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The Mattress Murder: How a Wife, Son, and Nephew Plotted Compound Treason for an Egyptian Inheritance · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We begin this deep dive in the heat of an
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Egyptian summer August twenty twenty. Picture a sleepy, quiet, suburban
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: village outside Giza. It's early Wednesday morning.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Right, the usual sort of slow rhythm starting.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Up exactly, but this morning something's off. There's this strange absence. Saber,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a contractor known for being punctual. He just didn't leave
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for work.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: And that's specific detail his routine. That's the immediate red flag,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: isn't Saber wasn't a guy who missed a day. No,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: he was successful, a foreman, very meticulous, left home around
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: eight am, back like clockwork between five and six pm.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So when his brothers, who actually lived right nearby, tried
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: calling him, nothing, phone's dead.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when the real alarm bells must have started ringing.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So they walk over next door to their brother's place
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and they find his wife Aber. And this is maybe
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the first really unsettling thing. She was just unnervingly.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Calm, just calm, despite her husband being missing.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: When they ask you know where Saber, she gives us
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: really minimal answer. He left an eight hasn't come back,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: simple as that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: But then almost immediately she shifts. It's this moment of
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: calculated misdirection. She doesn't show worry, she shows suspicion towards them. Yes,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Auber suggests Saber must have secretly remarried and that the
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: brothers his brothers were somehow in on it. Part of
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: what she called the film like some big deception.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: It's just pure deflection, and it really underscores, you know,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the years of conflict, the bad blood there. Absolutely, his
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: brothers knew the mirrors was troubled, so they don't rush.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They actually wait two days until Friday.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And they check with his work first.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: They do, they confirm he missed Wednesday and Thursday. Then
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: they finally filed the official missing persons report.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, and this is really where we need to frame
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: this whole story, because this isn't just about betrayal, isn't.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: No, it's much darker.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: What we're looking at here is what i'd call compound treason.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's not just you know, a wife betraying a husband,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: it's the sheer calculation involved. Well. She had to systematically
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: cruit and convinced two other family members, her own teenage
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: son and the victim's nephew, to take part in a
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: planned murder and cover up. She essentially engineered this generational
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: conflict all for profit. It's chilling.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack that. We need to go back way
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: back seventeen years to understand how things got to this point. Right,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So the year is two thousand and three in Nahia, Kurdasa.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Saber was a kind of the classic self made man.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Started as a simple worker, but he had huge ambition.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to be a major contractor, own a
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: big house, be respected in the community, the whole package.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And he largely got there. At twenty six, he married Aber.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Apparently he was mainly attracted by well her appearance and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: her reputation at the time.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Which suggests the foundation might have been a bit shaky
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: from the start, right marrying her for how she seemed,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: maybe not for who she really was deep down.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And the conflict, it seems, was immediate and constant. Aber
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: complained all the time that Saber was absent working.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Too much, even though he was home by six pm every.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Day pretty much. Meanwhile, Saber had his own complaint, a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: more personal one, her neglect of her personal appearance, her hygiene.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And this is a really crucial point of tension because
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: these weren't just small arguments that blew over. They festered
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: for more than.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: A decade, and whenever he brought up the hygiene issue, she.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Deflected instantly accused him of looking for another woman. You
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: see that pattern, turning his criticism back on him with
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: an accusation of infidelity. It's classic manipulation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: That really sets the stage for later. Okay, fast forward
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: ten years. They have three children. By now Saber's done it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: He's achieved his dream.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: The big house.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a beautiful three story house in his neighborhood. It
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: was like the symbol of his success. He was known
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: locally as honest, hardworking, hyabor.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: What were the neighbors saying about her, Well.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: The perception was different, increasingly greedy, materialistic, maybe obsessed with status.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So the cracks are widening. And then in twenty fifteen,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the marriage finally breaks, Saber initiates.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: A divorce and this is where that compound treason, as
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you called it, really starts to take root. During the ida,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that three month waiting period after a divorce is initiated.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Right where they're separate but still technically married.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Aber didn't just you know, move on. She actively weaponized
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: that time. She started relentlessly poisoning the children against Saber,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: how specifically telling them their father had abandoned them, that
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: he was going to kick them out of the house,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: eventually take away their inheritance, really planting seeds of hatred
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and entitlement.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: God, that's awful. And the absolute tragedy is he took
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: her back.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: He did. She had this brief second marriage. Apparently it
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: failed after just a year.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: And let me guess why.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: The exact same issues Saber had complained about, cleanliness, hygiene.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable. So after that failed marriage.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Family, neighbors, they all pressured Saber, think of the children,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, hit four by then, so late twenty sixteen,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: he agrees. He basically resigns himself to misery, just to
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: keep the family unit intact, on the.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Surface, exuring it, just enduring.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which this brings us right back to August twenty twenty.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: The emotional groundwork, the rot, it's all there, and now
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the actual crime begins. Police arrive on that Friday, and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Aber still come, oh yeah, very calm, very organized, Her
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: story is rehearsed, she sticks to it. Saber left Wednesday
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: eight am, hasn't been seen since.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: But the police pick up on something else right, the
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: brothers exactly.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: The detective notes this heavy, almost palpable suspicion coming from
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Saber's own family. They keep pushing. Look at their history.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: They fought constantly, this isn't right.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And that family insistence that gives the detective the push,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the motivation to dig just a little deeper than maybe
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: he otherwise would have.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And that digging leads to the huge break. The detective
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: spots something tiny, almost out of place in this village,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a surveillance camera.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Which is rare in that kind of residential area, I imagine,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: very rare.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: It was on a local shop, but it happened to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: cover the entrance to Sabers Street. A massive stroke of luck, really.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: And the footage, what did it show?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It just blew abersh story apart. They review it on Friday,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and it confirms three devastating things. One, Saber definitely came
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: home Tuesday evening six pm.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: So he was home Tuesday night.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Two, he never left the house on Wednesday morning at
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: eight am or any time after that. He was well,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: he was already.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Gone by then, oh man.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And the third thing, the third thing revealed the conspiracy
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in chilling detail. A young man is seen entering Saber's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: house at nine pm on Tuesday night. Okay, but then
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the really bizarre, horrifying part at two am Wednesday morning,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: the camera captures Aber and her sixteen year old son Mohammed.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Her son, her son.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: They're struggling, really struggling to load this incredibly heavy, awkward object,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: a mattress, onto a small transport cart it took sometimes
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: called a trucycle, and then they just drive off into
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the darkness with.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It a mattress can seeing him. It's just unbelievable. A
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: mother and son trying to dispose the body like that,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: so desperate.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: The police immediately start following this bizarre trail, tracking the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: mattress using any street cameras they can find.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Where did they take it?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The footage showed Aber and Mohammad drove quite a distance
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: out to a remote area in Dusher. They dumped the
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: mattress in this filled in irrigation canal it's called a
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: terram marduma.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Thinking that was it, job done.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: They must have believing the evidence was hidden, gone for good.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't there. When the police got to the ditch, No.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: The mattress was gone, So more camera work they trace
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: movements around the dump site after Aber and Mohammad left,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and they find it. About an hour after the tuk
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: took left, a half truck shows up. It loads the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: mattress and drives off destination unknown.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: At first a half truck, whose was it?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It belonged to Walid, And suddenly all the pieces click
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: into place. The identities of everyone involved are clear.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So the young man seen entering the house at nine
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: pm Tuesday, that.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Was Walid Sabre's thirty eight year old nephew, his own
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: sister son, his nephew.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And the boy helping Aber with the mattress.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Mohammed Saber's own eldest son, just sixteen years old.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Wow, the nephew and the sun. That brings up Aled's background,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: doesn't it. He'd just gotten out of.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Prison, Yeah, serve six years armed robbery, attempted murder.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: So you have to wonder was that criminal history a
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: red flag for Aber or was it actually part of
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the appeal. Did she see him as a necessary tool
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: for what she wanted to do?
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It seems like the latter his history might have made
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: him exactly the kind of person she thought she needed.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So the police called.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Them all in.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Aber, Walid Mohammed together.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine the tension in that room must.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Have been electric. Aber apparently tries one last time, sticking
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to the script, asking did you find Saber? But the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: act is up completely. The moment they show her the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: security footage her and Mohammed struggling with that mattress in
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the dead of night, her whole demeanor just shatters instantly.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: She confesses everything and the motive.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: It comes back to that compound trees an idea exactly.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Walid, the nephew, had started an elicit affair with Aber,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: his uncle's wife, been going on for about four months.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: And Walid wanted to marry her.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but obviously she was still married to Saber, his uncle.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, but the son's role in this, Mohammed, that's just horrifying.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: It really is. He was only sixteen, but he was
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: fully aware of the affair and he accepted the murder plan.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Why because of that deep almost institutionalized hatred for his
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: father that Abra had spent years building up.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: So he wasn't just aware, he was actively involved in
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: the planning.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Even pushing for it. When they discussed options, Apparently, Mohammad
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: argued that divorce wasn't enough. Death was the only way
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: to guarantee they'd get the inheritance, specifically that valuable house.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Wow the son advocating for murder to get the house.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It was about permanent financial security achieved through killing his
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: own father. Aber backed this up, promising both Walid and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Mohammad's substantial cash from selling the house.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Later, did Walid trust her?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Apparently not entirely. He demanded twenty five thousand Egyptian pounds
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: up front, partly for himself, partly to fund the whole operation,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the murder, the disposal.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: So this wasn't spontaneous. This was meticulously planned. How did
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: the actual execution go down?
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Horrifyingly calculated? It unfolded over a few days. First, about
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: three days before, Aber convinces Saber they have to buy
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: a new mattress, says the old one is.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Ruined, setting up the container for his body exactly.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Then Tuesday evening, Iber puts a massive dose of sleeping
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: pills in Saber's juice, lethal.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Amount knocks him out completely.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Right around midnight, Walid arrives Saber's unconscious. Walid then stabs
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: him in the chest, and then, just to be absolutely sure,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: he follows up by strangling him.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Brutal confirmation. Yes, and the concealments swift.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: The three of them, Aber, Walid Mohammed. They cut open
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the old mattress, put Saber's body inside he was apparently
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: quite small framed, and then sealed it back up.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And then Aber and Mohammed did the initial dump run
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: we saw on camera.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, and after they left the ditch, Walid came back
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with his half truck to collect the mattress.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, so where did he take it? What was the
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: final stifle?
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: This shows incredible premeditation. Walid drove the truck to a cemetery.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: He found a grave digger and paid him five thousand
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: EGP to illegally break open a family vault a tomb.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: They put Saber's body, still inside the mattress, into this tomb,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and then Walid seals the tomb himself with a brand.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: New padlock and gives the key to Aber.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Gives the key to Aber like a final macabre symbol
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of the security they thought they'd achieved.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: So the police track down the grave digger.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: They do, They exhume the body. Forensics confirms the whole sequence.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: The huge dose of sleeping pills, the stab wound, the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: signs of strangulation. It was exactly as confessed, a complete
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: cold blooded plan.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: And the legal outcome Eber and.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Walid were sentenced to death premeditated murder. Mohammed, because he
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: was only sixteen at the time, faced different proceedings as
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a miner.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: But his willing participation is consent. It's still central to
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the horror of this crime. Absolutely, and the implication here
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: it really circled back to that total collapse of the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: family unit. Doesn't it all for money and an affair.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Aberg's manipulation is just staggery. It wasn't just her lover.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: She corrupted kinship itself.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Convincing a nephew to kill his uncle, convincing a son
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to participate in murdering his own father, all for greed
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: for control of property. That level of psychological groundwork. That's
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the core of this compound treason.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: You know, this whole deep dive. It started with just
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the facts of a missing person case, but it really
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: ends with thinking about those years, those long years of emotional.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Abuse, all those little betrayals.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the constant nagging, the flawed marriage from the start,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the systematic poisoning of the children's minds against their father.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: It feels like all those small erosions of trust just accumulated,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: didn't they piling up until they somehow paved the way
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: for this final, massive act of calculated violence.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: It leaves you wondering, doesn't it. When greed and that
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: level of betrayal fester for so long within a family.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Is this kind of horrific outcome, this compound treason, somehow inevitable,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: or is it just the most extreme calculated possibility. It
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: is it chilling thought to end on