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The Iron Woman's Knockout Confession · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's set the scene. We're in Hell in Egypt.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The year's two thousand and one. It's late morning, hot,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and everything feels.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Ordinary, completely ordinary, just another apartment building on another residential street,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: the kind of place where routine is everything, until it's
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: not right, because suddenly a sound just rips through that quiet, A.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Scream, a woman's scream, and it is piercing, desperate.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It's coming from the apartment of a couple, Yusef and
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: his wife Aziza.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: People immediately start running. The first one in is the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: building guard's daughter, who actually worked for Aziza, so she
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: knew them well, and.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: She finds Aziza just hysterical, saying the same thing over
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: and over.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Welled me, my husband fel he's gone.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: So everyone rushes into the bedroom and there's Yusef, sixty
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: three years old, dead on the.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Bed, and the neighbors well, they immediately draw a conclusion.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: A very simple one, natural death. And I mean, why
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: wouldn't they.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the man was known to be severely ill.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Severely We're talking chronic heart problems, really bad diabetes. It
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: had taken a huge toll. He couldn't get around easily,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: and he'd recently had a foot amputated.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So seeing him like this it wasn't a shock. He was,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: you know, sad, but almost expected.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: An unfortunate inevitability exactly.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So the doctor comes, takes one look at his massive
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: file of prescriptions and hospital reports.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: And signs off on it natural causes. The health office
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: issues the burial permit, no problem.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Before the sun even sets that day, Yusuf is buried
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in the family cemetery.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Case closed, a sad, quiet end for a sick man.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: The quiet doesn't always mean finished. Fast forward twenty days.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: The morning period is over as Hes is trying to
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: pick up the pieces, and then a knock at the door.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's the police and they are not there to offer condolences.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: No, they're there to arrest her.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: She is charged with Yusuf's premeditated murder, citing criminal suspicion.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's unpack this for you. Think about this
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: twenty days of past. The body is in the ground,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: a doctor has officially declared it a natural death.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So what in the world could have surfaced after the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: funeral to make the police not just reopen the case
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but charge a grieving widow with homicide.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: That's the mystery. We need to solve and to.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Do that you have to go back sixteen years, back
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty five.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Right, that's where this all starts. Aziza was a young,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: very sharp tax officer in Giza. Yusuf was her manager.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And he was older, significantly older.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: A twenty year age gap. For Aziza, that was part
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: of the appeal, you know, the idea that an older
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: man would be more sensible.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: More stable, the safe bet.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: He was instantly drawn to her, and they married that
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: same year.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Now this wasn't his first marriage.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: No, he'd been married twice before. One wife died, the
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: other marriage ended in divorce, and crucially, he had no children.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: And Aziza also had trouble conceiving. So in a way
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it seemed like a good fit companionship without the pressure
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of starting a new family.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: But that dream of stability, it's soured. Fast forward thirteen
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: years and the marriage is just curdled.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: The age gap didn't bring maturity, it brought control, an.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Incredible amount of control. He became emotionally abusive, constantly accusing
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: her of marrying him for self interest. After all this time, yeah,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: as if she was some kind of gold digger. It
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: was all about chipping away at her self worth.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And this is before his health really.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Collapses, exactly. The psychological erosion came first. Then his body
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: started to fail him. The diabetes got worse, the heart problems,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: and then the amputation.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: He's forced into early retirement.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: His pension is tiny and the medical bills are astronomical.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: They completely swallow his income.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So Aziza's role shifts entirely. She's not just a wife.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Anymore, not at all. She becomes his full time caregiver,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: his nurse, and the sole financial backbone of their entire life.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: She's paying for everything, all this specialized care, the debt, everything.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: And you'd think he'd be grateful, you would think, but
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: instead he doubles down. The control becomes what investigators called
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: a love of ownership.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: A love of ownership. Wow.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: She needed his permission for everything. And the biggest point
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: of conflict was.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Her own father, her elderly father, who she also wanted
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to care for.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Yusuf couldn't stand it. He insisted that his needs came first,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that he had to be her absolute, undivided priority.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So she's being drained financially, she's exhausted physically, and she's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: trapped psychologically. This is the woman they called the iron woman, not.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Because she was heroic, but because she had been hammered
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: into something hard, something on the verge of breaking.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the context. How did the police get
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: from A to B from natural death to a murder investigation?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: It all started with one phone call, an anonymous tip
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: from a relative of Yusef, and the accusation was stunning.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: They said Aziza beat her husband to death.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Which is a huge claim considering the circumstances. The police
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't just exhume the body based on that.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Right, so they had to be discreet. They started talking
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: to the only real witnesses they had, the neighbors.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And the neighbors started to paint it very very different picture.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Of that day, a completely different one. Let's start with
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: the first two witnesses, students who lived in the building.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, what do they say?
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: They both testified that they heard Yusuf screaming that morning loudly.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And one of them was very specific. He said he
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: heard Usf yelling for help, a clear cry of distress.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Immediately before Aziza let out her own scream announcing his death.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: That timing, that's really bad for her story.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: It's catastrophic. Then you have Witness number three, a close
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: friend of Yusef's who ran in when he heard the noise.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And he sees something.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: He sees a distinct spot of blood on the pillow
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: where Yusef is lying.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: A spot of blood.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: But here's the kicker. The friend steps out of the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: room for a moment, and when he comes back in,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: the pillow has been changed.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: It's gone. Someone cleaned up the scene in the middle of.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: All that chaos exactly, And Witness I just confirms the
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: violent atmosphere. A neighbor who recalls hearing terrible.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Arguments and saw something physical right.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Burnmarks on the living room ceiling. Yusef had told him
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: once that Aziza, in a fit of rage, had threatened
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: to burn the entire apartment down.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So the police now have a timeline that doesn't fit,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a cleaned up scene and a history of violent threats,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but they still need motive.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: The final nail in the coffin, and they found it
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: the money. The investigation uncovered a secret transaction from five
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: months earlier. Yusuf had been talking to the building's owner
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: about what about selling his rights to the apartment their home.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: He wanted a lump sum of cash to cover his
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: medical debt.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And what would that have meant for Aziza.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: It would have meant she'd be homeless. After thirteen years
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: of total sacrifice, he was planning to leave her with
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: absolutely nothing.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: That's the betrayal, that's the breaking point.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: When she found out, it triggered the worst fighting they
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: had ever had. It was the final war.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: So with all of this, the witnesses that cover up
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the motive, they.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Bring her in and at first she everything. She's strong.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: She even tries to flip it on the building owner,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: saying he's framing her to get the apartment.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But the evidence is just too much.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: It's overwhelming. She breaks down and she confesses.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: And she describes it in a very specific way.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: She said she delivered the knockout punch.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Oh darba el kadilla. It sounds so final.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: It was meant to be. She saw it as the
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: end of a long, brutal fight, and.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: The trigger it was something so small, so mundane.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: She wanted to go to her niece's birthday party, a
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: single afternoon freedom, and he wouldn't allow it. He gave
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: her his final ultimatum. He told her, if you leave,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: you are divorced and never come back.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And after everything, the abuse, the financial ruin, the planned eviction,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that was it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: That was the snap, she said. Her whole life just
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: flashed in front of her, the lost years, the empty future.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And he was vulnerable completely.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: He wasn't wearing his prosthetic leg. He was leaning on
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: furniture just to stand. He couldn't fight back or run,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and she just dagged him violently. She called it a
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: free wrestling match. He started screaming for the neighbor.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: The screams they hears.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, and to silence him, she hit him a hard
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: punch right to the face, the knockout punch. He collapsed instantly, unconscious,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: but he was still breathing.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Oh wow.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: She realized it wasn't over, so she finished it. She
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: strangled him until he.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Was dead, and then the cover up. She moved him
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to the bed, arranged the scene and.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Started screaming for help, playing the part of the grieving wife,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: a performance that fooled everyone for three weeks.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So with the confession, they exhumed the.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Body and the forensics confirmed everything. The blaze to the head,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the clear signs of strangulation, it all matched her story perfectly.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Aziza the Iron Woman, was convicted of murder.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: And sentenced to death.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: When you really look at this case, it's about this transformation,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: this ordinary woman who was pushed and pressured for years
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: until she became a killer.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: The key takeaway is that Yusuf never changed. The need
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: for control, That love of ownership was there for all
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: thirteen years.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: He just kept pushing until she finally pushed back.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: It just leaves you with this really chilling thought, doesn't it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: If some personality flaws, these deep controlling behaviors are truly unchangeable.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: What's the real consequence of hoping that they'll get better under.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Pressure, especially when your entire life depends on it. What
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: does it actually take for a person to reach that
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty degree breaking point where all that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: despair finally just overrides everything else.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Something to mull over as you consider the fragility of
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the human psyche