Latest / Crime Night / Seline and the Ethiopian Demoness: A Lebanese Tragedy

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Seline and the Ethiopian Demoness: A Lebanese Tragedy · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep Dive. Today, we're looking at
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a case from twenty fourteen, a really unsettling story involving
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Wrekin family in Lebanon.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: That's right, ya, Sir Sahar and their little four year
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: old daughter Selene. They lived a pretty comfortable life, privileged,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: you know, in.
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  Speaker 1: A nice neighborhood, and central to their daily life was
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  Speaker 1: their domestic worker, Buzai, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: From Ethiopia. She had been with him for about three
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  Speaker 2: and a half years. And the sources, well, they really
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  Speaker 2: emphasized the trust there.
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  Speaker 1: More than just an employee.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely treated like part of the family, especially close
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  Speaker 2: with Selene, a really deep, loving bond. It sounds like,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a very safe, stable.
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  Speaker 1: Household until one ordinary October day when everything just stopped.
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  Speaker 2: It started like any other day. Yasser and Sahara went
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  Speaker 2: off to work to their usual routines. Selene stayed home
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  Speaker 2: with Buzai, completely normal.
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  Speaker 1: But then around one point in zero zero pm, the
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  Speaker 1: normality just shattered.
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  Speaker 2: Sahara gets this frantic phone call. It's Buzai. She sounds panicked,
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  Speaker 2: saying Selene is incredibly sick, sweating and collapsing, needs the
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  Speaker 2: hospital immediately.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. So so far, rushes out, calls Yaser to meet
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  Speaker 1: them there.
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  Speaker 2: And in that moment, they're scrambling for an explanation, right,
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  Speaker 2: panic sets in.
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  Speaker 1: What could it possibly be?
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  Speaker 2: The only thing they could think of Selene had just
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  Speaker 2: had a routine vaccine the day before from their regular doctor.
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  Speaker 1: So they thought maybe a terrible reaction, an extreme side
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  Speaker 1: effect exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That seemed like the only possible answer for something so sudden.
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  Speaker 1: But when they got to the hospital, it wasn't that simple.
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  Speaker 2: No, not at all. As soon as Selene arrived, the
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  Speaker 2: medical team knew this wasn't a vaccine reaction. Her condition
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: was catastrophic.
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  Speaker 1: How bad was it.
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  Speaker 2: She was completely unconscious, slipping into a coma, described as
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: being in a state of agony. It was incredibly severe,
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  Speaker 2: incredibly fast.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
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  Speaker 2: And the doctors it worked on her for forty five
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  Speaker 2: minutes straight, just fighting to keep her alive, trying everything,
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  Speaker 2: and it wasn't enough. No, Her oxygen levels just plummeted
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  Speaker 2: all the way down to zero. Her heart stopped, and
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  Speaker 2: Selene Rakhan was pronounced dead.
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  Speaker 1: Just unimaginable. A healthy little girl fine hours earlier now gone.
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  Speaker 2: The shock for the parents, Yaser and Sahar must have
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: been absolute and immediately there's this huge question why there
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: were no obvious injuries, no signs of violence.
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  Speaker 1: Which is why the police were called in straightaway, right
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  Speaker 1: sudden death of a child.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, it was instantly a potential crime scene. The mystery
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: was stark what or who killed Selene Rakhan.
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  Speaker 1: So let's unpack that initial phase because the killer was
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: already it seems, trying to control the narrative.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: That's right. The parents understandably lost in grief. They latched
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: onto that vaccine idea. Yaser especially was convinced the vaccine
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: must have been contaminated, maybe.
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  Speaker 1: Poisoned, But the doctor's pushed back.
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  Speaker 2: On that immediately, very firmly. They stated that Selene's rapid
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  Speaker 2: systemic collapse, that total shut down, it just didn't fit
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the profile of any known vaccine reaction, not.
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  Speaker 1: Even a severe So what were they seeing.
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  Speaker 2: They were seeing signs that pointed towards something much more direct,
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  Speaker 2: even if it wasn't obvious on the surface. The violence
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: was internal.
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  Speaker 1: Hidden and were there actual forensic clues pointing that way,
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  Speaker 1: even subtle ones.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and they were critical, subtle but specific. When they
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  Speaker 2: examined Selene's body, closely, They found a slight blue discoloration
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  Speaker 2: around her.
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  Speaker 1: Lips cyanosis, lack of oxygen.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, plus some fluid discharge from her mouth, specific changes
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  Speaker 2: in her eye color and confirming that catastrophic drop in
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  Speaker 2: blood oxygen.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, and what do those signs typically point to?
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  Speaker 2: Textbook indicators for asphyxia, suffocation or strangulation, something actively cutting
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  Speaker 2: off her oxygen supply. A medical event wouldn't present like
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: that so suddenly, so completely right?
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  Speaker 1: And the toxicology report did that shed any light?
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  Speaker 2: It added another layer, confusing one. Initially it found high
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  Speaker 2: levels of paracetamol and caffeine in her system.
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  Speaker 1: Paracetamol and caffeine Did that cause her death?
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  Speaker 2: No, not directly, but finding them there was suggestive. It
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: hinted at calculation. How so well, the presence of those
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  Speaker 2: drugs it suggests maybe an attempt by the killer to
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  Speaker 2: muddy the waters, perhaps induce other symptoms like cardiac issues
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  Speaker 2: or mass pain, to steer investigators away from suffocation, make
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  Speaker 2: it look like an internal failure.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, So not just the act itself, but planning a
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  Speaker 1: forensic diversion. Two, that's chillingly calculated.
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  Speaker 2: It really is. And here's where the manipulation becomes crystal clear.
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  Speaker 2: Remember that vaccine.
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  Speaker 1: Rumor, Yeah, the parents' initial theory.
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  Speaker 2: Turns out Buzai herself planted that idea while they were
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  Speaker 2: still reeling at the hospital. She suddenly suggested the vaccine
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  Speaker 2: might be to blame, directing their grief and suspicion towards
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the doctor.
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  Speaker 1: She was managing the narrative from minute one while Selene
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  Speaker 1: was basically still right there.
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  Speaker 2: It's weaponizing grief, weaponizing information, incredible presence of mind in
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  Speaker 2: a terrible way.
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  Speaker 1: So if she was that good at covering her tracks
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  Speaker 1: planting false leads, how did they catch her?
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  Speaker 2: Ironically, it was a family's own owned security measures. Yasarakan
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: had installed quite an advanced surveillance system in their home.
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  Speaker 2: The cameras, exactly the cameras inside the house became the key.
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  Speaker 1: So Yaser starts going through the footage. What does he find.
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  Speaker 2: He's looking for anything unusual in the hours leading up
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  Speaker 2: to the call, and he finds it about an hour
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  Speaker 2: before Selene died. There's a critical moment caught on tape.
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  Speaker 1: What happened.
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  Speaker 2: Selene is seen leaving her own room. She goes into
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Bouzai's room, and then seconds later she runs back out
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  Speaker 2: back to her room looking absolutely terrified.
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  Speaker 1: Terrified, so she must have seen something in Boozai's room.
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  Speaker 2: That's the logical conclusion, a sudden flash of fear. It
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  Speaker 2: suggests she stumbled onto something she wasn't meant to see.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what else did the camera show?
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  Speaker 2: After that? Bouzai is seen moving around, heading to the kitchen.
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  Speaker 2: Seems like she's preparing something. And then the crucial part,
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  Speaker 2: which is the power cuts out. Suddenly the cameras go dead,
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  Speaker 2: black screen.
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  Speaker 1: How long were they off? For?
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  Speaker 2: About twenty minutes? Significant gap?
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  Speaker 1: That can't be a coincidence?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, or didn't think so either. He actually found footage
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  Speaker 2: confirming Buzai was the one who cut the electricity at
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  Speaker 2: the main switch.
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  Speaker 1: And when he confronted her about it.
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  Speaker 2: She had an excuse ready said she was nervous about
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  Speaker 2: changing a burnt out light bulb because she'd had an
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  Speaker 2: electric shock before. But apparently her tension, her nervousness, it
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  Speaker 2: was palpable, obvious she was lying.
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  Speaker 1: So she creates a twenty minute window no cameras. What
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  Speaker 1: happens when they come back on This is.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe the most chilling part. The power restores. Bouzai is
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: seen going towards Selene's room. Selene is asleep in bed,
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  Speaker 2: completely covered by a blanket. Okay, Buzai walks up to
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  Speaker 2: the bed, she reaches under the cover, and the footage
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  Speaker 2: clearly shows her touching Selene, seemingly to check if.
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  Speaker 1: She's lifeless, checking her work.
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  Speaker 2: It appears that way, and yes, Sir also noticed something
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  Speaker 2: else crucial the pillow on Selene's bed. It wasn't in
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: its usual place. It was shifted disturbed, suggesting it had
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  Speaker 2: been used very recently and likely.
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  Speaker 1: So the theory forms suffocation with the pillow during that
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  Speaker 1: twenty minute power at it exactly.
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  Speaker 2: It fits everything. The lack of marks on the neck,
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  Speaker 2: the forensic signs of asphyxiat the shifted pillow, and the
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  Speaker 2: deliberate blackout.
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  Speaker 1: It all lines and her behavior. You mentioned the phone
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  Speaker 1: call to Sahar right.
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  Speaker 2: The video footage provided a stark contrast. On the phone,
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  Speaker 2: her voice sounded you know, distraught, panicked, but the camera
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  Speaker 2: captured her during and immediately after that call in completely calm, composed, collected.
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  Speaker 2: The distress was pure performance for Sahar's benefit.
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  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. So Yaser takes this evidence to the police.
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  Speaker 2: It does. And when the police confront Buzai with the
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  Speaker 2: camera footage, she does something surprising, at least initially. What's
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  Speaker 2: that She confesses, just calmly admits, yes, I killed Selene.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, just like that. The family must have thought, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: it's over. She admitted it.
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  Speaker 2: You'd think so. But it seems this confession was just
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  Speaker 2: another tactic, a temporary one. What do you mean, Well,
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  Speaker 2: despite the confession, the parents, maybe still clinging to denial
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: or just overwhelmed, initially refused an autopsy. They felt, well,
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  Speaker 2: she confessed, what more do we need?
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  Speaker 1: But the investigators needed it absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: Forensic experts insisted they needed to confirm the cause of death,
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  Speaker 2: definitively understand the mechanism, especially given the pillow theory, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: they needed to understand why.
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  Speaker 1: And that's when Bezai's story changed traumatically.
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  Speaker 2: She retracted the confession almost immediately, and then she started
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  Speaker 2: spinning these elaborate tales.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what was story number one, or rather story number
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  Speaker 1: two after the retracted confession.
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  Speaker 2: Story two was wild. She claimed she only confessed because Yaser,
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  Speaker 2: the father, had threatened her and that some unknown Lebanese
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  Speaker 2: girl had slipped her a sedative into tention, chorusing her.
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  Speaker 1: A sedative and Yaser threatening her.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, but it gets weirder. She then claimed Yaire had
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  Speaker 2: a secret second wife and that this secret wife hated
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  Speaker 2: Celine and was the real killer. Busei said, Yaser forced
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  Speaker 2: her to confess to protect his secret marriage.
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  Speaker 1: Secret second wife. That's quite the plot twist. Did the
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  Speaker 1: police buy it?
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  Speaker 2: Not for a second. They checked detention logs, no record
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  Speaker 2: of any mystery Lebanes girl visiting her, and zero evidence
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  Speaker 2: of a secret wife. It was easily quickly debunked, pure fabrication,
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  Speaker 2: So that story collapses.
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  Speaker 1: What does she do?
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Then? She pivots story number three? This time she targets
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Yaser directly, but with a psychological angle.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what was this one?
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  Speaker 2: She accused Yaser of making repeated sexual advances towards her overtime,
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  Speaker 2: threatening her job, quitting, deportation if she didn't comply.
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  Speaker 1: A very serious accusation, extremely.
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  Speaker 2: And she tied directly to the murder. She claimed Selene
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  Speaker 2: walked in and saw them in some kind of compromising.
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  Speaker 1: Situation and that triggered Bizay.
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  Speaker 2: She claimed seeing that triggered a severe psychological flashback linked
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to her own very real childhood trauma. Apparently she had
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: suffered sexual assault in Ethiopia, and horrifyingly, her mother was
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  Speaker 2: murdered by the perpetrator.
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  Speaker 1: God, that's horrific, So that part was true.
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  Speaker 2: The trauma investigators confirmed it the childhood trauma, the mother's
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  Speaker 2: murder tragically real. But Bouse claimed this flashback caused her
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: to kill Selingin in a state of absent consciousness, a
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: sort of temporary insanity defense, so.
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  Speaker 1: Trying to frame it as involuntary driven by past trauma,
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  Speaker 1: not intentional murder exactly.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: But again the investigators looked into the core claimed the
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  Speaker 2: advances by Yasser Selene walking in on.
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  Speaker 1: Them, and completely false. No evidence supported it, easily disproved
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  Speaker 1: it was another desperate lie.
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  Speaker 2: Three fabricated narratives, each trying to shift blame, create confusion,
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  Speaker 2: introduced doubt, but none of them held up.
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  Speaker 1: So if it wasn't coercion or a secret wife or
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  Speaker 1: a trauma induced flashback, what was the real reason? Why
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  Speaker 1: does she kill a child she supposedly loved?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: The truth when it finally came out, was far more
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: mundane and in its own way, even more chilling. It
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: came down to greed. Greed how the police did a
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: thorough surge of Bozai's room in the Racan house and
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  Speaker 2: they found something. They found a lot. The three and
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: a half years she'd been living there, building trust, being
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: part of the family, she'd been systematically.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Stealing from them, stealing what vast.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Quantities of stuff, gold, money, clothes, even appliances, A huge
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: stash hidden in her room.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Wow, So that loving facade was hiding years.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Of theft precisely. And then came the trigger. The Racan
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: family was making plans to emigrate Canada right yes, which
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: meant Busai's time with them, her access to the house
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: was coming to an end. She'd have to leave and
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: potentially leave her stolen goods behind or risk discovery moving them.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think I see where this is going. Connect
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  Speaker 1: it to Selene running into her room terrified.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: That's the key. On that morning, Selene running into Bazaia's room,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: she must have accidentally seen the stash, the hidden gold,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the money, the stolen items.
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  Speaker 1: A four year old just stumbled upon her secret.
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  Speaker 2: Hoard exactly, and in that instant, Busai's entire carefully constructed world,
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  Speaker 2: her years of deception was about to collapse because a
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: child saw something she shouldn't have, and.
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  Speaker 1: Her calculation was silence the witness.
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  Speaker 2: That appears to be the horrifying reality. The fear of exposure,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: of losing everything she'd store in, outweighed any bond she
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: had with Selene. She decided Selene had to be silenced
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  Speaker 2: before she could tell her parents, especially with the move
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to Canada looming.
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  Speaker 1: So the motive wasn't complex psychology. It was simple brutal
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  Speaker 1: self preservation driven by greed.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: It seems so. The confirmed method just underlines that cold
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: calculation cut the power for blindness holds Selene down, maybe
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: restricting her breath initially to weaken her drop those oxygen levels,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: then finish it with the pillow. The no trace method
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: she likely knew wouldn't leave obvious marks.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And the vaccine story was her pre plan, alibi, ready.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: To go, ready to deploy the moment she needed it.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So what was the outcome?
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: The brickt Bezaiah was convicted of murder in Lebanon. The
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: legal system doesn't use the death penalty, so she received
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the maximum possible sentence under those laws, twenty years of.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Hard labor, twenty years for taking a child's life to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: cover up theft.
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  Speaker 2: The contrast is just staggering, isn't it. Three and a
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: half years building what seemed like genuine love and trust,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: all sacrificed in an instant because of greed and the
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: fear of getting caught. It's a chilling insight into how
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: deep deception can run.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: It really synthesizes the whole case, doesn't it. The initial misdirection,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the specific forensic clues hidden beneath the surface, the damning
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: camera footage, those desperate, fabricated stories, and finally, the simple,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: ugly truth of theft and fear.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: It really highlights how domestic settings, places we assume are safe,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: can conceal these incredibly dark secrets, and how trust, that
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: fundamental human connection, can be utterly weaponized by someone with
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a hidden agenda like years of systematic theft.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: The sheer scale of her theft over three years while
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: maintaining that loving facade is just mind boggling. It makes
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you think, doesn't it, about the hidden realities that might
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: exist just below the surface and seemingly normal situations, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: maybe consider the real cost of misinf like that vaccine
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: rumor when it's deliberately planted in a moment of crisis.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Something for you to reflect on,