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Suleiman: The Matareya Ripper · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're plunging into a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: really chilling story from Egypt's past, a hidden horror from
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: That's right, a serial killer case that genuinely terrified Cairo,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: but one that many people might not even know about
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: today exactly.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So our mission, our deep dive here is to untangle
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: this disturbing case. We want to understand how someone so
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: dangerous could operate under the radar for so long.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And also look at the details, the really intricate things
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: that eventually led.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: To his downfall. It's quite a story.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Let's set the scene. Imagine it's March nineteen eighty five,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a crisp morning near Cairo in l Marg. It's quiet,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: kind of desolate near the Alta Fikia Canal.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can almost picture it, that sort of heavy stillness,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: maybe some distant city sounds, but right there by the water, yeah, quiet,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: and locals are starting to gather, murmuring something's wrong.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: They're looking at the canal, the murky water, and then
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: someone spots at some floating faced down.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It's a body, a young man maybe early thirties, and
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: the details are brutal right from the start. His hands
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: are tied tightly behind his back with his own undershirt
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: part of it. The rest of the fabouc was twisted
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: really tightly around his neck. Strangulation, no question.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Rim So the police arrived, forensic teams the whole setup.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Right, But the scene itself is strange, eerily calm, no
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: signs of a fight, no struggle.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: It's unsettling.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And who was he?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Just a simple day laborer originally from Minya upriver, come
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: to the city for work and almost nothing was stolen.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: A cheap watch, a tiny bit of cash.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Which makes no sense, right? Why him? Why target sewn
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: with nothing exactly?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And how did the killer manage it with no resistance?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: That was the immediate puzzle, A very disturbing start.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: You'd hope it was just a one off, a terrible
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: isolated incident, but it wasn't.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: No, unfortunately not the dread it just started to spread
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: because just one week later, another body, also in l
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Marg but in some agricultural fields, again that sort of remote,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: deserted feeling. This victim was younger, a soldier in his twenties,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: and the method identical, face down, hands bound, strangled, this
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: time with the kefia. You know the headscarf and again
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: no struggle, nothing valuable taken, just another ordinary person gone.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: It's starting to sound like a pattern, horrifying one, and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it gets worse. Weeks later, a third victim turns up,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this one in El Salam, same method, face down, strangled,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: but there's a new detail. The lower half of his
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: body was unclosed, which is immediately alarming. Obviously just sexual assault,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that's what you'd think, but no forensics confirmed. There was
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: no sexual assault. That just added this layer of weirdness.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Confusion, and it didn't stop there no.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Shortly after, a fourth body back in l Mark, an
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: older man, this time maybe in his sixties, also stripped
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: from the waist down, found face down in this really bizarre,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: almost prayer like position.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Prostrate, but again no sexual assault.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Again, no, just staged that way. It was deeply disturbing.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I can only imagine the fear in those neighborhoods El Marg,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: El Islam, Materrea.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: People must have been terrified. Absolutely.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: By the end of nineteen eighty five, you've got nine
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: similar murders reported nine.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: The fear was palpable.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: People stopped going out alone, especially in near deserted areas.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Everyone was suspicious You're.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Living with this constant threat, knowing someone is out there
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: picking people seemingly at random, people just like you.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: It's chilling and for the police it was a nightmare.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: They started piecing together these patterns, trying to make sense
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: What were the key things they noticed?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, first, the method always strangulation, undershirt, cafe, a handkerchief,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: whatever was there, and always hands tied behind the back,
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  Speaker 2: super consistent.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Second, the victims all simple people, laborers, soldiers, ordinary folks,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: little or nothing stolen.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: The motive clearly wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: Robbery, which makes the nudity even stranger. Yeah, that was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the third point.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, the nudity, lowy clothing removed on most later victims,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but zero evidence of sexual assault.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: It was baffling, what did it mean?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And the lack of struggle point four.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Astonishing really, even strong young men, no defensive wounds. How
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: was he doing it? Was he drugging them? Tricking them?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: It was a huge question mark.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, Wills.
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  Speaker 2: Fifth, no link between the victims, none at all, and
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  Speaker 2: no connection between them and the crime scenes. These remote
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: fields and canal banks that screamed luring. He wasn't finding
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: them there, He was bringing them there.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Which ties into the sixth point. The locations themselves exactly.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: These weren't random spots. They were chosen remote, unpopulated agricultural
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: land across these three areas. He knew these places, he'd
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: studied them, calculated very and that led to the seventh
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  Speaker 2: and honestly the most terrifying conclusion for the investigators, which
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: was no apparent gain, no robbery, no revenge, no obvious motive.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: It looked like killing for the sake of killing. Kind
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of predator they just hadn't really encountered before.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's just pause on that. A full year
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: goes by, a killer is active of methodical leaving bodies.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: The police see the patterns, but they have no idea
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  Speaker 1: who he is or why.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: The frustration must have been immense. They saw the professionalism,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: the intelligence behind it. This wasn't some random act of violence.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And Tyro's huge. They must have thrown everything at it,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: right checkpoint, surveillance.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Everything, watching remote areas, railway stations, bus stops, public appeals,
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  Speaker 2: but nothing, not a single solid lead. For over a year.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: The pressure was enormous, the public was terrified, and this
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: guy just kept disappearing.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: It seems hopeless. How does a case like that even break?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that's where it gets really interesting. It wasn't brilliant
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: detector work, not initially anyway. It was a mistake, a single,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: almost unbelievable.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Mistake by the killer.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Finally a break, a huge one.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: It started like any other call.
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  Speaker 2: An officer on patrol finds another body looks like.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: The same mo.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: But as the officer gets closer, he sees something, a
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: faint sign of life.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. So they rush him to the hospital immediately.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: He's in a coma for two days. Everyone's just waiting, hoping, police, doctors,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: is this finally the witness they need?
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And he wakes up?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: He does, miraculously, He regains consciousness. He's terrified, obviously, but coherent,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and he tells them everything.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: What did he say happened? How did the killer get him?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: It's fascinating and chilling.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: He said he was in Giza Square, busy place, when
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: a man approached him thirties, looked like he was from
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  Speaker 2: Upper Egypt, you know, darker skin, wearing a galabia, a turban,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: and the victim remembered his eyes.
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  Speaker 3: Unsettling eyes.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And this man claimed to be an undercover police informant.
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  Speaker 2: He even flashed something that looked like a pistol. He
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: told the victim he was wanted for some crime.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Intimidation totally.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: He said, look, to avoid trouble, just come with me
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  Speaker 2: to the station. Willingly cooperate, and the victim believed him.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: He did.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: He was terrified, but as they started walking, he got suspicious.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: They weren't heading towards any police station. They were going
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: somewhere remote out towards agricultural land. But he still went yeah,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I mean he thought he was with the police, right.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Fear keeps you moving sometimes. When they reached this really
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: secluded spot, the informant told him to tie his own
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: hands behind his back.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: What why?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: The story was it would show obedience, make things easier
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: for him with the police, a sign of cooperation, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: he did it in his fear and confusion. Yes, he complied,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and the second his hands were tied, the informant attacked,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: wrapped something around his neck, strangled him. He passed out
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  Speaker 2: woke up in the hospital.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: That is incredible. The first solid description the method of luring.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Explained exactly this was it. The police brought in a
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: forensic artist immediately working closely, painstakingly with the survivor.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: To create a sketch, Yes.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Capturing every detail the survivor could remember, the face, the eyes,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: the clothes. That sketch became the key. It was distributed everywhere,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: every checkpoint, every police unit in Cairo.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Now they had a face.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: The hunt intensifies. How long did it take after the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: sketch went out?
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  Speaker 3: About five months, five tense months. Everyone's on edge looking
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: for this face.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And then then early Ramadan nineteen eighty six, a routine
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: checkpoint in Madereea, there's a minor scuffle near a bus.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: An Upper Egyptian guy and a soldier are arguing. Nothing major,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: seems like.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So they taken both to the station.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Standard procedure. But at the station, the soldier explains why
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: they were fighting. He says the Upper Egyptian man had
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: approached him, claiming to be an informant, trying to take
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: him to the police station. No way, Yes, the exact
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: same story, the survivor told the police officers there. They
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: just knew instantly, that chilling echo. They had him. Sulima
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: abd el Raman Suliman.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, what did Suliman do? Did he consess right away?
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Oh?
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  Speaker 2: No, Initially he was completely brazen, denied everything, challenged them,
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  Speaker 2: bring anyone who can identify me? Cocky, almost mistake huge,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: because first they showed him the composite sketch, the shock
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: on his face, seeing his own likeness staring back, it
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  Speaker 2: was undeniable.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And then they brought in the survivor.
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  Speaker 2: That was the final blow. They brought in the man
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  Speaker 2: who'd miraculously lived, and he pointed straight at Suliman. That's him,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: that's the man who attacked me. Suliman's composure just crumble.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Caught red handed, the terra must have finally hit.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Him, it seemed to Realizing the game was up, his
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: whole demeanor shifted. He became calm again, but it was
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: a cold calm. He agreed to confess to everything, just
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: like that, well with one condition, a chillingly composed request.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: He said, no physical abuse. Just bring me a cup
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  Speaker 2: of tea and a cigarette and I'll.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Tell you everything.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable, even then, trying to control the situation, it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Told the police volumes about who they were dealing with.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Highly intelligent, deeply disturbed, and utterly detached in some way.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So who was he? What made Suliman up dale, Rahman
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Suliman become this, this monster. What was his story?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Well, peeling back the layers is crucial to understanding or
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: trying to understand his motivations. He was from a village
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: called d'iro in a suit upper Egypt, and he had
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: a record even before the murders, petty stuff mostly armed robbery, fraud, deception,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: not murder though.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So what tipped him over? Was there a specific event?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: There seems to have been a major turning point. It
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: involved a land dispute. He and his father worked on
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: land owned by a wealthy banker. Suliman apparently became obsessed
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: with the banker's wealth, attacked his home somehow, and.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: The banker retaliated fired.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Both Suliman and his father took away their livelihood. Suliman
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: felt this as a massive injustice, a huge humiliation.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so anger towards the wealthy.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, but it got twisted further. He threatened the landowner
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and then critically, when it came to testimonies, all the
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: local farmers and servants, people from his own background, poor
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: like him, they all testified against Suliman.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: He went to prison.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Ah, so it wasn't just the rich guy who was
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: a betrayal by his own people, as he saw it exactly.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: That seems to have solidified this deep seated delusion. He
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: already felt the rich victimized him, but the betrayal by
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the poor, by his own kind, that led him to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: hate them too, simple poor people.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Which explains the victims asuming ordinary people he targeted precisely.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It was a twisted form of revenge against everyone he
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: felt had wronged him, which in his mind was pretty
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: much everyone below.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: And above him.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: In prison? Did that change him?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Prison seems to have been incredibly damaging. Investigations later reveal
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: he was subjected to horrific abuse, rape, and humiliation by
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: other inmates. Oh God, and that trauma is strongly believed
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: to be connected to that bizarre detail, the removal of
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: the victim's lower clothing, leaving them in those strange positions.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: He never explained it himself, but the psychological link seems undeniable.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: So he comes out of prison when.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: February nineteen eighty five, just one month before the first murder.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: He came out filled with this festering resentment, rage, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: this warped sense of righteousness.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Ready to act on it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: It seems so interestingly. He first tried to team up
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: with a friend. The plan was supposedly to lure and.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Rob people, but the friend backed out.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Quickly, apparently after their first attempt on a poor victim
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: yielded nothing of value.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: The friend realized Suliman.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Wasn't really interested in robbery, he was interested in the
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: killing itself.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: The friend wanted.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Out, so Suliman went solo, yes.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Targeting, in his own chilling words, the simple people who
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: feared the word informant and had never seen a gun.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: He preyed on their fear of authority, their unfamiliarity with weapons.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: He was uneducated, you said, but clearly.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Cunning, immensely cunning in his methods. He made sure, or
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: thought he made sure no one survived to identify him
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: until that one mistake. The game wasn't money, it was
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: power control, enacting this perverse revenge fantasy.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So the trial, what was the final outcome?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: He was formally convicted of fourteen murders. That was based
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: on the ten bodies the police found, plus four more
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: he confessed to in.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Detail, only fourteen he claimed more, didn't he he did?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: He boasted to the press later that he'd actually killed
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: twenty nine people across several governorates a suit sohag Minya,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Colubia plus the Cairo areas. We don't know for sure
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: if that higher number is true, but fourteen were proven
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: in court and the sentence death handed down in March
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight. His initial accomplice, the one who backed out,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: got fifteen years of hard labor.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: A grim end to a horrifying story. It really makes
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you think about the roots of such violence. It does.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: It wasn't about greed, not really. It was about something internal,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: This deep psychological damage twisted into a hatred directed at
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: almost everyone.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: This deep dive really highlights how someone can be driven
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: by motives that are just hard to grasp. Killing is
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the primary goal, not a means to.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: An end, And it raises that unsettling question, doesn't it
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: What happens when that kind of deep trauma meets this
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: profound sense of victimhood. It can create something truly monstrous,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: A predator whose only game is the taking of a life.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: The story of Suleiman the matteraey Killer. It's a stark
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: reminder that sometimes those terrifying crimes don't have a clear
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: logical motive, like robbery or avenge. They come from a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: darkness inside a place that maybe we can't fully understand.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: What stands out to you listening to this about such
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a chilling narrative