Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / The Case of the Poison Cheesecake

Transcript

The Case of the Poison Cheesecake · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you are at home. You know,
0:03
Speaker 1: you've just finished an incredibly long, exhausting day at work.
0:07
Speaker 2: We all know that.
0:08
Speaker 1: Feeling right, you're finally unwinding. Maybe you've just changed into
0:12
Speaker 1: your sweatpants and you're looking forward to doing absolutely nothing.
0:16
Speaker 1: And then the doorbell rings.
0:17
Speaker 2: The absolute worst sound when you're trying.
0:19
Speaker 1: To relax, it really is. So you look out and
0:22
Speaker 1: it's a client. Now, she's been a little pushy lately,
0:25
Speaker 1: kind of you know, crossing some professional boundaries. Yeah, a
0:28
Speaker 1: bit of a red flag there, exactly. But she's standing
0:31
Speaker 1: there and she's insisting that she needs an absolute emergency favor,
0:36
Speaker 1: and as a peace offering for you know, completely invading
0:39
Speaker 1: your personal time, she brings a gift, which.
0:41
Speaker 2: Is such a manipulative tactic, honestly.
0:43
Speaker 1: It really is. And the gift is a slice of
0:46
Speaker 1: world famous New York cheesecake. It comes in that iconic
0:50
Speaker 1: bakery box. It looks amazing, and it just it seems
0:53
Speaker 1: like a sweet, thoughtful gesture.
0:55
Speaker 2: So you let your guard down.
0:56
Speaker 1: Right, you invite her in, you sit down, you take
0:58
Speaker 1: a bite, and suddenly every goes dark. What if that
1:02
Speaker 1: sweet gesture, that slice of pastry was actually a highly calculated,
1:08
Speaker 1: incredibly ruthless instrument of murder.
1:11
Speaker 2: It is a terrifying scenario. I mean, it really forces
1:14
Speaker 2: us to confront how vulnerable we are in our own homes. Absolutely,
1:17
Speaker 2: the case we're looking at today completely upends our traditional
1:20
Speaker 2: understanding of how a lethal predator operates.
1:24
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpact this, because this isn't just some wild
1:27
Speaker 1: true crime story. It is a dizzying saga that spans
1:32
Speaker 1: from the Black Sea coast of Russia right to the
1:34
Speaker 1: bustling burrows of New York City.
1:36
Speaker 2: It's got an incredible geographical spread.
1:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are tracking a woman named Victoria Nasarova, and
1:41
Speaker 1: she is someone described by the people who actually survived
1:44
Speaker 1: her as a narcissistic, homicidal maniac.
1:47
Speaker 2: Which is a heavy label but entirely accurate.
1:49
Speaker 1: Here and what makes this so compelling, the real mission
1:52
Speaker 1: of this deep dive today is that it serves as
1:54
Speaker 1: a masterclass in this terrifying intersection.
1:57
Speaker 2: The intersection between the physical and the digital.
1:59
Speaker 1: W yes, exactly the old school face to face grifting
2:03
Speaker 1: versus the modern unavoidable reality of our digital footprints. We
2:08
Speaker 1: have this blend of an incredibly intimate crime sitting in
2:12
Speaker 1: someone's home watching them eat.
2:14
Speaker 2: Poisoned food, right, which is just chilling.
2:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Combined with the sweeping global scale of an international
2:20
Speaker 1: fugitive hunt.
2:21
Speaker 2: That intersection is exactly where the friction lies in this
2:23
Speaker 2: whole thing. You have a perpetrator employing methods that feel
2:28
Speaker 2: almost entirely out of a different.
2:30
Speaker 1: Era, like poisoning a pastry.
2:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, poisoning a pastry is something you'd expect
2:35
Speaker 2: to read in like an old Agatha Christie novel. It
2:38
Speaker 2: feels archaic totally. Yet she is simultaneously utilizing digital networks,
2:43
Speaker 2: dating sites, social media too well to both hunt her
2:47
Speaker 2: victims and ultimately broadcast her own location to the very
2:51
Speaker 2: people hunting her.
2:52
Speaker 1: She operates under this absolute, unshakable belief that she is
2:55
Speaker 1: the smartest person in any room.
2:57
Speaker 2: Ever, or her arrogance is just off the charge.
2:59
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to see how that sheer arrogance dictates her actions,
3:03
Speaker 1: but also how it becomes her absolute undoing.
3:05
Speaker 2: Because she trips over her own ego exactly.
3:08
Speaker 1: It's not some massive FBI sting that brings her down.
3:11
Speaker 1: It's the tiniest, seemingly insignificant details, something as granular as
3:18
Speaker 1: the specific color of stitching on a car's headrest in
3:21
Speaker 1: the background of a late night selfie.
3:23
Speaker 2: It's wild. It proves that you know, you can run
3:25
Speaker 2: from international authorities, but you really cannot hide from your
3:28
Speaker 2: own narcissism.
3:29
Speaker 1: So let's get into how this whole thing blew wide open.
3:32
Speaker 1: The setting is Queens, New York, September of twenty sixteen.
3:36
Speaker 2: I said in the scene.
3:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have a woman named Olga Trizik. She is
3:40
Speaker 1: a Ukrainian immigrant working incredibly hard to build a life
3:44
Speaker 1: in America as a beauty stylist.
3:45
Speaker 2: And she's doing eyelash extensions.
3:47
Speaker 1: Specifically eyelashes. Yeah, and she operates strictly out of a
3:50
Speaker 1: local salon. She has this client, Victoria Nasarova, and Olga
3:55
Speaker 1: had been noticing some major red flags with.
3:57
Speaker 2: Her client's Crossing boundaries is always tricky to.
3:59
Speaker 1: Navigate, especially here. Victoria was constantly trying to escalate their
4:03
Speaker 1: relationship from professional to personal. She was repeatedly asking Olga
4:07
Speaker 1: to hang out to socialize outside of the salon, and.
4:10
Speaker 2: That boundary pushing is a classic grooming tactic. Oh. Absolutely.
4:14
Speaker 2: Predators don't just leap into violence. They test the fences first.
4:18
Speaker 2: They want to see how much discomfort you are willing
4:20
Speaker 2: to tolerate just to be polite.
4:22
Speaker 1: Wow, just to avoid an awkward situation.
4:24
Speaker 2: Exactly. But Olga, she trusted her gut. She felt very
4:28
Speaker 2: uneasy about this aggressive friendliness. She kept refusing these offers
4:32
Speaker 2: to hang out, really trying to maintain that professional wall.
4:36
Speaker 1: And there was a very specific, visually unsettling reason for
4:39
Speaker 1: that unease. Olga had realized that Victoria looked uncannily like her.
4:44
Speaker 2: The doppelganger effect.
4:45
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean they were a mirror image of one another.
4:49
Speaker 1: Dark hair, similar facial features, similar build.
4:52
Speaker 2: That has to be so unnerving in person.
4:54
Speaker 1: It is when you combine that visual doppelganger effect with
4:56
Speaker 1: someone aggressively trying to force their way into your personal life,
5:00
Speaker 1: it triggers this very primal sense of discomfort.
5:03
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the uncanny Valley in real life exactly.
5:06
Speaker 1: Olga was picking up on the threat, even if she
5:08
Speaker 1: couldn't articulate exactly what it was.
5:10
Speaker 2: We are actually hardwired to notice when someone is mimicking
5:13
Speaker 2: us or mirroring us too closely. It feels predatory because well, evolutionarily.
5:18
Speaker 1: It often is that makes total sense.
5:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, someone trying to camouflage themselves in your likeness is
5:23
Speaker 2: inherently threatening to your brain.
5:25
Speaker 1: So that brings us to the actual day of the poisoning.
5:28
Speaker 1: Victoria contacts Olga in an absolute panic. She claims she
5:33
Speaker 1: needs end quote emergency eyelash.
5:35
Speaker 2: Repair, creating a fake crisis.
5:38
Speaker 1: Typical right now, all this policy is strict, she says,
5:42
Speaker 1: I don't do that. Every bit of work I do
5:44
Speaker 1: is in my salon. But Victoria is just relentless. I
5:47
Speaker 1: won't take no for an answer, she pleads, She pushes,
5:50
Speaker 1: she plays the victim, and finally Olga relents and tells her, Okay,
5:54
Speaker 1: come over to my home. She breaches her own sanctuary,
5:57
Speaker 1: which is.
5:57
Speaker 2: Exactly what the predator wants. Victoria arrived at Olga's door
6:00
Speaker 2: and she brings the weapon.
6:02
Speaker 1: Well, the weapon is disguised as three small slices of
6:04
Speaker 1: cheesecake from a famous bakery.
6:06
Speaker 2: It's a brilliantly disarming tactic. Honestly, it frames the intrusion
6:10
Speaker 2: as a friendly, apologetic visit, like, Oh, I'm so sorry
6:14
Speaker 2: to bother you at home.
6:15
Speaker 1: Here I brought dessert, and the execution of this poisoning
6:17
Speaker 1: is just chilling. Victoria sits down in Olga's home, and
6:20
Speaker 1: she quickly gobbles up two of the slices herself.
6:22
Speaker 2: Which is an incredibly manipulative move, right, Why does she
6:25
Speaker 2: do that? Because by eating the food herself, she is
6:29
Speaker 2: nonverbally communicating to Olga, Look, it's safe, we are just
6:33
Speaker 2: sharing a treat.
6:34
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's dark it is yeah.
6:37
Speaker 2: And then she starts insisting, really pushing, that Olga eat
6:40
Speaker 2: the third and final slice.
6:41
Speaker 1: It exploits the whole social contract we have, doesn't it.
6:44
Speaker 2: Exactly If you invite someone into your home and they
6:48
Speaker 2: bring you a gift and they're eating it right in
6:50
Speaker 2: front of you, the social pressure to just take a
6:52
Speaker 2: bite and be a gracious host is immense.
6:54
Speaker 1: It's incredibly difficult to navigate that pressure, especially with a
6:58
Speaker 1: client you are already trying to manage and appease.
7:01
Speaker 2: So Olga takes a bite.
7:03
Speaker 1: She takes a bite, and the onset of the symptoms
7:06
Speaker 1: is terrifyingly fast. She later described feeling immediately and violently ill,
7:10
Speaker 1: like right away, almost instant. We are talking severe nausea,
7:14
Speaker 1: extreme sweating, a dizzying wooziness. She said she had never
7:17
Speaker 1: felt anything like it in her entire life.
7:19
Speaker 2: Her body knew it was under attack.
7:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, she starts vomiting violently, and shortly after that she
7:25
Speaker 1: completely loses consciousness. She just blacks out in her own home.
7:30
Speaker 2: The physical toll on her body must have been devastating.
7:33
Speaker 1: It was. Medical records shows she spent a week in
7:36
Speaker 1: the hospital fighting for her life, and for a significant
7:40
Speaker 1: portion of that time she slipped into a full coma, which.
7:44
Speaker 2: Is a huge detail. We need to be clear here.
7:46
Speaker 2: This was not just a mild sedative slipped into a
7:48
Speaker 2: drink to make someone slightly drowsy.
7:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, not at all.
7:51
Speaker 2: This was a massive, near lethal dose of a foreign
7:54
Speaker 2: substance designed to completely shut down the central nervous system.
7:58
Speaker 1: And while Olga is literally fighting for her life in
8:01
Speaker 1: a hospital bed, the police are called to her queen's apartment,
8:04
Speaker 1: and this introduces us to Detective Kevin Rodgers. He's a veteran, right, yeah,
8:08
Speaker 1: a twenty year veteran of the NYPD. He gets a
8:11
Speaker 1: call from patrol officers who have found Olga lying in
8:14
Speaker 1: bed heavily under the influence of something. But the initial
8:17
Speaker 1: response from the police is frankly full of doubt.
8:20
Speaker 2: Well, you have to look at the scene through the
8:22
Speaker 2: eyes of a hardened City detective. Fair enough, the patrol
8:25
Speaker 2: officers report finding a woman who is woozy, largely incoherent,
8:30
Speaker 2: and she's babbling about a client and some cheesecake.
8:33
Speaker 1: Right, which sounds absurd on its face.
8:35
Speaker 2: And she is also claiming that items are missing from
8:37
Speaker 2: her bedroom, specifically some purses.
8:40
Speaker 1: So Rogers arrives and he is looking at this groggy
8:43
Speaker 1: woman trying to explain this bizarre tale of a pushy client,
8:47
Speaker 1: an eyelash emergency, and a poisoned piece of famous New
8:51
Speaker 1: York cheesecake, and.
8:52
Speaker 2: Rogers is highly suspicious. I mean, his immediate thought is
8:55
Speaker 2: that she might be a recreational drug user who just overdosed.
8:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, he thinks she's making up a wild story to
9:00
Speaker 1: cover for a vender or to explain why her apartment
9:03
Speaker 1: is a mess and things are missing.
9:05
Speaker 2: And to be fear to him. The immediate physical evidence
9:07
Speaker 2: he had access to seemed to validate.
9:09
Speaker 1: That skepticism because of the hospital reports.
9:12
Speaker 2: Exactly when Olga gets to the hospital, her toxicology reports
9:16
Speaker 2: come back entirely clean.
9:17
Speaker 1: Wait clean? How is that possible?
9:20
Speaker 2: Because the standard drug panels run by American emergency rooms
9:24
Speaker 2: didn't flag anything illegal or suspicious in her system, no opioids,
9:29
Speaker 2: no common street drugs. It was something they weren't looking for.
9:32
Speaker 1: And when Rogers tries to follow up with the hospitals
9:35
Speaker 1: to confirm just how sick she really is, he hits
9:38
Speaker 1: the absolute brick wall of hyper privacy.
9:42
Speaker 2: Laws, which is so frustrating for law enforcement.
9:44
Speaker 1: He can't get anything. The hospitals will not release her
9:47
Speaker 1: patient information to him without massive legal subpoenas.
9:51
Speaker 2: So look at his perspective. He has a clean talk
9:53
Speaker 2: screen of victim he can't get medical updates on, and
9:57
Speaker 2: his story about a pastry assassin.
9:59
Speaker 1: Right, when you put like that, you almost can't blame him.
10:02
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is this psychology of law enforcement when
10:05
Speaker 2: they are confronted with unprecedented methods.
10:07
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
10:08
Speaker 2: Detectives, especially those with two decades on the job in
10:11
Speaker 2: New York City, operate heavily on heuristics, mental shortcuts.
10:15
Speaker 1: Right based on what they see every day exactly.
10:17
Speaker 2: They look for patterns, guns, knives, blunt force, trauma, strangulation.
10:21
Speaker 2: Those are the established statistical realities of urban violence.
10:25
Speaker 1: It's like a locked room mystery when a victim says
10:28
Speaker 1: they were attacked with a poisoned bakery item. The human
10:31
Speaker 1: brain almost rejects it.
10:33
Speaker 2: It sounds like a cartoon or a movie script, not
10:36
Speaker 2: a police reporting Queen's on a Tuesday.
10:38
Speaker 1: It creates massive cognitive dissonance for the investigator.
10:41
Speaker 2: Precisely, Rogers is weighing a highly improbable story of a
10:46
Speaker 2: poisoned dessert against a very common reality he sees every
10:51
Speaker 2: single day, individuals having drug induced medical episodes and reporting
10:55
Speaker 2: missing property in their confusion.
10:57
Speaker 1: From a purely statistical standpoint, his initial skepticism makes sense,
11:02
Speaker 1: even if it's incredibly unfair to Olga in hindsight.
11:05
Speaker 2: It's deeply rooted in the realities of his job.
11:07
Speaker 1: But Olga does not back down, even groggy, even terrified.
11:10
Speaker 1: She insists, one percent, this happened, and this woman Victoria
11:14
Speaker 1: is up.
11:14
Speaker 2: To something good for her for standing our ground.
11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have to give Detective Rogers credit here
11:19
Speaker 1: because even though he thinks the story is crazy, he
11:22
Speaker 1: doesn't completely dismiss the crime scene.
11:25
Speaker 2: He does something crucial.
11:26
Speaker 1: He does. He walks over to the waste paper basket.
11:28
Speaker 1: He sees the plastic container, the remnants of the pastry box,
11:31
Speaker 1: and he tells his evidence team to bag it and
11:33
Speaker 1: tag it.
11:33
Speaker 2: That seemingly minor procedural decision to bag the garbage was
11:38
Speaker 2: the single most crucial investigative step in the entire early phase.
11:42
Speaker 1: Of this case because it preserved the evidence.
11:44
Speaker 2: It preserved the only physical link to the crime. But
11:48
Speaker 2: even with the box and an evidence locker, the case
11:51
Speaker 2: effectively goes cold.
11:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, clean talk screens hospital privacy walls, and they can't
11:57
Speaker 1: locate this mysterious Victoria anywhere. Rogers himself admitted it was
12:01
Speaker 1: basically dead in the water.
12:03
Speaker 2: But then comes the turning point.
12:05
Speaker 1: A few months later, Rogers finds a new witness, and
12:08
Speaker 1: this completely changes the trajectory of the investigation, and frankly,
12:13
Speaker 1: it changes how we view Victoria's entire intention.
12:16
Speaker 2: This is where it gets really dark.
12:17
Speaker 1: A neighbor of Olga's comes forward. This neighbor reports seeing
12:21
Speaker 1: a mysterious woman coming and going from Olga's home a
12:24
Speaker 1: few times on the day after the poisoning.
12:26
Speaker 2: This completely rewrites the timeline of the crime. Victoria didn't
12:31
Speaker 2: just poison Olga and flee into the night. She returned
12:33
Speaker 2: to the scene, She came back.
12:35
Speaker 1: The neighbor tells police that this mysterious woman intercepted him
12:38
Speaker 1: in the hallway and told him Olga was sick, she
12:41
Speaker 1: was resting, and she shouldn't be disturbed.
12:43
Speaker 2: She's running interference. She's guarding the door essentially right.
12:46
Speaker 1: But the neighbor thankfully feels something as off. He decides
12:50
Speaker 1: to check on Olga anyway, and what he finds inside
12:53
Speaker 1: is deeply disturbing.
12:54
Speaker 2: It wasn't just a messy room.
12:56
Speaker 1: No. He walks into Olga's bedroom and the room has
12:59
Speaker 1: been turned into an absolute sauna. It is August in
13:03
Speaker 1: New York City. It is already sweltering outside, but someone
13:06
Speaker 1: had turned the space heater in the room on full blast.
13:09
Speaker 2: And the staging of the victim herself was even more sinister.
13:13
Speaker 1: Oh Dan gret Yeah.
13:14
Speaker 2: When Olga was poisoned, she was wearing comfortable lounge clothes sweatpants.
13:19
Speaker 2: But when the neighbor finds her unconscious the next day,
13:22
Speaker 2: someone has entirely changed her clothes.
13:24
Speaker 1: She is now dressed in racy lingerie.
13:27
Speaker 2: While completely comatose.
13:28
Speaker 1: And to complete this horrifying diorama, pills were strewn all
13:32
Speaker 1: over the floor around the bed.
13:34
Speaker 2: It's a set piece.
13:35
Speaker 1: When Rogers hears this from the neighbor, the pieces finally click.
13:39
Speaker 1: He realizes he owes Olga a massive apology because the
13:43
Speaker 1: staging changes everything.
13:44
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, you know,
13:47
Speaker 2: this wasn't just a robbery gone wrong. This wasn't a
13:49
Speaker 2: case of someone slipping a set it into a client
13:51
Speaker 2: just to steal some handbags and some cash.
13:53
Speaker 1: It was a carefully curated, elaborately staged suicide.
13:58
Speaker 2: Exactly, the pills on the floor, the lingerie, the oppressive heat,
14:03
Speaker 2: it was all designed to paint a very specific, tragic
14:07
Speaker 2: picture for whoever eventually found the body.
14:10
Speaker 1: And the heat is a particularly insidious detail, isn't it.
14:13
Speaker 2: It is calculated and lethal. Elevating the ambient temperature drastically
14:17
Speaker 2: increases the lethality of sedatives. How so, it strains the
14:20
Speaker 2: cardiovascular system, It increases dehydration, and it accelerates respiratory failure.
14:26
Speaker 2: Victoria was actively trying to ensure Olga did not wake up,
14:29
Speaker 2: while simultaneously setting the scene to look like a drug fueled,
14:33
Speaker 2: intentional overdose.
14:34
Speaker 1: She was cooking her alive.
14:35
Speaker 2: Basically, it's horrific.
14:37
Speaker 1: And this realization completely shifts the motive for the police.
14:41
Speaker 1: Once they understand she was trying to stage a suicide,
14:43
Speaker 1: they look at what was actually stolen from the.
14:45
Speaker 2: Apartment because it wasn't just the purses.
14:47
Speaker 1: Yes, a few designer purses were missing, but the most
14:49
Speaker 1: important item taken was Olga's Ukrainian passport. There it is
14:53
Speaker 1: when you combine a stolen international passport with the fact
14:56
Speaker 1: that Victoria specifically targeted a woman who was her exact
15:00
Speaker 1: physical mirror image, the terrifying reality sets in.
15:05
Speaker 2: This wasn't just murder, it was lethal identity theft.
15:08
Speaker 1: Victoria wasn't trying to steal Olga's possessions. She was trying
15:11
Speaker 1: to steal Olga's literal existence.
15:14
Speaker 2: She needed Olga dead so she could assume her identity,
15:17
Speaker 2: take her passport, and disappear into the world as Olga speak.
15:22
Speaker 1: Which forces us to ask the most pressing question of all.
15:26
Speaker 1: Why did Victoria and Asarova need to become someone else
15:29
Speaker 1: so desperately?
15:30
Speaker 2: What was she running from?
15:31
Speaker 1: What on earth was she running from? That made murdering
15:34
Speaker 1: a look alike beautician in Queen's seem like a logical,
15:37
Speaker 1: necessary solution.
15:38
Speaker 2: To answer that, we have to look back in time
15:41
Speaker 2: and across the globe. We have to look at Victoria's
15:44
Speaker 2: origins and the trail of devastation she left in Russia
15:47
Speaker 2: before she ever said foot in New York.
15:49
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to twenty fourteen to at Krasnodar,
15:52
Speaker 1: a city in Russia near the Black Sea, we are
15:53
Speaker 1: introduced to a woman named Alla Alexinko.
15:56
Speaker 2: And Alla is a crucial figure here.
15:57
Speaker 1: She is. Alla is described by everyone who knew her
16:00
Speaker 1: as a warm, incredibly trusting woman. Her daughter, Nadia Ford,
16:05
Speaker 1: lived all the way across the world in Brooklyn, New York,
16:07
Speaker 1: but despite the distance, they were incredibly close.
16:10
Speaker 2: They spoke on the phone every single day, I.
16:12
Speaker 1: Believe, every single day, and that detail about Alla's personality
16:15
Speaker 1: is crucial. Nadia noted that her mother trusted everyone. She
16:19
Speaker 1: was open, friendly, and perhaps slightly naive to the darker
16:22
Speaker 1: intentions of people around her.
16:24
Speaker 2: In the eyes of a predator, that doesn't make you
16:26
Speaker 2: a friend, it makes you an ideal, vulnerable mark.
16:30
Speaker 1: And the predator in this case moved in right next door.
16:33
Speaker 1: Victoria became Alla's neighbor, and very quickly, Victoria aggressively inserted
16:38
Speaker 1: herself into Alla's life, just like with Olga exactly. She
16:41
Speaker 1: started acting like her absolute best friend, showing up unannounced,
16:45
Speaker 1: embedding herself in Alla's daily routine, Nadia, sitting in Brooklyn,
16:49
Speaker 1: found this sudden intense friendship highly suspicious.
16:52
Speaker 2: It's hard to intervene from thousands of miles away, though, she.
16:55
Speaker 1: Warned her mother, But yeah, what can you do? This
16:59
Speaker 1: aggressive befriending perfectly mirrors what Victoria tried to do with
17:02
Speaker 1: Olga the Beautician years later.
17:04
Speaker 2: It is a highly calculated grooming process. She identifies a
17:08
Speaker 2: target who possesses something she wants, whether it's an identity
17:12
Speaker 2: or in Mala's case, wealth, and she forces a bond
17:16
Speaker 2: to lower their defenses.
17:17
Speaker 1: She creates this false sense of intimacy, and the situation
17:21
Speaker 1: reaches a crisis point. In the fall of twenty fourteen,
17:24
Speaker 1: Alla excitedly tells her daughter Nadia that she is sending
17:27
Speaker 1: her some very special, very valuable gifts. She's sending six
17:31
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in cash, too expensive fur coats, and some
17:35
Speaker 1: precious family heirlooms. And the couriers she has trusted for
17:38
Speaker 1: this treasure trove let me guess her new best friend, Victoria,
17:41
Speaker 1: who is supposedly traveling to New York anyway.
17:43
Speaker 2: But the delivery never happens.
17:45
Speaker 1: Of course, it never happens. Victoria never arrives in Brooklyn
17:48
Speaker 1: with the items and much more alarmingly, on October fifth,
17:51
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Nadia loses all contact with her mother entirely.
17:55
Speaker 2: Nadia says she called her mother's phone over one hundred
17:58
Speaker 2: times that day.
17:59
Speaker 1: Think about the sheer, suffocating panic of that. For eight years,
18:03
Speaker 1: you have spoken to your mother every single day, and
18:06
Speaker 1: suddenly there is nothing but dead air.
18:08
Speaker 2: It's a nightmare.
18:09
Speaker 1: You are an ocean away, completely helpless, and the person
18:12
Speaker 1: you love most has vanished.
18:15
Speaker 2: But Nadia doesn't just panic. She takes immediate, proactive steps.
18:20
Speaker 1: She logs into her mother's cellular provider Portal online and
18:23
Speaker 1: pulls the phone records, and this is where her suspicion
18:26
Speaker 1: of the new neighbor crystallizes into absolute terror.
18:29
Speaker 2: The phone records show that the very last person to
18:32
Speaker 2: call Allah was Victoria at eleven PM the.
18:35
Speaker 1: Night before, and after that call, the phone goes completely dead.
18:39
Speaker 1: Nadia knows in her gut that something terrible has happened.
18:42
Speaker 2: This begins what I think is one of the most
18:43
Speaker 2: incredible aspects of this entire story, Nadia's relentless, almost vigilante
18:49
Speaker 2: style investigation.
18:50
Speaker 1: It's amazing Natia doesn't just sit in Brooklyn and wait
18:52
Speaker 1: for the Russian police to call her back. She drops everything,
18:55
Speaker 1: she flies across the world, travels eight hundred miles south
18:58
Speaker 1: of Moscow at Krasnodar to find out what happened to
19:00
Speaker 1: her mother herself.
19:02
Speaker 2: The sheer tenacity is remarkable. Navigating the geopolitical and bureaucratic
19:07
Speaker 2: nightmare of Russian policing as an outsider is daunting enough.
19:11
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but she arrives in Russia and immediately manages
19:15
Speaker 2: to track down and confront Victoria right outside the apartment building.
19:19
Speaker 1: The confrontation is vivid. Nadia gets right in Victoria's face
19:23
Speaker 1: and demands to know where her mother is.
19:25
Speaker 2: And how does Victoria react.
19:26
Speaker 1: Victoria loudly and publicly insists that alas alive, that she's fine,
19:31
Speaker 1: that Nadia is overreacting, and then, bizarrely, Victoria literally turns
19:36
Speaker 1: and runs away.
19:37
Speaker 2: She just bolts.
19:38
Speaker 1: She sprints up a flight of stairs to escape Nadia.
19:41
Speaker 2: It is the physical manifestation of guilt. When the lie fails,
19:45
Speaker 2: the flight response kicks in.
19:46
Speaker 1: But Nadia, undeterred by this bizarre retreat, goes straight to
19:49
Speaker 1: the local police and forces them to come with her
19:52
Speaker 1: into her mother's apartment.
19:53
Speaker 2: And the scene inside confirms Nadia's worst fears.
19:56
Speaker 1: The apartment has been completely looted. All the family heirlooms,
19:59
Speaker 1: the expensive jewelry, the credit cards all gone.
20:02
Speaker 2: But the most devastating discovery is the missing life savings.
20:06
Speaker 1: Alla had forty thousand dollars in cash hidden away in
20:09
Speaker 1: a secret compartment, and it was entirely wiped out.
20:13
Speaker 2: The financial motive is crystal clear at this point. Victoria
20:17
Speaker 2: didn't just make Alla disappear, She systematically drained her of
20:21
Speaker 2: every tangible asset she had.
20:23
Speaker 1: But despite this blatant theft and the neighbor literally running
20:27
Speaker 1: away from the daughter in broad daylight, the local Russian
20:30
Speaker 1: authorities are incredibly slow to act.
20:32
Speaker 2: Bureaucracy at its worst.
20:34
Speaker 1: They essentially tell Nadia to just wait, assuming Alla might
20:37
Speaker 1: have just gone on a trip and will return.
20:40
Speaker 2: The frustration must have been suffocating for Nadia. You fly
20:43
Speaker 2: across the world to hunt down your mother's killer, You
20:45
Speaker 2: find the apartment ransacked, The suspect flees from you, and
20:49
Speaker 2: the police tell you to just sit tight.
20:51
Speaker 1: But Nadia refuses to be a passive victim to bureaucracy.
20:54
Speaker 1: She starts plastering the city with missing person flyers. She
20:58
Speaker 1: sends desperate text messages to Victors, pleading with her, offering
21:01
Speaker 1: to let her keep the forty grand, keep the apartment,
21:03
Speaker 1: keep everything, if she will just tell her where her
21:06
Speaker 1: mother is, which.
21:07
Speaker 2: Is heartbreaking, but Victoria remains completely silent.
21:11
Speaker 1: So Nadia realizes she has to do the police work herself.
21:14
Speaker 1: She deduces that if Victoria moved her mother, she likely drove,
21:18
Speaker 1: and she knows that the main highways in and out
21:20
Speaker 1: of Krasnodar have traffic cameras.
21:23
Speaker 2: But getting access to municipal traffic cameras in Russia isn't
21:27
Speaker 2: exactly a simple public records request.
21:29
Speaker 1: No, you don't just fill out a form at city hall.
21:31
Speaker 2: As Nadia bluntly stated, it's Russia. You have money, you
21:35
Speaker 2: buy things.
21:36
Speaker 1: She literally bypasses the legal channels and bribes her way
21:39
Speaker 1: into accessing the municipal traffic camera databases.
21:43
Speaker 2: She purchases the footage directly from the operators.
21:45
Speaker 1: And that cash investment pays off with a massive breakthrough.
21:49
Speaker 1: Nadia finds the pay dirt image. She pulls a photograph
21:52
Speaker 1: from a camera located about one hundred miles outside of
21:54
Speaker 1: the city.
21:54
Speaker 2: The time stamp on it is crucial.
21:56
Speaker 1: October fifth, ten zero am she lost contact with her mother.
22:02
Speaker 1: The image shows a rented car. Behind the wheel is
22:05
Speaker 1: unmistakably Victoria.
22:07
Speaker 2: Nasarova and in the passenger seat.
22:09
Speaker 1: Slumped over in the passenger seat is Nadia's mother Alla.
22:12
Speaker 2: This photograph is undeniable empirical evidence. It proves Victoria was
22:18
Speaker 2: the last person with Alla actively transporting her away from
22:21
Speaker 2: her home on the day she vanished, and Alla clearly
22:25
Speaker 2: appears incapacitated.
22:26
Speaker 1: Nadia takes this photographic evidence and drops it right on
22:30
Speaker 1: the desk of the Russian police.
22:31
Speaker 2: Finally, the authorities are forced to act. They track down
22:34
Speaker 2: the rental car, they verify the plates, and they actually
22:37
Speaker 2: bring Victoria in for questioning.
22:39
Speaker 1: They even schedule a polygraph test for her. It seems
22:41
Speaker 1: like Naughty's vigilantism has worked. The net is closing.
22:44
Speaker 2: But this is where Victoria's cunning agility comes into play.
22:48
Speaker 2: She is highly attuned to the walls closing in. She
22:51
Speaker 2: realizes the police are building a real case now, So.
22:54
Speaker 1: What does she do before the results of any testing
22:56
Speaker 1: can come back, before the police can officially process an
22:59
Speaker 1: arrest warrant? She manages to slip through their fingers.
23:02
Speaker 2: She boards the first available flight out of Russia and
23:04
Speaker 2: flees the country.
23:06
Speaker 1: She completely evades justice. She flies to Mexico, and while
23:10
Speaker 1: she is there, she actually posts photos of herself on
23:12
Speaker 1: social media living.
23:13
Speaker 2: A beautiful life, which is so brazen.
23:16
Speaker 1: She is lounging on beaches, entirely unbothered by the fact
23:19
Speaker 1: that she has destroyed a family and is on the
23:22
Speaker 1: run from a murder investigation. From Mexico, she eventually crosses
23:26
Speaker 1: the border into the United States and lands in New York.
23:29
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, back in Russia, the horrific conclusion to Ella's disappearance unfolds.
23:35
Speaker 2: In April of twenty fifteen, months after she vanished, authorities
23:39
Speaker 2: make a tragic discovery. Charred human remains are found in
23:42
Speaker 2: a remote area near the town of Armavir.
23:45
Speaker 1: And the geographical detail about Armavir is chilling. It's about
23:48
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten miles from where Ala lived, but
23:50
Speaker 1: it is Victoria Nasarova's hometown.
23:53
Speaker 2: She brought her back to her roots.
23:54
Speaker 1: The body was dumped practically in Victoria's childhood backyard.
23:58
Speaker 2: Authorities called Nadia inn towyde identify the remains. The fire
24:01
Speaker 2: had been so destructive that the body was entirely unrecognizable.
24:05
Speaker 1: Nadia had to endure the unimaginable trauma of identifying her
24:08
Speaker 1: mother solely by looking at her dental records and her teeth.
24:11
Speaker 2: It is a level of psychological cruelty inflicted on a
24:14
Speaker 2: family that is just hard to fathom.
24:15
Speaker 1: Following this identification, the legal machinery finally kicks into high gear.
24:20
Speaker 1: Intrapol issues an international arrest warrant, a red notice for
24:24
Speaker 1: Victoria Nestarova for the murder of a La Alexinko.
24:28
Speaker 2: And this completely recontextualizes our opening scene in Queen's Yes.
24:33
Speaker 2: We now understand the timeline and the desperate, urgent motive
24:37
Speaker 2: for Olga's poisoning. Victoria is hiding in New York. She
24:41
Speaker 2: is an international fugitive wanted for a gruesome, high profile murder.
24:45
Speaker 1: She knows that if she is caught, she will be
24:47
Speaker 1: deported back to a Russian prison system, which is a
24:49
Speaker 1: grim prospect.
24:50
Speaker 2: Her US visa is expiring. She is a woman without
24:53
Speaker 2: a country, and the clock is ticking loudly.
24:56
Speaker 1: Exactly at the trial. Later, the defense attorney tried to
24:59
Speaker 1: downplay this, but the prosecution nailed the logic perfectly. There
25:03
Speaker 1: are really only two types of people who desperately need
25:05
Speaker 1: to steal someone else's physical identity.
25:07
Speaker 2: Underage kids trying to buy alcohol, and international fugitives trying
25:11
Speaker 2: to avoid a murder conviction.
25:13
Speaker 1: Right, Victoria needed a permanent, foolproof identity lifeline. That is
25:18
Speaker 1: why she sought out Olga. She didn't just want a
25:20
Speaker 1: new name, she needed the physical Ukrainian passport of a
25:24
Speaker 1: woman who mirrored her appearance to act as a shield
25:26
Speaker 1: against her own past.
25:28
Speaker 2: So Victoria is in New York, running from a murder
25:31
Speaker 2: charge and plotting this complex identity theft, but she still
25:35
Speaker 2: needs cash to survive day to day.
25:37
Speaker 1: How does an international fugitive fund her life in one
25:40
Speaker 1: of the most expensive cities in the world.
25:42
Speaker 2: This is where we see the sheer brazenness of her
25:44
Speaker 2: daily criminal enterprise. Nadia a word, incredibly, is still hunting her.
25:49
Speaker 1: She never stopped.
25:50
Speaker 2: Never. After US federal authorities and immigration fail to locate Victoria,
25:54
Speaker 2: Nadia hires a private investigator named Hermann Weisberg. He is
25:58
Speaker 2: retired NYPD detect and he starts digging into Victoria's digital life.
26:03
Speaker 1: Weisberg discovers her operating under the radar, utilizing Russian dating
26:07
Speaker 1: sites and various social media platforms. But she isn't just
26:10
Speaker 1: looking for romance, No, not at all. According to Weisberg's investigation,
26:14
Speaker 1: she is advertising herself as a dominatrix and an escort.
26:17
Speaker 2: Let's analyze her victimology here because it is incredibly calculated
26:21
Speaker 2: and predatory. She is targeting a very specific niche audience.
26:27
Speaker 1: Russian speaking immigrants, specifically.
26:29
Speaker 2: Yes, men who are seeking discrete, illicit sexual encounters.
26:33
Speaker 1: Why that specific demographic, though it seems like it would
26:36
Speaker 1: limit her pool of targets.
26:37
Speaker 2: Because it drastically minimizes her risk of exposure. Think about it.
26:42
Speaker 2: Men who are soliciting, escorts or dominatricis, especially if they
26:46
Speaker 2: are married or hold prominent positions in their local community,
26:49
Speaker 2: are highly unlikely to go to the police if they
26:52
Speaker 2: are robbed.
26:53
Speaker 1: Ah because of the shame factor.
26:54
Speaker 2: There is a built in layer of shame, secrecy, and
26:57
Speaker 2: potential ruin for the victim. Targeting immigrants who might have
27:01
Speaker 2: their own complex relationships or fears regarding law enforcement or
27:04
Speaker 2: immigration authorities adds another layer of forced silence.
27:08
Speaker 1: She is hunting in a pool of victims who she
27:10
Speaker 1: believes are too socially and legally compromised to fight back.
27:13
Speaker 2: Exactly and the investigation reveals a harrowing example of exactly
27:17
Speaker 2: how this predation worked. We are introduced to a man
27:20
Speaker 2: named Ruben Borokov.
27:21
Speaker 1: This happens in the summer of twenty sixteen, which is
27:24
Speaker 1: crucial because it is just two months before she attempts
27:27
Speaker 1: to murder Olga the beautician.
27:29
Speaker 2: Ruben is a local businessman. He runs a dry cleaning
27:31
Speaker 2: business in the area. He meets Victoria on one of
27:34
Speaker 2: these Russian dating sites.
27:35
Speaker 1: Interestingly, her hook for Reuben isn't overtly sexual. She simply
27:40
Speaker 1: claims to be a very good cook and invites him
27:42
Speaker 1: over for dinner at her apartment.
27:44
Speaker 2: It's that same disarming tactic we saw with Olga food
27:48
Speaker 2: using hospitality as a weapon.
27:49
Speaker 1: Ruben arrives, sits down for the meal, and he takes
27:52
Speaker 1: exactly one bite of the fish she prepared. The effect
27:56
Speaker 1: is instantaneous. Within five minutes, he is completely unconscious again.
28:00
Speaker 2: She is using a massive, overwhelming dose of a sedative.
28:04
Speaker 2: She is not trying to make him sleepy. She is
28:06
Speaker 2: incapacitating him entirely.
28:08
Speaker 1: And while Rubin is unconscious, Victoria systematically robs him. She
28:12
Speaker 1: steals somewhere between eight hundred and one thousand dollars in
28:15
Speaker 1: cash that he had on him. She takes his American
28:17
Speaker 1: Express card, quickly racking up twenty four hundred dollars in
28:20
Speaker 1: fraudulent charges.
28:21
Speaker 2: She even steals the wash right off his.
28:23
Speaker 1: Wrist, but stealing his wallet while he's passed out in
28:25
Speaker 1: her apartment is almost mundane compared to what she does next.
28:29
Speaker 2: It's so much worse.
28:30
Speaker 1: Victoria keeps Reuben heavily drugged and completely comatose for two
28:33
Speaker 1: full days, and during this time she literally takes him
28:37
Speaker 1: to the cleaners.
28:38
Speaker 2: She physically transports his unconscious body to his own dry
28:42
Speaker 2: cleaning business.
28:43
Speaker 1: The audacity of this move is staggering. Taking him to
28:47
Speaker 1: his own business feels like a massive, unnecessary risk. If
28:50
Speaker 1: she just wanted his money, she already had his credit cards.
28:53
Speaker 2: It's completely irrational from a purely financial standpoint.
28:58
Speaker 1: Dragging a comatose man into a public storefront in front
29:01
Speaker 1: of his own employees. It almost feels like a power trip.
29:04
Speaker 1: She's mocking him.
29:06
Speaker 2: It's a massive exertion of power, and it speaks directly
29:09
Speaker 2: to the pathology of a narcissistic sadist. Yes, there was
29:13
Speaker 2: a financial motive she looted the cash. She had stashed
29:16
Speaker 2: in the basement of the business.
29:17
Speaker 1: But the psychological component is equally important.
29:19
Speaker 2: There is video footage taken by one of Ruben's employees.
29:23
Speaker 2: It shows Victoria walking around the business completely unbothered. She
29:27
Speaker 2: is sitting in Reuben's chair, the boss's chair, and while
29:30
Speaker 2: Ruben is slumped over, barely breathing, she is calmly gaslighting
29:35
Speaker 2: his entire staff. She tells them, Oh, he's fine, We
29:38
Speaker 2: just had a wild night. He drank two bottles of wine.
29:41
Speaker 2: He just needs to sleep it off.
29:43
Speaker 1: She is spinning these elaborate lies to people who know
29:45
Speaker 1: him while he is dying right in.
29:47
Speaker 2: Front of them. Exactly. She operates with a staggering level
29:50
Speaker 2: of grandiosity. She fundamentally believes she is smarter than everyone
29:54
Speaker 2: else in the room, smarter than Ruben, smarter than his employees,
29:58
Speaker 2: smarter than the police.
30:00
Speaker 1: She believes she can manipulate any reality to serve her needs.
30:04
Speaker 2: But this extreme arrogance has a massive blind spot. While
30:08
Speaker 2: she is brilliantly manipulative and face to face interactions, she
30:12
Speaker 2: completely underestimates the physical and digital trails she is leaving behind.
30:17
Speaker 1: She thinks she is a ghost, but she is actually
30:19
Speaker 1: broadcasting her presence to anyone who knows how to look, which.
30:22
Speaker 2: Brings us to the digital hunt and the ultimate takedown.
30:25
Speaker 1: Victoria believes she had outsmarted the Russian police. She believes
30:28
Speaker 1: she was untouchable in New York, but her absolute compulsion
30:31
Speaker 1: to brag about her lifestyle online, her need for constant
30:35
Speaker 1: digital validation, became her fatal flaw.
30:38
Speaker 2: This is where private investigator Hermann Weisbergg's expertise truly shines.
30:43
Speaker 2: He is working with Nadia and they are facing a
30:46
Speaker 2: brick wall with federal authorities, so Weisberg pivots.
30:50
Speaker 1: He turns away from traditional law enforcement databases and dives
30:53
Speaker 1: entirely into open source intelligence or OCENT, specifically focusing on Facebook.
30:58
Speaker 2: Weisberg's philosophy on OCENT is fascinating. He explains that he
31:02
Speaker 2: never looks at what people want him to see on
31:04
Speaker 2: these sites.
31:05
Speaker 1: He says, he's trained to look at everything except for
31:07
Speaker 1: what is supposed to draw your attention.
31:08
Speaker 2: That is the core principle of digital forensics. The subject
31:12
Speaker 2: of the photo is the distraction. The actionable intelligence is
31:15
Speaker 2: in the background.
31:16
Speaker 1: Victoria is posting endless selfies, glamorous shots showing off her lifestyle,
31:21
Speaker 1: taunting the world She wants everyone to focus on her face,
31:24
Speaker 1: her hair, her makeup.
31:26
Speaker 2: And Weisberg ignores her entirely. He analyzes the environment she
31:29
Speaker 2: is inhabiting. He's looking at light fixtures, weather patterns, electrical outlets,
31:33
Speaker 2: anything that grounds the photo in physical reality.
31:36
Speaker 1: And late one night, scrolling through these endless selfies, Weisberg
31:40
Speaker 1: makes a massive breakthrough. He finds a specific photo Victoria took.
31:45
Speaker 1: She is wearing these large mirrored rayband sunglasses.
31:49
Speaker 2: Because they are mirrored, they reflect exactly what she's looking at.
31:52
Speaker 1: Right in the reflection of the sunglasses, Weisberg can see
31:54
Speaker 1: the dashboard of a car, but even more importantly, in
31:57
Speaker 1: the actual background of the photo behind her head. He
32:00
Speaker 1: zeros in on a very specific detail on the car seat.
32:03
Speaker 2: It is a minute detail, but in the hands of
32:06
Speaker 2: a trained investigator, it is explosive. He sees a car
32:10
Speaker 2: head wrest made of black leather, but it has a
32:12
Speaker 2: very distinct light gray stitching pattern.
32:16
Speaker 1: Now, how do you go from a gray stitch to
32:18
Speaker 1: finding a fugitive?
32:20
Speaker 2: You combine data with shoe leather.
32:22
Speaker 1: Weisberg launches into what I can only describe as a
32:24
Speaker 1: masterclass in hybrid investigation. He cross references automotive manufacturing databases.
32:30
Speaker 1: Looking at interior trim packages for various vehicles. He narrows
32:34
Speaker 1: down the potential makes and models.
32:36
Speaker 2: But he doesn't stop at his computer.
32:38
Speaker 1: No, he goes out into the physical world. He spends
32:41
Speaker 1: his day as walking through massive commuter train station parking
32:45
Speaker 1: lots in New York. He is walking up and down rows,
32:48
Speaker 1: peering into the windows of thousands of vehicles, specifically hunting
32:53
Speaker 1: for that exact make and model of car that features
32:56
Speaker 1: black leather with light gray stitching.
32:58
Speaker 2: It is an incredible combination of digital observation and grueling
33:02
Speaker 2: physical legwork, and eventually his persistence pays off.
33:06
Speaker 1: He finds a physical match in a parking lot.
33:08
Speaker 2: Yes, he identifies the specific vehicle interior as belonging exclusively
33:13
Speaker 2: to a high end trim package of a Chrysler three
33:16
Speaker 2: hundred sedan.
33:17
Speaker 1: So he has the make and model, but there are
33:19
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of Chrysler three hundreds in New York
33:22
Speaker 1: City alone. He still needs to find her specific car.
33:25
Speaker 2: This is where he cross references the physical vehicle clue
33:28
Speaker 2: with more digital behavioral data. He goes back to Victoria's
33:31
Speaker 2: Facebook page and analyzes her activity, not just her photos.
33:34
Speaker 2: But her likes.
33:35
Speaker 1: He maps out the businesses, the restaurants, the salons she
33:38
Speaker 1: is interacting with online, and he notices a very distinct
33:41
Speaker 1: geographic cluster.
33:42
Speaker 2: The activity is heavily concentrated around Sheepshead Bay.
33:45
Speaker 1: Which is a prominent Russian neighborhood in Brooklyn.
33:48
Speaker 2: It makes perfect sense from a fugitives perspective. She is
33:51
Speaker 2: hiding in plain sight within a community where she speaks
33:54
Speaker 2: the language fluently, and where she might be able to
33:56
Speaker 2: blend in or find illicit cash work more easily.
33:59
Speaker 1: Weisbrick has his team run license plates of Chrysler three
34:02
Speaker 1: hundreds specifically registered in the Sheepshead Bay area, and bingo,
34:06
Speaker 1: they find one registered to a Russian sounding name.
34:09
Speaker 2: It's amazing. Digital forensics acts as a modern day fingerprint.
34:14
Speaker 2: You can change your name, you can wear wigs, you
34:16
Speaker 2: can hide your face, but you cannot hide the geometry
34:18
Speaker 2: of your surroundings.
34:19
Speaker 1: The reflection in a pair of sunglasses is just as
34:22
Speaker 1: unique and incriminating as a thumbprint left on a wineglass.
34:26
Speaker 2: And Weisberg uses that geometry for the final undeniable catch.
34:31
Speaker 2: He goes to the physical address registered to that specific
34:33
Speaker 2: Chrysler three hundred in Sheepshead Bay. When he looks at
34:36
Speaker 2: the apartment building in the street out front, he realizes
34:39
Speaker 2: he has seen this exact location before.
34:42
Speaker 1: Yes, he pulls up another one of Victoria's selfies. In
34:46
Speaker 1: the reflection of her sunglasses. In this photo, he can
34:48
Speaker 1: see the street layout. He literally triangulates her exact position
34:53
Speaker 1: by matching the precise placement of a telephone pole and
34:57
Speaker 1: two specific manhole covers seen in the reflection to the
35:00
Speaker 1: physical street corner he is standing on in Brooklyn.
35:03
Speaker 2: It is brilliant, indisputable investigative work. The geometry matches perfectly.
35:09
Speaker 2: It confirms, without a shadow of a doubt, that Victoria
35:12
Speaker 2: Nasarova is living in.
35:13
Speaker 1: That exact building, and the investigation reveals she is living
35:16
Speaker 1: there with a boyfriend, the man who actually owns the
35:19
Speaker 1: Chrysler three hundred. Now I have to include this detail
35:22
Speaker 1: because it truly underscores the sheer, petty malice of this woman.
35:25
Speaker 2: Oh, this part is just so sad.
35:27
Speaker 1: This boyfriend, who was unwittingly harboring an international fugitive, had
35:31
Speaker 1: a beloved pet beagle named Joey, and the.
35:33
Speaker 2: Records indicate that Victoria grew intensely jealous of this dog.
35:37
Speaker 2: She felt the beagle was getting too much attention from
35:39
Speaker 2: the boyfriend, taking the spotlight and the affection away from her.
35:42
Speaker 1: So what does she do. She poisons and kills the dog,
35:46
Speaker 1: and to add an extra layer of psychopathic cruelty, she
35:49
Speaker 1: allegedly executes the dog on its actual birthday.
35:52
Speaker 2: It is a dark, sickening detail, but it proves she
35:56
Speaker 2: destroys absolutely everything she touches, no matter how if it
36:00
Speaker 2: gets in the way.
36:01
Speaker 1: Of her ego, and it highlights a recurring behavioral pattern.
36:04
Speaker 1: When she is frustrated, when she is jealous, or when
36:07
Speaker 1: she wants something removed from her path, whether it's a
36:09
Speaker 1: neighbor with money, a beautician with a passport, or a
36:12
Speaker 1: boyfriend's dog, her immediate default solution is poison.
36:16
Speaker 2: It is her absolute signature weapon.
36:18
Speaker 1: Fortunately, her reign of terror is brought to a halt. Weisberg,
36:22
Speaker 1: having located her precisely, tries to get federal authorities involved,
36:26
Speaker 1: but when they stall, he takes his mountain of evidence
36:29
Speaker 1: directly to the NYPD.
36:30
Speaker 2: The locals finally move on it.
36:32
Speaker 1: On March twentieth, twenty seventeen, police descend on the apartment
36:35
Speaker 1: in Sheepshead Bay and arrest Victoria Nasarova, the woman who
36:39
Speaker 1: had proudly posed as a dominatrix and lived a beautiful
36:42
Speaker 1: life on the run, is finally in handcuffs.
36:44
Speaker 2: The irony is profound. Here is a woman who carefully
36:48
Speaker 2: calculated a murder in Russia, who orchestrated an incredibly elaborate
36:53
Speaker 2: stage suicide and identity theft in New York, and she
36:57
Speaker 2: was ultimately undone by her own narcissists need for social
37:01
Speaker 2: media validation.
37:02
Speaker 1: Her ego demanded an audience, and that audience included the
37:05
Speaker 1: private investigator hunting her.
37:07
Speaker 2: But making the arrest is one thing, Proving it in
37:09
Speaker 2: a court of law is another.
37:11
Speaker 1: Entirely exactly proving that a piece of bakery cheesecake was
37:15
Speaker 1: an instrument of attempted murder is a massive legal hurdle,
37:18
Speaker 1: especially when the trial doesn't happen until six years later
37:21
Speaker 1: due to pandemic delays.
37:22
Speaker 2: The prosecution faced a significant challenge. Remember, the initial toxicology
37:27
Speaker 2: screens on Olga back in twenty sixteen were completely clean.
37:31
Speaker 1: The defense could easily argue that Olga simply had a
37:33
Speaker 1: bad physical reaction to some spoiled food, or that she
37:37
Speaker 1: had taken recreational drugs herself and was blaming the client
37:40
Speaker 1: to cover it up.
37:41
Speaker 2: To secure a conviction, they needed hard physical evidence of
37:44
Speaker 2: the poison, and they needed to link it directly to
37:47
Speaker 2: Victoria's hands.
37:47
Speaker 1: And this is where Detective rogers initial instinct, even amidst
37:51
Speaker 1: his heavy skepticism, saves the entire case.
37:53
Speaker 2: Bagging the trash, right.
37:55
Speaker 1: Remember that he told his evidence team to bag the
37:57
Speaker 1: garbage in Olga's bedroom in m twenty twenty three. As
38:01
Speaker 1: the trial finally approaches, Rogers decides to send that krusty
38:05
Speaker 1: six year old cheesecake box out for a much more extensive,
38:08
Speaker 1: highly specialized round of forensic testing, and the.
38:11
Speaker 2: Lab results come back as the ultimate smoking gun. They
38:14
Speaker 2: don't just find any generic drug. They find fanazapam.
38:18
Speaker 1: So they test the box and it comes back positive
38:20
Speaker 1: for fanazipam, which, from what I understand, is not exactly
38:23
Speaker 1: something you pick up at a local pharmacy in Queens.
38:25
Speaker 2: No, this is a very specific, very potent sucstance. Vanazapam
38:30
Speaker 2: is a highly potent benzodiazepine, a heavy synthetic sedative that
38:35
Speaker 2: was primarily developed and used in Russia and former Soviet
38:38
Speaker 2: block countries.
38:39
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, it.
38:40
Speaker 2: Is not proved by the FDA, is not commonly prescribed
38:43
Speaker 2: or found in the United States. Finding a Russian pharmaceutical
38:46
Speaker 2: on a cheesecake delivered by a Russian suspect to a
38:48
Speaker 2: Ukrainian victim is a highly specific, damning connection.
38:52
Speaker 1: It ties it all together.
38:54
Speaker 2: Furthermore, fanazapam has no distinct taste or odor, making it
38:58
Speaker 2: the perfect undetectable weapon to lace into sweet, rich food
39:02
Speaker 2: like cheesecake. It masks the chemical entirely.
39:06
Speaker 1: But the science gets even darker when we look at
39:08
Speaker 1: how the scene was staged. The lab confirms the presence
39:11
Speaker 1: of phanazapam, but they also find Victoria's DNA right there
39:15
Speaker 1: on the box, proving she handled it.
39:17
Speaker 2: She touched it directly.
39:18
Speaker 1: Now connect the physical drug to the bizarre condition of
39:21
Speaker 1: the room the heat turned up to maximum in August.
39:25
Speaker 2: That is the specific detail that proves premeditation and absolute
39:29
Speaker 2: intent to kill. Medical experts understand that phanazapam, like many
39:33
Speaker 2: heavy sedatives, severely depresses the central nervous system and the respiratory.
39:37
Speaker 1: System, and the heat makes it worse.
39:40
Speaker 2: When you place a human body severely intoxicated by this
39:43
Speaker 2: drug into an incredible hot environment, it drastically accelerates the
39:47
Speaker 2: lethal effects. The heat causes vasodilation, it exacerbates dehydration, strains
39:52
Speaker 2: the cardiovaskiltristrom trying to cool the body, and ultimately speeds
39:55
Speaker 2: up respiratory failure.
39:57
Speaker 1: Turning that space heater on wasn't an accident. It was
39:59
Speaker 1: a calculate thermal mechanism to ensure Olga died before anyone
40:02
Speaker 1: found her.
40:03
Speaker 2: So the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Dino Littorgiis,
40:07
Speaker 2: brings this all into the courtroom. In his opening statements,
40:11
Speaker 2: he literally points to the plastic cheesecake box and tells
40:14
Speaker 2: the jury this is not a joke. This is a
40:17
Speaker 2: potential murder weapon.
40:18
Speaker 1: But Letorgis has a major strategic hurdle regarding the motive.
40:21
Speaker 1: The judge in this New York trial strictly limits the
40:24
Speaker 1: prosecution from introducing detailed testimony about the murder charges of
40:27
Speaker 1: Victoria as facing in Russia.
40:29
Speaker 2: The judge rules that the jury must decide this attempted
40:31
Speaker 2: murder case based on the events in Queens, not the unproven,
40:36
Speaker 2: highly prejudicial allegations from Krasnar.
40:38
Speaker 1: This makes proving intent incredibly difficult. If you can't tell
40:42
Speaker 1: the jury she's a fugitive running from a murder charge.
40:44
Speaker 1: How do you explain why she wanted to steal Olga's
40:47
Speaker 1: identity so badly? Why would a client suddenly want to
40:50
Speaker 1: become her eyelash stylist.
40:52
Speaker 2: The prosecution finds a brilliant visceral workaround. They can't discuss
40:56
Speaker 2: the gruesome details of the Russian murder, but the judge
40:59
Speaker 2: allows them to call Nadia Ford to the witness stand
41:02
Speaker 2: to establish that a serious event occurred in Russia that
41:05
Speaker 2: Victoria was actively fleeing from.
41:07
Speaker 1: And the atmosphere in the courtroom when Nadia takes the
41:09
Speaker 1: stand is described as absolutely electric. Nadia gets up there
41:14
Speaker 1: and she refuses to look away from Victoria. It is
41:17
Speaker 1: an intense, unblinking stare down.
41:19
Speaker 2: Nadia is channeling all her grief, all her rage over
41:23
Speaker 2: her mother's death, and she is projecting it directly at
41:25
Speaker 2: the woman sitting at the defense table.
41:27
Speaker 1: And Victoria's response, she just smirks back at her.
41:30
Speaker 2: The psychological impact on the jury is profound without breaking
41:34
Speaker 2: the judge's rules about specific prior acts. Nadia's body language
41:38
Speaker 2: and the palpable hatred between the two women convey the
41:41
Speaker 2: terrifying gravity of Victoria's past.
41:43
Speaker 1: The jury feels the danger in the room. They understand
41:45
Speaker 1: this is not just a bizarre dispute over stolen purses.
41:48
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the defense strategy, led by Attorney Christopher Hoyt, is
41:53
Speaker 2: essentially to attack the bizarre nature of the narrative. He
41:56
Speaker 2: argues there is no direct eyewitness evidence of Victoria five
42:00
Speaker 2: physically sprinkling poison onto the cake.
42:02
Speaker 1: He leans heavily on the fact that the initial hospital
42:04
Speaker 1: talk screens were clean, trying to inject reasonable doubt into
42:08
Speaker 1: the scientific timeline.
42:09
Speaker 2: It's the spectacle over substance defense. He is trying to
42:13
Speaker 2: convince the jury that the whole story poisoned pastries, stolen passports,
42:18
Speaker 2: Russian sedatives is simply too crazy to be proven beyond
42:22
Speaker 2: a reasonable doubt. He wants them to view it as
42:24
Speaker 2: an absurd fiction.
42:25
Speaker 1: But the prosecution has one final trump card, and amazingly,
42:29
Speaker 1: Victoria provided it herself. Remember when Victoria was arrested, she
42:33
Speaker 1: actually agreed to do an interview with the television show
42:36
Speaker 1: forty eight hours while she was locked up in Riker's
42:38
Speaker 1: Island waiting for trial.
42:40
Speaker 2: Narcissists can never resist a microphone. They always believe they
42:43
Speaker 2: can talk their way out of anything exactly.
42:46
Speaker 1: During that interview, the journalist asks her directly about Olga's
42:49
Speaker 1: claim that she was poisoned with the cheesecake, and Victoria,
42:52
Speaker 1: trying to be clever and legally evasive, answers, I did
42:56
Speaker 1: not force her to eat it.
42:57
Speaker 2: The prosecution plays that audio for the jury and it
43:00
Speaker 2: is completely devastating to her case. By saying I did
43:03
Speaker 2: not force her to eat it, she is implicitly admitting
43:06
Speaker 2: to two crucial facts, which are one that she was
43:09
Speaker 2: present in the apartment and two that she is the
43:12
Speaker 2: one who provided the cake. She confirms the opportunity and
43:15
Speaker 2: the delivery mechanism, entirely undermining her defense attorney's attempts to
43:20
Speaker 2: distance her from the poisoned food. It's a classic narcissistic slip.
43:24
Speaker 1: The jury sees right through the defence's smoke and mirrors.
43:27
Speaker 1: It takes them only an hour and a half of
43:29
Speaker 1: deliberation to return a verdict. Victoria and Oserova is found
43:33
Speaker 1: guilty of attempted murder in the second degree.
43:36
Speaker 2: An hour and a half for a case spanning years
43:38
Speaker 2: continance and highly complex forensic evidence, is incredibly fast. It
43:43
Speaker 2: shows that the jury completely understood the diabolical calculation, as
43:47
Speaker 2: a prosecutor called it, behind the crime.
43:49
Speaker 1: At sentencing, the judge doesn't hold back. He calls her
43:52
Speaker 1: an extremely dangerous woman and sentences her to twenty one
43:55
Speaker 1: years in prison, which is just shy of the twenty
43:58
Speaker 1: five year maximum and true.
43:59
Speaker 2: To four Victoria's final word to the judge as she
44:02
Speaker 2: has led away in handcuffs is a muffled, incredibly sarcastic
44:06
Speaker 2: thank you.
44:07
Speaker 1: That parting comment is the final confirmation of her unyielding pathology.
44:11
Speaker 1: Even facing two decades in a cage followed by certain
44:14
Speaker 1: deportation to face murder charges in Russia upon her release,
44:18
Speaker 1: her ego refuses to submit.
44:20
Speaker 2: She remains contemptuous of the entire legal and moral system.
44:24
Speaker 1: But the story ends on a surprisingly beautiful note of resilience.
44:29
Speaker 1: Nadia and Olga, two women from completely different worlds who
44:32
Speaker 1: were brought together by the terrifying orbit of this predator,
44:36
Speaker 1: have actually become best friends.
44:37
Speaker 2: They are bound by their shared trauma and their shared survival.
44:41
Speaker 2: They found strength in each other when the justice system
44:44
Speaker 2: was initially slow to protect them.
44:45
Speaker 1: To synthesize the journey we've taken today, this case is
44:48
Speaker 1: a profound study in contrasts we've explored the deeply personal,
44:52
Speaker 1: lethal danger of trusting the wrong person, how a predator
44:55
Speaker 1: can use the guise of friendship or a simple piece
44:57
Speaker 1: of pastry to breach your defenses.
45:00
Speaker 2: Analyzed the staggering psychological arrogance of a serial predator who
45:04
Speaker 2: believes she is above the law.
45:05
Speaker 1: But ultimately we've witnessed the incredible, inevitable power of modern
45:09
Speaker 1: digital forensics to pierce that arrogance and bring the truth
45:13
Speaker 1: to light.
45:14
Speaker 2: It is an unforgettable story, it really is.
45:17
Speaker 1: But before we sign off, it leaves you with a
45:19
Speaker 1: chilling thought to maul over. Think about the vulnerability of
45:22
Speaker 1: the service dynamic in our modern world. Olga was targeted
45:27
Speaker 1: precisely because her job as an eyelash stylist required her
45:31
Speaker 1: to invite clients into her personal space.
45:33
Speaker 2: She had to blur the lines between professional duty and
45:36
Speaker 2: physical safety just to make.
45:38
Speaker 1: A living in an era where the gig economy is exploding,
45:40
Speaker 1: where we constantly have at home services freelance beauticians, dog walkers,
45:44
Speaker 1: and delivery drivers crossing our thresholds, how much do we
45:48
Speaker 1: truly know about the strangers we let through our front doors?
45:51
Speaker 2: And conversely, if someone decided they wanted to step into
45:54
Speaker 2: your life. How much of the blueprint, the layout of
45:57
Speaker 2: your home, the location of your favorite coffee shop, the
46:00
Speaker 2: stitching on your car seats is already sitting in your
46:03
Speaker 2: public digital footprint, just waiting for the wrong person to
46:07
Speaker 2: look at the background of your selfie.
46:08
Speaker 1: Stay curious, stay safe out there, and maybe think twice
46:11
Speaker 1: before accepting a surprise dessert. We will catch you on
46:14
Speaker 1: the next deep dive.