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Hamdi and the Cobra's Revenge · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine a house in Benni Mazar, Egypt. It's twenty twelve
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and the silence is well, it depressive. It's three am
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: when a police officer named hamdy Fuad calls his own
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: station to report a horror in his home. A horror,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: he says.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: He can't explain, and you have to picture the scene.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The investigators walk into, it's immediately disorienting. In this one
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: small room, there are three little girls, hend who's eight,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Fatma six, and Sabrin only three.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They're all lying in the same bed.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly side by side. They're clean, they're well dressed. They
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: honestly just look like they're asleep. It's this picture of
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: unnatural calm.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: But the father, Hammity, he has an explanation ready to go,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: very specific one. He says it was a snake.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Bite, which is odd to say the least, especially because
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: right there, sleeping you're buy in the very same room
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: is his second wife and with her is their infant.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Son, their twenty day old son.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the baby is completely totally unharmed. Now, in
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: a case like this, you know the first person you
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: look at is often the stepmother. It's just standard procedure,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: easy target, the easy target, right, But the evidence, the
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: physical details on the bodies, it immediately shifted.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Their focus because what they found wasn't random at all, was.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It not even close? On each of the three girls,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: they find this tiny identical detail, a little twin puncture
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: wound just above.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The heel, and it's in the exact same place on
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: all three of them.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The exact same place. So right from the start, this
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: isn't just an a logical crime scene. It feels staged.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It signals calculation, a kind of precision that nature just
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't have exactly.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: The investigation's first job became, you know, can we prove
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: or disprove this one single, highly suspicious theory the snake.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack that because the police, they immediately
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: hit a wall, a huge.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: One, a geographic one. Really. They talk to everyone, neighbors,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: local farmers, and the answer is unanimous. Deadly snakes, especially
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the kind that could kill three people this fast, They're
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: virtually non existent in many meizarre.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So strike one, the weapon shouldn't even be there.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Right, And then you have the forensics. The initial medical
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: exams find no clear cause of death, no obvious injuries
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: besides those tiny punctures. The toxicology screens for common poisons,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: they all come back negative.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: So you've got these unnatural, simultaneous deaths, but without any
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of the usual evidence. It just pushes all the suspicion
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: back onto the one person with the strange story.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Back to Hamdy, and you know you have to ask
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: about this stepmother, the initial logical suspect.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Well, this is where it gets even more pointed. The
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: neighbors completely clear her. They all say she was kind, loving,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that she treated those little girls like her own children.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: So that path is a dead end. It clears the board,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: leaving only the father and his impossible snake theory.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But they can't just accuse him. They have to prove
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the crime was staged with the very weapon he claimed
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: was an accident. They need an.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Expert, and they do something fascinating. They bring in a
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: local Howie.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: A professional snake hunter in that part of the world.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: That's like calling in the ultimate specialist, ye, the forensic
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: toxicologists of the natural world, and.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: His arrival just changes the whole mood of the investigation.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: He looks at those tiny, precise wounds and his verdict
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: is terrifying.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: The bites are real.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Undeniably real, he says, they are the distinct, unmistakable mark
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: of a large, deadly cobra.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So the father was right about the weapon. But this
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is actually where his whole story completely falls apart, isn't it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: This is where the murder is proven.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is where the science of the snake becomes
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the evitn if against the man. Let's start with what
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: we can call the first cobra contradiction. Okay, the species,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the kind of cobra big enough to do this, isn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: indigenous to Venimazar. It's not from there. It had to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: have been brought in, so it's.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: An imported weapon. The second point, though, that one seems
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: even more damning. It's about the venom itself.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: It is cobra venom takes time to regenerate, I mean
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: at least two hours after a full fatal dose, So
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: with three girls dying at almost the exact same.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Time, a single snake couldn't have done it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: It's biologically. It means it wasn't just one non native cobra.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: It had to be multiple.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Cobras, multiple snakes, ready to strike, all at once. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: then there's the third contradiction, which is just about.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Behavior right how he confirmed it. Cobras very rarely attacks
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: sleeping humans. But more than that, he said, it is,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: and I'm quoting, more than impossible for a snake to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: strike three different targets in the exact same spot on
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: the body.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Right above the heel. That level of precision. It's not
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: an animal that's control.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Every single piece of evidence, geography, toxicology, animal behavior, it
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: all pointed to a calculated, cold blooded murder stage to
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: look like an act of nature. And who is the
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: only person pushing that impossible story.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Andy fou Wad. So the investigation shifts. It's now all
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: about the interrogation, the psychological pressure.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: The detective just keep hammering him with all these inconsistencies.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: They know his story is nonsense, and eventually he breaks.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: But the first detail he gives up is it's tiny,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: something they'd completely missed.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: He asks them why they hadn't noticed the two boxes
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: of matches in his pocket. One of them was used,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: But he wasn't a smoker, Not a smoker. It's the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: first real crack in this perfect story he's built, And
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: that one small detail it just blows the whole case
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: wide open.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: He used them to burn the snakes.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: He confessed to use the matches to burn the snakes.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: After they'd done their job, he planned to completely incinerate
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: his tools, his weapons to wipe the evidence clean.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And his full confession it revealed this wasn't some spontaneous
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: act of rage.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: This was planned for months, three months, a sustained, calculated mission.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: He decided the deaths had to look natural, and he
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: settled on cobra venom as the perfect untraceable poison.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: The lengths he went to it's like something out of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a spy novel. He travels all the way to Cairo's
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Friday Market to find a.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Very specific person, a specialized reptile trader named Ibrahim. But
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: to get what he wants, he can't just buy the snakes.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: He needs training. He needs to know how to use them.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: He invents this elaborate life.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: A meticulous one. He tells Ibrahim he works for a
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: pharmacy college back in Minya. He says he needs to
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: learn how to handle cobras, how to extract their venom
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: for student.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Research, and Ibrahim believes him. He teaches handy everything.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly how to handle these deadly animals, how to get
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the poison, and the transactions themselves, they just show his
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: commitment to making this as lethal as possible.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: He bought four cobras at first, but then he brought
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: them back.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He brought them back complaining they were too weak, that
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: they didn't have enough venom. He came back a second time,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: demanding the strongest cobras with the most venom.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And Ibrahim eventually sold him two massive, powerful ones.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: But the darkest lesson Hamdi learned from him, the one
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: that really sealed his daughter's feet, was a biological trick.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: He learned that if you starve a cobra for over
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: twenty days, it intensely concentrates the venom. It makes the
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: strike exponentially more lethal.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Wait twenty days He specifically learned that number, yes.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And that detail is who well, it's what. This whole
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: thing crosses the line from just a terrible crime into
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: absolute cold horror. The timing is sickening.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: He attacked his daughters when his newborn son was twenty days.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Old, precisely the exact moment he had ensured the cobras
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: were at their maximum toxic potency. The infant survival wasn't luck.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: It was by design. The daughters were the clear terrible.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Targets, and the execution itself was just clinical. He described
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: using a large bag, provoking the snakes by striking their
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: heads to make them aggressive.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: And then with complete control, forcing their fangs onto that
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: same spot on each child's heel. He held their heads
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: down to make sure the full dose of that concentrated
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: venom was discharged.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So we understand the how mediculous, cold calculated, but the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: why that takes us into some very dark psychological terrichoid.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It really does. It all seems to trace back to
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: his childhood, a really profound trauma.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: His father divorced his mother.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: After discovering she was having an affair and Handy as
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: a young boy, he didn't just know about it, he
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was exposed to it, and then to the constant bullying
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: and shame from the community.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: And this built something inside him a complex.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: A deep crippling psychological complex, a pathological misogyny. He developed
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: this absolute conviction that all women were inherently betrayers. It
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't just a prejudice. It was for him a fundamental truth.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Which bled directly into his first marriage, the mother of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the three girls.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: He relentlessly accused her of infidelity, no evidence, of course,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: But the real trigger, the thing that seems to have
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: ignited this whole horrific plan, came during a fight.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: She said the girls weren't his.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: She taunted him with it, spitefully. It was later proven
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: to be a complete lie, but for him it was
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the ultimate insult, the confirmation of his deepest fear.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And then when they divorced, she left the girls with.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Him as a form of punishment in his mind, so
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: his deep seated hatred of women, his fear of betrayal,
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  Speaker 2: it all got projected onto his daughters. He didn't see
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: children anymore.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: He saw a constant living room of his humiliation.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Exactly tokens of his wife's betrayal, his mother's betrayal, tokens
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: that had to be eliminated.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The coldness is just it's staggering.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: The verdict finally came in twenty fourteen. Hamdi Fuad was
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: sentenced to fifteen years.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: In prison, only fifteen years, not the death penalty.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: No, because it was proven in court that he was
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: suffering from severe, debilitating mental health issues, that the trauma
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: from his childhood was a direct contributing factor.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And that raises the really difficult question for anyone looking
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: at this case and for you listening, do you give
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: any consideration to that deep, undeniable psychological damage, knowing it
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: warped his entire view of the world, Or.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Is that just completely overshadowed by the pure, cold blooded calculation,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the three months of meticulous planning he used to murder
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: three innocent kids.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: The true horror here isn't really the cobra, is it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: It's the human mind that decided to weaponize it. The
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: planning suggests not just a moment of madness, but a stained,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: absolute commitment to vengeance.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: A vengeance that targeted the most defenseless people in his life.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: What does it take for a person to view their
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: own daughters not as family, but as just tools of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: someone else's punishment. That chilling commitment is the darkest part
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: of this whole story.