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The Haunted Apartment and Human Ghosts · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're opening the door today on a case that really
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: is a masterclass in well in deceptive appearances. It's a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: silent tragedy set in a luxury apartment in Alexandria, Egypt,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and it concealed a crime so cold, so calculated, it
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: took what eight months just to even begin to recognize
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the horror.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: That's right, we're talking about twenty ten. The place is Smoha,
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  Speaker 2: a very upscale, affluent neighborhood in Alexandria. It screams success, really, yeah.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and this particular apartment, you know, high up, desirable building,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it should.
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  Speaker 2: Have been full of life, but it wasn't. Instead, when
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: a relative, Ahmed's relative arrives and starts knocking, the sound
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  Speaker 2: just echoes. It's flat, unnatural, just heavy silence.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And that's silence in a home known for being vibrant.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: That's the first real chilling sign, isn't it.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely so, the relative calls the youngest member of our family, Ahmed,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: he's just coming back from the club. There's this immediate urgency.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Ahmed gets there, uses his own key, opens the door
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  Speaker 1: and just walks into this perfect still.
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  Speaker 2: And the scene inside it doesn't immediately suggest violence. It's
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: more like interruption.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Right, the dining room tables set, there are leftovers from
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a fish dinner, freshly made. It seems four juice cups
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: are there too. The air is just heavy.
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  Speaker 2: Still, Ahmed walks deeper in and that's when he finds her,
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  Speaker 2: his sister Amina, motionless in the kitchen, Then his mother Amani,
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  Speaker 2: his father Khalid found in other rooms. Still, an entire
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: successful family just gone in a moment.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: The police arrive, emergency services. The initial shock, you imagine,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: just turns into sheer bewilderment.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, how could this happen? This family? They seemingly had everything.
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  Speaker 2: Engineer Khalid highly successful, no forced entry, no signs of
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a struggle. How did three people just vanish after dinner?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It's baffling. But maybe to really get at the truth here,
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  Speaker 1: we need to understand the foundation, the wealth that built
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  Speaker 1: this light.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly Who was engineer Khalid. Let's rewind a bit look
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  Speaker 2: at how this fortune came to be. Okay, So Khalid was,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a classic self made man, middle class background,
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  Speaker 2: but brimming with ambition. He wanted to build big things, contracting,
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  Speaker 2: but he lacked the money, right, the capital. His whole
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: life changes when he meets and marries Moni. Now her
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  Speaker 2: family was financially established, oh okay, and when Amani's father
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  Speaker 2: passed away, she inherited a pretty substantial sum launch pad precisely.
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  Speaker 2: She agreed to sell part of that inheritance to fund
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  Speaker 2: Khaled's dream, his contracting company. She put her trust in
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  Speaker 2: him and he delivered. Oh. Absolutely. He turned that initial
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  Speaker 2: investment into well exponential wealth very quickly, especially after their kids,
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  Speaker 2: Amina and then Ahmed.
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  Speaker 1: Were born, their fortune just ballooned. We're talking what estimated
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  Speaker 1: fifteen million Egyptian pounds at the time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to give some context, that's a significant
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  Speaker 2: multimillion dollar fortune by international standards, very valuable assets and crucially,
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  Speaker 2: very visible assets.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Which brings us right to the cracks and the foundation
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  Speaker 1: the conflict. Khalid buys that beautiful Smuha apartment we started.
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  Speaker 2: With, but he titles it entirely in Amani's name.
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  Speaker 1: Why as a gesture.
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  Speaker 2: It was meant as a gesture of trust. Yeah, returning
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  Speaker 2: the trust, securing the asset for his wife. But that decision,
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  Speaker 2: it drove a huge wedge between them and their extended families.
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  Speaker 2: It's tragic really, how the money started poisoning things. Khaled's
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  Speaker 2: own family felt completely alienated. They saw him their relative,
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  Speaker 2: the one earning the money, building this incredible fortune.
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  Speaker 1: But the physical symbol of it, the apartment was secured
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  Speaker 1: by Amani, the.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: In law, exactly they felt, you know, exploited, cut off
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  Speaker 2: from his success. And at the same time, Amani's sister
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  Speaker 2: was apparently just consumed with jealousy by her because Amani
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  Speaker 2: had taken her inheritance share and multiplied it massively through
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  Speaker 2: Khaled's business. The sister's share it had just dwindled, So
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  Speaker 2: resentment all around.
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  Speaker 1: So fast forward back to twenty ten. The tension is high.
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  Speaker 1: Khalid's fifty, Amani forty two, their daughter a mean, she's twenty,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: doing well in pharmacy school, seems compliant.
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  Speaker 2: But Ahmed, the son, nineteen, He's the source of constant worry, rebellious,
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  Speaker 2: hanging out with friends his parents deeply disapproved of, even.
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  Speaker 1: Though they'd apparently showered him with gifts, an expensive car
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  Speaker 1: for college, things like that.
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  Speaker 2: Right, they were trying to manage him, control his social life,
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  Speaker 2: which ultimately leads us to that last dinner, the fish
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  Speaker 2: meal prepared by Amani. The family gathers, but Ahmed says
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  Speaker 2: he won't eat with them, claims he has a dinner
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  Speaker 2: reservation at the.
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  Speaker 1: Club, okay, and he leaves soon after. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Now, when the police arrive later and examine that scene,
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  Speaker 2: they note the fish and those four juice cups.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, the juice cups, what about them?
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  Speaker 2: Three are partially drunk, but one cup is completely empty?
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  Speaker 1: And who's with that?
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  Speaker 2: Ahmed confirmed it was his. He said he was there,
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  Speaker 2: drank his juice and then left for the club, establishing
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: his alibi.
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  Speaker 1: So initially, what do the authorities think happened?
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  Speaker 2: Well, at that time, Alexandria had seen a number of
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  Speaker 2: mass poisoning incidents off and linked to contaminated seafood, maybe
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: laced with agricultural pesticides and secticides.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Right, I remember reading about that.
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  Speaker 2: So the forensic evidence comes back and it confirms death
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  Speaker 2: by poisoning and insecticide or pesticide found in the fish meal.
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  Speaker 1: So with the medical examiner ruling it accidental death, and
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  Speaker 1: Ahmed having this confirmed alibi from the club.
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  Speaker 2: The case was closed. A terrible tragic accident. The family
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  Speaker 2: was buried, and Ahmed just nineteen, the sole survivor becomes
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  Speaker 2: the sole heir to that entire fifteen million egp fortune.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, just like that, Just like that.
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  Speaker 2: For eight months, that was the story. The wealth was
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  Speaker 2: being sorted out, life presumably was moving on for Ahmed.
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  Speaker 1: But then something shifts, yeah, dramatically, violently.
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  Speaker 2: The silence, the official ruling, it's shattered, and it's shattered
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  Speaker 2: by someone from inside the family. Who Kalead's elderly mother,
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  Speaker 2: Ahmed's paternal grandmother.
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  Speaker 1: His grandmother. What does she do?
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  Speaker 2: She went straight to the authorities and formally accused her
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  Speaker 2: own grandson, Ahmed, of murdering his entire family.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: That's staggering. A grandmother accusing her grandson of mass murder
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  Speaker 1: eight months after the fact, when the official ruling was accidental.
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  Speaker 1: Why wasn't Ahmed looked at more closely Initially?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Well, that initial ruling was very strong given the context
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  Speaker 2: of the other poisoning cases. It seemed to fit a pattern.
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  Speaker 2: The accidental death theory was convenient.
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  Speaker 1: Prad But the grandmother's accusation that forces them to look again.
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  Speaker 2: It forces them to look past the toxicology report and
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  Speaker 2: focus on the human element, on Ahmed himself.
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  Speaker 1: What was her basis? I mean, that's an immense accusation
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  Speaker 1: to make.
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  Speaker 2: She gave them two crucial pieces of information. First, she
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  Speaker 2: pointed out Ahmed's behavior after the tragedy. She said, he
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: showed absolutely no normal signs of grief or shock. He
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  Speaker 2: was just unnaturally composed.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, unsettling, but maybe not proof.
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  Speaker 2: But the second point was the bombshell. She claims she
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  Speaker 2: personally overheard him on the phone telling someone and this
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  Speaker 2: is the quote. He did it.
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  Speaker 1: He did it, just like that, Just like.
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  Speaker 2: That, that single phrase cracked the whole thing wide open.
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  Speaker 1: So the cases reopened. Investigators start digging into Ahmed's.
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  Speaker 2: Life, and suddenly all this other information surfaces, confirmation of intense,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: frequent fights between Ahmed and his father Khleed. Witnesses, people
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  Speaker 2: close to Ahmed started saying things like, uh, nothing was
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  Speaker 2: ruled out, suggesting he was capable of well anything, and.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: That fifteen million EGP inheritance. It stops looking like a
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  Speaker 1: tragic consequence and starts looking like a potential.
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  Speaker 2: Motive, a very powerful motive. So Ahmed is arrested, He's
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  Speaker 2: confronted with all this new evidence security forces have gathered.
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  Speaker 1: And what happens does he deny it, stick to the alibi.
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  Speaker 2: You'd expect a strong denial, right, especially given the initial ruling,
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  Speaker 2: But no, what happened next was frankly shocking. He confessed,
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  Speaker 2: He confessed, admitted to killing his father, his mother, and
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  Speaker 2: his sister.
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  Speaker 1: But the motive, I mean, for something so horrific, what could.
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  Speaker 2: Possibly the motive he gave was almost bizarrely shallow. He
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  Speaker 2: claimed his goal wasn't actually to kill them?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: What then? What he said?
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  Speaker 2: He only intended to make them sick, sick enough to
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  Speaker 2: be hospitalized for a long time. Why so he could
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  Speaker 2: have the house to himself, free of his parents' rules,
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  Speaker 2: their interference, so he could finally host his friends there,
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  Speaker 2: the very friends his father had strictly forbidden him from seeing.
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  Speaker 1: He poisoned his entire family for a party house. It's
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  Speaker 1: almost unbelievable.
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  Speaker 2: The calculation involved is chilling, especially for a nineteen year old.
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  Speaker 2: Think about it. He overhears his father talking about buying
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: poison and insecticide for a stray dar causing problems in
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  Speaker 2: the building. He takes that poison, he mixes it into
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  Speaker 2: the fish his mother prepared for the family dinner. And then,
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  Speaker 2: and this detail is just horrifying, He sits down at
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  Speaker 2: the table with them, drinks his juice, drinks his juice,
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  Speaker 2: leaving that empty cup as proof he was there participating,
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  Speaker 2: watches his family eat the poisoned meal, and then calmly
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  Speaker 2: leaves to establish his rock solid alibi at the club.
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  Speaker 1: The cold bloodedness, it's.
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  Speaker 2: Staggering, and the immediate fallout from this confession wasn't just
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: public horror, though there was plenty of that. It instantly
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  Speaker 2: violently shifted the focus back to the money.
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  Speaker 1: Because if he's the killer.
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  Speaker 2: He's legally disqualified from inheriting. As the murderer, he can't
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  Speaker 2: benefit from the crime. So that immense fortune, the fifteen
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  Speaker 2: million EGP, the company, the apartment, it's suddenly up for.
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  Speaker 1: Grabs and it gets split between the surviving.
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  Speaker 2: Families, between the paternal side Khalid's relatives and the maternal
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  Speaker 2: side Amani's relatives. And this is where the real war begins.
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  Speaker 1: It reveals such a cynical underbelly, doesn't it. Yeah, The
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  Speaker 1: legal drama that follows is all about the money completely.
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  Speaker 2: The inheritance became this volatile prize Khaled's family, the paternal side,
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  Speaker 2: they hire a very famous, very high profile lawyer, Talat
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  Speaker 2: else An, known for.
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  Speaker 1: Taking tough cases. But their goal wasn't justice for Khalid
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  Speaker 1: and Amani and Amina.
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  Speaker 2: Was it not primarily No, Their goal was purely financial.
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  Speaker 2: They aim to defend Ahmed, their argument he was coerced
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  Speaker 2: into confessing maybe or his this youth meant it wasn't
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: premeditated murder.
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  Speaker 1: Why defend the confessed killer of their.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Relatives, Because if they could somehow get a lesser charge,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: something that didn't automatically disqualify him from inheriting, or maybe
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: argue someone else influenced.
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  Speaker 1: Him, then the fortune stays technically under Ahmed's control.
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  Speaker 2: And therefore within the paternal family's potential reach. It's a
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  Speaker 2: horrifying display of greed layered on top of tragedy.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: So the legal battle just drags on and.
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  Speaker 2: On for over thirteen years, some sources even say fifteen years.
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  Speaker 2: It became this absolute labyrinth of appeals motions. The defense
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: fought tooth and nail, even after Elsa Dot himself passed
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: away and other lawyers.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Took over, fighting not really for Ahmed but for the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: company shares for that apartment.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: That's the grim reality of it. But in the end,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: despite all the legal maneuvering, the courts upheld the original findings,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the evidence of premeditation. The confession, it all stood.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: So after all that time, Ambed Ahmed was executed after
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: nearly fifteen years of litigation, a.
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  Speaker 2: Truly devastating end to the whole saga. But you mentioned
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the greed didn't stop.
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  Speaker 1: There, No, because even after Ahmen's execution, the apartment, the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: site of the crime, remained. It had been closed up
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  Speaker 1: for fifteen years, this sort of physical monument to the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: whole terrible.
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  Speaker 2: Affair, and the relatives finally decided to sell it, liquidate
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: the asset. After all that fighting.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Exactly, they finally moved to sell it. And that's when
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they discovered one last incredibly cynical player in this whole drama,
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  Speaker 1: a final human ghost, as some called it.
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  Speaker 2: What happened.
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  Speaker 1: They found out that a woman, someone working in the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: legal field, apparently had seen the chaos, the endless disputes
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: over the.
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  Speaker 2: Property sinceaw on opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: A massive one, she had forged a fifty nine year
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: lease contract for that multimillion pound apartment in her.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Own name, you're kidding, fifty nine years, fifty nine years,
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  Speaker 2: basically locking it up. The relatives who had fought for
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: a decade and a half over this asset were completely blocked.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: They couldn't sell their own inherited property unless this woman
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: voluntarily agreed to leave.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: The greed just never stopped. It started with the son
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: killing his family, continued with the relatives fighting over the spoils,
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  Speaker 1: and ended with a stranger trying to snatch the very
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  Speaker 1: scene of the crime.
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  Speaker 2: It really shows how wealth itself can act like a poison,
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  Speaker 2: doesn't it. It consumed the family from within, leading to
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: their deaths, and then it consumed the survivors and this bitter,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: protracted legal war.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: It does make you circle back to Ahmed, though nineteen
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: years old. The prosecution focused on the premeditation and the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: cold calculation of the empty juice cup, the alibi. It
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: seems clear cut legally it was, But thinking about the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: sheer intensity of that inheritance battle afterwards, the millions at stake.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Was his stated motive just wanting a party house really
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the whole story? Or is it possible that young rebellious
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: mind was somehow manipulated, pushed by someone else, one of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: those other human ghosts who saw fifteen million EGP as
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the ultimate prize.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: It's a chilling thought, isn't it. We might never know
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the absolute truth behind his actions, but that apartment in smoke,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: it definitely stands as a monument to avarice, haunted perhaps
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: not by the dead, but by the relentless greed of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the living.