? That
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: sort of thing, But Shahina's maybe sensing something wasn't right,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: or just being an honest kid, says something crucial. She
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: says she'll tell her mother that Afof came by asking
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  Speaker 2: about the money when her mom gets home.
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  Speaker 1: Ah the threat of exposure. That's the trigger, not just
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  Speaker 1: getting caught stealing, but potentially having her entire secret life,
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  Speaker 1: her criminal past revealed to her husband.
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  Speaker 2: The family exactly that flipped the switch for Afof. It
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: became not about the money anymore, but about silencing the witness,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: about self preservation at any cost. Her rage must have
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: been instantaneous. She grabbed a knife, and that's when she
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: started inflicting those first thirty non fatal wounds. Trying to
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: torture Shahinas into revealing the money's location, yes, but also
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: perhaps trying to punish her, to terrify her into silence
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: about the visit itself. But Shahina's incredibly brave stayed silent.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: That silence meant to protect her family, maybe ultimately sealed
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: her fake because Apof couldn't risk exposure.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Correct. When Afof realized the torture wasn't working and that
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Shahinas would tell her mother, she escalated to lethal force.
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  Speaker 2: She started stabbing her in the neck. That first knife
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: actually broke off in the poor girl's jaw, but Afof
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: didn't stop. She went to the kitchen, grabbed another knife
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  Speaker 2: and just continued the attack until Shahinas was dead.
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  Speaker 1: Utterly brutal and horrifyingly determined what about little hay dear?
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  Speaker 2: During all this, Afoff found the three thousand pounds After
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: killing Shahinas, she then just left three year old Header there,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: likely terrified in crime, next to her sister's body. Afef
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: went downstairs to her own apartment, retrieved the can of kerosene,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: came back up to the seventh floor. She doused Shahinaz's
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  Speaker 2: body the room, set it ablaze, and made sure all
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the doors and windows were tightly shut. The goal was clear,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: destroy the evidence, yes, but also ensure Hadir died from
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: smoke inhalation, eliminate the only other witness.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: And then the final act the performance downstairs.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Chilling, isn't it? After setting the fire, she went back
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: downstairs hid the money she hadn't given her husband yet.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Then she calmly returned to the scene, stood right there
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: beside Shahenaz's mother, who was obviously distraught as smoke poured out.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Afaf pretended to be shocked, horrified. She actually consoled the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: grieving mother whose child she had just brutally murdered minutes before.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: That level of deception is it's hard to comprehend. But
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: in the end the evidence was too.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Strong, overwhelming. The confession, the forensic links, the lies that
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: unraveled it all pointed directly to her. Effaff was found
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: dutty guilty of Shahinaz's murder, had years attempted murder, arson, theft, everything,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: and in the year two thousand she received the death sentence.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: So the core insight here really is the terrifying reality
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that someone can live this complete double life. The family
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: felt safe because she was family. They trusted the relationship,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: completely blind to the skilled manipulator and career criminal hiding
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: beneath that mask.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It really makes you think, doesn't it, How well can
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: you ever truly know someone, especially when they are actively
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: professionally deceiving you? They trusted the label family, but the
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: crime itself, The details of the crime screamed that something
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: was fundamentally wrong beneath the surface. The brutality didn't fit
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: a simple.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Robbery, which leads us and you listening with a really
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: unsettling thought if the most profound dangers sometimes aren't from
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: strangers lurking in the shadows, but from people we trust,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: people we invite into our homes, people who might be
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: masters at exploiting that very trust. How secure can we
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: ever feel and what subtle signs might we be missing
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: when someone close is living a complete lie.