Latest / Crime Night / The Deep Dive: Kofta, Poison, and the Thirteen-Year-Old Accomplice in Egypt's Ramadan Nightmare

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The Deep Dive: Kofta, Poison, and the Thirteen-Year-Old Accomplice in Egypt's Ramadan Nightmare · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Tonight, we're going back to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, to Ismailia in Egypt. Picture of this. It's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Ramadan evening time, just after Iftar, the meal that breaks
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the fast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Right, families are together, things are settling down in this
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: particular village, a pretty quiet, normal place. You'd expect sounds of,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: you know, dinner, maybe some TV comfort sounds.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But that evening, that quiet is just shattered.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Completely. It starts when a mother stumbles out of
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: our house. Neighbors see her, she's clearly desperate for help,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and then she just collapses.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Right there, My god, and inside inside.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's even worse. Her husband, their son, and their teenage daughter, Shima,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: all of them violently ill, so.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: A whole family. They're rushed to the hospital, all four
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: in critical condition.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Critical is almost an understatement. The father, he's pronounced dead
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: almost on arrival that fast.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And the mother and the son they're live, but
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: in this really deep, unresponsive state of unconsciousness just out.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So you've got three down essentially, But what about the daughter,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Sharma Sema.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: She's thirteen, she's conscious, distressed, complaining about terrible stomach pains.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: But well, she's much less effective than the others. She's
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the only one who can.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Talk, okay, so she becomes the immediate source of information.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: What does she say happened?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: She tells the doctors and later the police that they
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: all ate cough to meatballs that her mother had made
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: for dinner.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: All right, So the immediate thought is obvious, right, food poisoning,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: tragic but accidental.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Exactly, And Sima even offers a reason why she wasn't
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: as sick. Yeah, she claims she only ate a tiny
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: bit because well, she says, she doesn't really like meat.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Seems plausible on the surface. A terrible accident, maybe improperly
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: prepared food.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: That was the initial theory. But the medical team they're
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: training to look closer, and things weren't adding up.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: What wasn't adding up the.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Way the father died, For one, it was too quick,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: too violent. The post mortem signs pointed towards something much
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: stronger than you know, bacteria, like a potent.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Chemical, not just spoiled food.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: That's what they started suspecting, and the deep coma of
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the mother and son. It was also medically puzzling, more
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: severe than typical food poisoning would cost.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So the symptoms themselves are screaming foul play pretty much.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: The doctors quickly realized this wasn't just bad kafta. This
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: looked deliberate, and that's when they made the call. They
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: called the police, alerted the security forces. Yeah, suddenly it
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: shifts from a medical emergency to a potential homicide investigation,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: all within hours.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so security rives, but their main witnesses, the mother
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and son, are still unconscious.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Right, So all eyes turn to Shama. She's the only
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: one they can.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Question, and she sticks to her story, repeats.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: It exactly, coughed, dinner, muter cooked, she ate, just a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: little terrible stomach pains. They see she's upset, but figure,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: you know, trauma, who wouldn't be.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, are they checking the family's.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Background absolutely, talking to neighbors, everyone says the same thing, quiet, family, respectable,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: no known enemies, no conflicts.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Nothing, which makes the idea of a deliberate poisoning even
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: more baffling. Who would do this and why?
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly the question. They send the father's body for a
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: full forensic autopsy to get a definitive cause of death,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: but they're already leaning heavily towards.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Foul play and then comes a turning point, a huge one.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: About an hour after the police get there, the mother
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: starts to regain consciousness just enough to speak.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, finally, what does she say? Does she confirm Shima's account?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: She confirms the cop to dinner. Yes, But then she
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: says something that changes everything. She thanks God that Shima
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: didn't need any of it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Wait what she said Shama didn't need didn't need.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Any The mother is adamant, said Sharma dislikes meat so
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: much that they always prepared something separate for her. She
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: never touched the kafta.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: But Shima told everyone she did eat it just a
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: little bit and complain about stomach pans.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The stories are in direct conflict, and the mother
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: just coming around. She's probably not the about covering anything up.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: She's just stating a fact as she knows it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: So Shama lied about eating the food, about the stomach pains.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: If she didn't eat the poison kofta, why pretend she did?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Why fake being sick?
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: That becomes the million dollar question, doesn't it. It looks
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: like well, it looks like a cover, a way to
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: seem like a victim alongside everyone else. Suddenly the thirteen
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: year old isn't just a witness.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: She's the prime suspect.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: The focus shifts entirely onto her. And then the forensic
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: report comes back and.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: What does it say? Confirms poison.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitively, not just poison, but specific chemical poisons, the
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: kind used in agriculture for rodents and reptiles, nasty stuff.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: This completely rules out any accidental food spoilage theory.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It was deliberate, intentional one.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Percent, and further tests show the mother and son ingested
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the exact same poison. This points to a single event,
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  Speaker 2: a single source, not some random attack.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So what do the police do with Shremanow confront her,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: They make.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: A tactical decision. They place her under quiet observation, basically
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  Speaker 2: detain her, but without revealing what they know. They let
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: her think she's still considered a victim.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Why to gather more evidence exactly?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: They need to nail down the opportunity. They go back
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: to the mother, get a detailed timeline.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Of the day and what does that reveal.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: The mother confirmed she prepared the meat misture the day before.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: On the day itself, Shama was home all day, no school,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: no work, and crucially, she was the only other person
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: helping in the kitchen right before the meal was served.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So Shama had access, She had the opportunity.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Access, opportunity, and a confirmed lie about eating the food.
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  Speaker 2: All the pieces are pointing one way.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: So now they confront her.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Now they do they bring her in, lay it out.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: We know you didn't eat the kafta, we know it
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: contained a large amount of agricultural poison. You are our
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: primary suspect.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And her reaction, does she deny it, fight back?
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Apparently not. It seems the moment she realized they knew
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: that her story was blown, she just confessed, immediately.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Confess to poisoning her own family. What was the motive?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Why would a thirteen year old do that?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Her stated motive was chillingly simple. She said she wanted
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: to get rid of her family so she could live
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: freely with someone named Fathy Fafy.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Who's Fathy a boyfriend? Someone her age.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: That's the next shock. Fathy wasn't a teenage boyfriend. Fathy
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: was their sixty five year old neighbor, a local.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Farmer, sixty five and she's thirteen. His change is the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: whole complexion of the.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: Case dramatically, And it wasn't a new relationship. Shama revealed
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: that Fathy had started this relationship when she was only
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: six years old.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Six oh, that's horrific. For seven years.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: How, Fathy was a longtime family friend, completely trusted by
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the father. He was seen as this harmless kind of
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: grandfatherly figure. He could come and go from the house
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: pretty freely.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So he had easy access, unsupervised access to a very
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: young child exactly.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Her parents both worked, the brother was off and out,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Fathy would apparently come over once they left. It started,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: she said, with inappropriate touching, showing her pornography, and it
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: escalated quickly into a full blown, continuous illegal sexual relationship.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And the parents never suspected, never noticed anything.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: It seems not. Their trust in Fathy was absolute. They
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: saw him as family, and over seven years, Shama's reality
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: became completely distorted. Fathy was the one giving her attention,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: focusing on her. She came to see him as in
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: her words, everything her loyalty shifted entirely to her abuser.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: That level of grooming, it's terrifying. So what triggered the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: poisoning plot? Why? Then?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: The catalyst, ironically was the father finally noticing something was wrong.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: For seven years, he realized Fathy was visiting too much.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: He confronted him.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: He finally confronted him, Yes.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: And apparently it was a big public argument in front
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: of Shema, in front of neighbors. The father basically threw
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Fathy out, told him never to come back, humiliated him publicly.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Fathy feels humiliated, exposed maybe, and.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: He decides on revenge, not just answer father, but the
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: whole family, the father for the expulsion, the mother and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: brother for witnessing his shame. He wanted to wipe them
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: all out.
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  Speaker 1: And Shima, she went along with this to kill her own.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Family, instantly agreed. Apparently she was furious at her father for,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: in her eyes, dishonoring Fathy, the man she saw as
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: her protector, her everything.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So Fathy provided the means.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: He gave her a full bag of the agricultural poison.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Shaimah helping her mother in the kitchen, h she just
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: waited for a moment when her mother stepped out.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And she did it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Then dumped the entire bag into the cough to mixture.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Then she sat down at the dinner table and watched
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: them meet it, just.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Watched them, knowing what she'd done.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: A nice cold calculation. The fake stomach pain earlier, the
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: lie about eating only a little, that was all part
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of the plan. Make it look like accidental food poisoning
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and she'd be the lucky survivor.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable what happened to Fathy.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: He was arrested very quickly, confessed right away, even showed
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: them where he kept the rest of the poison. His excuse,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: he claimed he wanted to marry Shima eventually was just
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: waiting for her to get older, and the father public
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: expulsion pushed him over the edge his fate. Fathy was sentenced.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: To death, and Shemah as a minor what happened to her?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Because of her age, she couldn't face the same penalty.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: She was committed to a juvenile correctional facility. It raises
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: complex questions about legal responsibility when the perpetrator is also,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: in many ways a long term victim.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, but the story doesn't quite end there, does it.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: There's a final chilling detail about Smah herself.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, when authorities questioned her about the crime, about killing
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: her father, nearly killing her mother and brother, she expressed
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: absolutely zero remorse, none.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: No remorse at all after everything.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: None and She apparently added something even more disturbing.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: She said that if her mother and brother had somehow
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: survived the poisoning attempt, she would have tried to praise
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: in them.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Again, Wow, just wow. That lack of empathy, that determination,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: it's deeply unsettling.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: It really speaks to the devastating impact of those seven
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: years of grooming. Fathy didn't just abuse her, He fundamentally
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: warped her entire moral compass, her ability to feel empathy,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: her connection to her own family. The trust her parents
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: placed in him became the weapon used to destroy them.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It's a catastrophic failure of protection. Really, a predator hiding
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: in plain site, leveraging trust to inflict unimaginable harm.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: And it leads us with such a difficult question, doesn't it.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: You look at Samah thirteen years old, legally a child,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: undoubtedly a victim of horrific, prolonged abuse. Yet she also
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: planned and executed this incredibly calculated, brutal crime with zero
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: apparent regret.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So where is that line? After years of that kind
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of intense psychological manipulation in grooming, at what point does
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the victim whose reality has been so utterly twisted by
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: their abuser, become well, become a willing accomplice in their
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: own right. It really makes you think about the profound,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: lasting damage of exploitation.