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Transcript

The Butcher of Alexandria · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep Dive. Tonight, we're heading to Alexandria, Egypt.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The year's two thousand and six. We're looking at a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: story that starts with just profound loneliness and spirals into
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: calculated manipulation and then a discovery, a discovery so gruesome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: it shattered the peace of an entire neighborhood.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: It really did. This case forces you to look at
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  Speaker 2: this idea of cold blooded, premeditated violence that comes from
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  Speaker 2: a place of well deep vulnerability. It's about a contract
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  Speaker 2: really that was built on need, and what happens when
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: that contract is just completely brutally violated.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start there. Let's start at the moment
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  Speaker 1: it all came crashing down. It's late, It's around midnight,
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  Speaker 1: February fourteenth, two thousand and six, in a quiet residential
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  Speaker 1: area called Alisafra, just a totally normal.
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  Speaker 2: Place, exactly the kind of neighborhood where not much happens
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: after dark. But on this night, a local resident is
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: out for a walk and something catches his eye. He
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: sees an older man who is just radiating panic, walking
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  Speaker 2: very quickly, very agitated.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: He's carrying something, right, a black plastic bag, it's dark,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: so you can't see much, but you can see that
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  Speaker 1: something is dripping from it, a thick liquid, right onto
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  Speaker 1: the pavement.
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  Speaker 2: It's immediately suspicious. I mean you see that, your mind
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  Speaker 2: starts racing the resident he gets closer, Yeah, and that's
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: when he sees it sticking out of the bag just
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: slightly is human hair.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the realization just it must have been instantaneous. This
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  Speaker 2: bag contains a human head.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So what does he do? He just reacts. He grabs
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  Speaker 1: the older man. We later find out his name is Chabon,
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  Speaker 1: and he just starts screaming for help. But in that
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: moment of pure shock, he can't even say what he's found.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: He just yells that he's caught a.
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  Speaker 2: Thief, which is such a critical detail because neighbors come
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  Speaker 2: running out, but they think they're stopping a simple burglary. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: they surround Shabon, they hold him down. It's only when
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: they get closer, when they actually see the bag, yeah,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and the blood, that they understand what's really happened.
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  Speaker 1: And the police arrived to this, I mean, this completely
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: bizarre scene. You've got some neighbors saying no, no, that Chabon,
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  Speaker 1: he's a good man and he feeds the stray dogs.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And then you have the others pointing at the bag saying,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know, he's a killer.
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  Speaker 2: The most telling thing for me is Chabon's reaction. He's
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  Speaker 2: caught red handed and he just says nothing, completely silent.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: He won't answer a single question. The police have to
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  Speaker 2: basically force him to give up his address they can
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: go find the rest of the body.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So they get to his apartment. They go inside and
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  Speaker 1: immediately they're hit with this awful smell.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: It's decay and maybe something else like cleaning products trying
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to cover it up, and they see it right away,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: drops of blood leading to the bathroom, in the kitchen.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: In the bathroom they find the main part of the
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  Speaker 1: crime scene. Inside the bathtub are dismembered human remains, a
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  Speaker 1: heavily mutilated adult body.
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  Speaker 2: This wasn't a rush job, you could tell right away.
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  Speaker 2: This took time, It was methodical.
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  Speaker 1: But the kitchen, the kitchen is where this goes from
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  Speaker 1: a horrific murder to something else, entirely, something deeply, deeply disturbing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, because they find more remains stored in the refrigerator
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: and freezer. Yeah, that's cold, it's calculated. It's about preserving
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: the evidence to buy time. But then then on the
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: stovetop they find a pot, and inside that pot are
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: cook human parts, specifically a leg and a hand.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: They're thinking cannibal. That's the only conclusion you can jump
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to at that point, exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And the initial forensic work confirms pretty quickly that the
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: remains belonged to two separate people, an adult woman and
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  Speaker 2: a very small child.
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  Speaker 1: And that detail, the cooking, the two full days he
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  Speaker 1: spent dismembering the bodies. It just doesn't fit with a
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  Speaker 1: crime of passion, does it. That's not rage, that's a project.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: It is a frenzied killer is usually falling apart afterwards.
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  Speaker 2: They're not methodically running an abatoir in their kitchen. Chabon
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: was executing a plan.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So that's the big question. How did this quiet, sixty
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  Speaker 1: five year old man who is known for feeding dogs
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  Speaker 1: become this person?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you have to rewind Shabam was living alone. His
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: wife had passed away, and his two adult sons were well,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: they were gone, married, living their own lives. They almost
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: never visited.
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  Speaker 1: So he's financially fine, but completely isolated. A kind of
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  Speaker 1: affluent loneliness very much so.
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  Speaker 2: His only hobby was making fish tanks, just something to
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  Speaker 2: fill the silence. He was desperate for some kind of
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  Speaker 2: human connection.
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  Speaker 1: And a friend suggests he hire a female assistant, you know,
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  Speaker 1: someone to help clean, cook, just be there.
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  Speaker 2: And the woman who shows up is Gihan. She's young,
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  Speaker 2: only twenty three, and she's just full of life. She
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  Speaker 2: comes in and immediately the whole atmosphere of the house changes.
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  Speaker 2: She's joking, laughing.
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  Speaker 1: For Shaban, it's like the house is alive again. He
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  Speaker 1: gets attached very very quickly. He sees her as witty, clean, reliable,
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  Speaker 1: everything he's been missing.
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  Speaker 2: But while he's getting emotionally dependent, Gihan is making a
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  Speaker 2: very different kind of assessment.
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  Speaker 1: She's sizing him up completely.
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  Speaker 2: She sees he has money, and crucially, his sons are
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  Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. There's no one looking out for him.
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  Speaker 2: He's the perfect.
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  Speaker 1: Target and her own past. I mean, at just twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: she'd already been married three times, two of.
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  Speaker 2: Them unofficial, one official. All of them ended badly. She
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  Speaker 2: had two kids already who were living with their fathers.
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  Speaker 2: She was under immense.
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  Speaker 1: Pressure, but she knows exactly how vulnerable he is, and
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  Speaker 1: she makes her move. It's a brilliant piece of manipulation,
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  Speaker 1: really it is.
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  Speaker 2: She goes to him, says she's quitting, says she's gotten
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  Speaker 2: this amazing marriage proposal and she's going to go live
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  Speaker 2: like a lady, never work again.
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  Speaker 1: It was all a lie, of course, and it works perfectly.
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  Speaker 1: He's panicked, terrified of losing her. He blurts out that
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  Speaker 1: he loves her and asks her to marry him.
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  Speaker 2: But he gives her one condition, a very important one.
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  Speaker 2: He says, because of his age and his sexual dysfunction,
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  Speaker 2: the marriage has to be on paper only, no physical intimacy.
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  Speaker 1: The contract.
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  Speaker 2: It's a contract, and Gayan agrees instantly, no hesitation. Just
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  Speaker 2: like that, she goes from being the hired help to
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  Speaker 2: the lady of the.
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  Speaker 1: House, and for a while it seems to work, until
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  Speaker 1: a few months later, Gahan announces she's pregnant.
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  Speaker 2: Which for Chabon is just impossible. He knows it's impossible.
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  Speaker 1: He confronts her, but instead of backing down, she goes
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  Speaker 1: on the attack, ruthless attack. She accuses him of being senile,
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  Speaker 1: says he has Alzheimer's and he's just forgetting that they've
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: been intimate and then.
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  Speaker 2: Comes the real threat. She tells him, if you challenge
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  Speaker 2: me on this, you'll have to tell everyone, your family,
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  Speaker 2: the neighbors, that your wife is pregnant with another man's child.
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  Speaker 2: The public shame would be unbearable.
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  Speaker 1: For him, so he bats down. He actually forces himself
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  Speaker 1: to believe her lie because the truth is just too
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  Speaker 1: humiliating to faith.
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  Speaker 2: She gives birth to a boy, Blal, but Chabon can't
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: even look at the child. He feels no connection.
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  Speaker 1: And this.
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  Speaker 2: Lie just hangs over the house for four months.
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  Speaker 1: Until one day there's a knock at the door. It's
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a police officer.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: The officers looking for Gaheim, and he reveals to Chabon
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: that she's facing forgery charges. The issue is Blau's birth certificate.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: It lists two different men as the father.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly The paperwork revealed everything. It proves she was unofficially
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  Speaker 2: married to another man at the very same time she
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  Speaker 2: was married to chabonk.
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  Speaker 1: So when she comes home, he confronts her again, this
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  Speaker 1: time proof and her reaction is just.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Chillin, no remorse at all. She just calmly admits it,
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  Speaker 2: says Ballala isn't his. She even justifies it saying he
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  Speaker 2: couldn't provide her with her quote legal marital rights.
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  Speaker 1: She uses his one vulnerability, the very thing their contract
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  Speaker 1: was built around, as her excuse.
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  Speaker 2: And for Shaban, that was it. It wasn't just the affair,
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  Speaker 2: it was the humiliation, the way she mocked his disability,
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  Speaker 2: the one thing he had asked her to respect. That's
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  Speaker 2: crystallize the motive.
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  Speaker 1: He decides they both have to die. Gahan and the
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  Speaker 1: baby Belal.
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  Speaker 2: He waits until she's asleep. He goes into the baby's
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  Speaker 2: room first and strangles the four month old infant.
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  Speaker 1: Then he gets a knife and goes into her room.
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  Speaker 1: She wakes up, she sees the knife, and then she
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  Speaker 1: sees her dead child on the bed.
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  Speaker 2: She screams and he attacks her. He stabs her twenty
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  Speaker 2: one times.
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  Speaker 1: After the murders, that cold, methodical planning kicks back in.
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  Speaker 1: He drags her body to the bathroom and spends the
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  Speaker 1: next two days, just two full days, remembering both bodies.
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  Speaker 2: He flushes the smaller parts down the drain. And then,
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  Speaker 2: and this is where the story comes full circle. Sure,
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  Speaker 2: he takes parts of the child's body, cooks them, and
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  Speaker 2: goes downstairs to feed them to the.
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  Speaker 1: Stray dogs, the very act of charity that made his
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: neighbors think he was such a good man.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: He was using it as a disposal method, masking this
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  Speaker 2: monstrous acts with the facade of kindness.
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  Speaker 1: The larger parts go in the fridge and freezer, and
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  Speaker 1: he's almost home free until he tried to get rid
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  Speaker 1: of the last most difficult piece of gay In's head.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: That's when the neighbor sees him and the whole thing
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  Speaker 1: falls a part.
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  Speaker 2: In his confession, he said he felt no regret, none.
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  Speaker 2: He was very clear that her crime wasn't the cheating,
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  Speaker 2: it was the humiliation. She violated their contract. He'd even
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: called her family and told them they were going on
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  Speaker 2: a trip to celebrate the birth, just to buy him
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  Speaker 2: some time.
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  Speaker 1: The level of planning is just It's not a normal killer.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: This is someone who lost all emotional control but found
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it again in the cold logistics of a cleanup.
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  Speaker 2: And you look at Gahan too. She was offered a
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: stable life, everything she said she wanted, but she chose
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  Speaker 2: deception instead. It makes you wonder if some people just
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: can't live without creating conflict.
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  Speaker 1: And the most incredible part is that this was all
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: discovered by accident, a complete fluke. If that neighbor had
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: walked by a minute earlier or a minute later, Shaban
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: might have gotten away with it. It really makes you think,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't it, about what could be happening behind the closed
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  Speaker 1: doors on any quiet residential street, How a simple act
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of charity you see every day could be hiding something
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  Speaker 1: truly monstrous.