Latest / Crime Night / The Butcher, the Bakery, and the Brutal Betrayal: Egypt's Deadly Inheritance Plot of 1992

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The Butcher, the Bakery, and the Brutal Betrayal: Egypt's Deadly Inheritance Plot of 1992 · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, picture this. The year is nineteen ninety two. It's
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: deep into the night in Giza, Egypt. We're in the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hurram area. You know those really crowded maze like streets.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Imagine the heat still coming off the buildings. Down this dark,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: quiet side street, next to some old crumbling ruin. A
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: young man finds something terrifying.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he finds a body just left there. He doesn't
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: get close, calls the police right away, and when they arrive, well,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: it's obvious murder. Brutal too.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: How brutal are we talking?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Vere? Blunt force trauma to the head, multiple hits, looks
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: like something heavy, something sharp edged. Maybe his clothes completely
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: soaked in blood. Yeah, it was intense rage.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Grim But the first question wasn't just how he died, right, It.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Was rare exactly, And the biggest clue was staring them
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: right in the face. What he was wearing?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: What was it?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Just simple house clothes a globbyat you know, that long
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: sort of gown in these thin slippers, ship shed all
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: drenched in blood?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: House clothes? Wait, so not street clothes. If someone wanted
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to attack a wealthy merchant, wouldn't they expect him outside
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: doing business?
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Precisely. That's why the Gallapia changes everything. It completely flips
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the script. This wasn't the street hit, this wasn't a
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: business rival grabbing him on the way home.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: It happened indoors, right.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It strongly suggests the murder happened inside, probably in his
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: own home, where he felt safe. And then the body
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: was moved dumped nearby.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the killer wasn't some random outsider. They had access.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: They were inside the house, That's the immediate thought.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Someone intimate with the household, or at least someone who
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: could get in easy.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Who was this guy and who would dare do something
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: like this inside a home in such a packed neighborhood
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: then just carry the body out?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Well. Identifying the victim actually happened pretty fast. They started
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: checking missing persons reports filed around Giza, and they got
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: a hit almost immediately. Or report filed that very morning,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: a woman named Wujiha reported her husband missing. His name
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: was Ala.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Mahmod Mala ma Mood, a known figure.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, wealthy, well known in the area. So they
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: bring what Jiha to the mork and her reaction, apparently
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: quite dramatic, collapsed in grief, identified him. Yeah, but then
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: her story started.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: What'd she say?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: She immediately tried to point fingers outwards, said Mamood had
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: tons of enemies, business rivals, people jealous of his success.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: She even threw in this idea of a family vendetta.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: A vendetta like from his hometown.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she mentioned he was from Osuit in Upper Egypt,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: and maybe his family had some old score to settle
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: a tar she called it. Trying to create this whole
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: narrative of external threats.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a smoke screen. Did the police buy it?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Not for long? Her story started falling apart pretty quickly
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: when they looked at the facts they already had, like
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the clothes exactly Fact one, the house clothes that points
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: right back to the home, contradicting her story about him
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: being out and ambushed by say, unknown traders. She mentioned
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: fact two police intelligence. They started asking around quietly. Turns
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: out Mamod's real conflicts, the really bitter ones, they weren't
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: business rivals. They were almost all domestic inside his own family.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Ah and was there a third fact something specific?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, the clincher, the money trail. Just before he died,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Mahlamahmud had transferred ownership of his biggest asset, his bakery,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: the fern, directly to Wajiya.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: He gave her the bakery. Wow, that must have caused.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Waves, massive waves. You have to understand the context here.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: What Jiha was Mahmood's well, not his first wife or
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: even his second, and they had four daughters together, Saba, Swad, Sama,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: and Rehta.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But Mamod had other children from previous marriages.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Many including sons, and under the inheritance laws back then,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: those sons stood to inherit the lion's share of his estate.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: What Jiha and her daughters would get a much, much
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: smaller piece.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So getting the bakery in her name was.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Her way of securing her future and her daughter's future.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: It took that major asset right off the table before
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: inheritance laws could touch it. It protected them from the
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: claims of the suns.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But it also put a huge target on her back,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: didn't it, making her the prime suspect instantly.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: That transfer wasn't just a financial transaction. It was the
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: flash point for all the simmering family tension. It caused
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: huge arguments, massive strife with Mahmoud's other children. The police
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: saw that and thought, okay, the motive isn't some ancient vendetta.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: It's right here. It's about this bakery.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So the focus shifted entirely onto wa Jiha and the
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: situation inside.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: That house completely. To really get why this happened, though,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: you kind of have to go back way back twenty
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: years earlier, to nineteen seventy two. That's where this whole
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: tragic story really begins.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: All right, let's rewind nineteen seventy two. Tell us about
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Malama Mood.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Back then, he was a young man then, just arrived
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: in Giza from Asuit, settled in a neighborhood called kalm Elakhadar.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Started really small, just the little street cart selling foul
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and tame aya, you know, fava beans and falawful. Humble beginnings,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: very but he was ambitious and shrewd. He built his
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: business up, earned that title a master or merchant, became successful.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: But success didn't make him easy going.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Apparently not. Sources describe him as when arrogant, difficult, very
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: self interested trades that would definitely come back to bite
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: him later.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's Ma Mood. Where does Wajiha fit in?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Back in seventy two, she was right there.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Her father alhaj. Ma Mood was the local watchman, quite poor,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: working right near the Mallam shop where Jia was young,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: very beautiful, but also fiercely determined to escape poverty.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And she saw the successful Molim as her way out.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Seems like it. He was about twenty years older than her,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: already married to two other women at the time, had
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: loads of kids, so many as supposedly he couldn't even
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: remember all their names.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Wow, two wives and tons of kids, and Wajia still
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: went for it.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: She was strategic. She started making sure he noticed her,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: flattered him, made him feel young, desired, and Ma Mood,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: despite his age and existing families, fell for it hard, harsh,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: utterly obsessed. It got so intense that he actually promised Waiji,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: his father, he would divorce both his current wives and
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: essentially abandon all his existing children just so he could
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: marry Wajji.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Hum he promised that. Did he actually do it?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Get this? Two days later? He did just like that,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: divorce wives one and two, walked away from his kids
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: all for Waji.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Huh, that's shocking. He just threw away his entire family
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: for her.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So right from the start, you see this relationship is
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: built on something pretty unsable betrayal, convenience, obsession, not exactly
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: a recipe for lasting peace.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: No kidding, So fast forward. They get married. Did things
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: work out initially for a while.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it seemed like the marriage brought Mamu even more
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: luck financially. He bought the big bakery, built a large house.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: They had their four daughters.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Life was comfortable, but the peace didn't last.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: No. Once things settled down, Mahmoud apparently reverted to his
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: old ways, difficult, arrogant, maybe even abusive. And there was
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: a new source of tension.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: What Jiha hadn't given him a son, four daughters, but
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: no male heir to carry on the business the family name.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: And this apparently made him furious. His anger escalated and.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Wud you guy must have seen the writing on the wall,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: remembering how easily he dumped his previous wife exactly.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: She got terrified. She saw herself potentially ending up just
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: like them, divorced, abandon thrown back into poverty. That's when
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: she made her move for financial.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Security, the bakery transfer right.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: She pushed for it. She apparently convinced him the reason
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: was to protect her for their daughters. That she'd immediately
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: passing on to the girls, but she did nope. Once
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the deed was in her name, she refused to transfer
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: it again, held onto it herself, and that that refusal
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: ignited the final violent conflict between them. Constant fighting.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: So she had the bakery, but the fighting was intense.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: She must have felt trapped again.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It seems she reached a breaking point. With moods rage growing,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: maybe threats of divorce, she decided killing him was her
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: only way out, the only way to guarantee she kept
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: a bakery and her security.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: But she couldn't do it alone.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: She needed help, She needed accomplices she could trust, and
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: her choice. She's incredibly cruel when you think about it.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: She turned to two young men named Ayedelle and Zayed.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Who were they?
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: They were also from us, like Mahmood. He taken them
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: under his wing years ago, practically raised them, mentored them
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: in their business, treated them like his own sons. They
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: were his absolute right hand men.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: He trusted them completely, and she turned them against him.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Through manipulation and bribery. What Jihan knew, Adele secretly wanted
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: to marry her eldest daughter, saba Ah leverage big time
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: She made him an offer he couldn't refuse. You help
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: me kill Mahmood, you can marry Saba. Oh, and here's
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: five thousand Egyptian pounds, which back in nineteen ninety two
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: was a fortune.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And Adela agreed just.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Like that immediately apparently, but he said his brother Zayed
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: had to be in onto two. Zayed demanded his own
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: cut twenty five.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Hundred pounds, so would Jiha agreed to pay both of them,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and wold yes.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: She needed more help. Inside the house, she coeres two
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: of her own daughters, Saba, the one promised to Adilal
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: and another daughter Sama.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: How did she convince her own daughters to help murder
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: their father fear?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: She basically told him if he lives, if he divorces
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: me or finds out about this, we lose everything, will
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: be disgraced, thrown out, penniless. It's him or us.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable, the wife, two daughters, and his two most trusted sons.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: That's the conspiracy.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: That was the team. So this brings us right back
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: to that night in nineteen ninety two. The plan was set?
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: How did it go down?
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Meticulously planned? Adele and Zayed snuck into the family house
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: earlier in the evening. They hit up on the roof,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: just waiting while my mood was completely unaware. He came
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: home from work at the bakery, had his dinner prepared
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: by Wajiha chillingly enough, and then he just went to bed.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And then Worgiha gave the signal, so ban Sama went
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: up to the roof, brought Adidel and Zayid down quietly
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: where Jiha met the two men right outside the bedroom door.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Did she give them the weapon?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, She handed them a heavy iron pipe and they
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: just went in. They went into the bedroom my Moo's asleep.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: They beat him repeatedly with the pipe until he was dead,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: while watjd Ha stood nearby wait until it was done.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: She then confirmed he was dead and immediately shifted into
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: cover up mode.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: What was the first step get.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Rid of the body? She told aladelen Zayad to take
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: him out immediately, dump him somewhere nearby and deserted, which
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: turned out to be that ruin where he was found.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And while they were doing that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Wiji has Saba and Samah got to work inside a deep,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: methodical cleaning of the bedroom. They scrubbed away every single
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: trace of blood any evidence that the murder happened right there,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: sanitize the entire scene, and the next morning Wouldji have
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: put the final piece of her plan in motion. Went
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: to the police, filed the missing person report, fed them
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: the story about unknown traders, business enemies, the potential tar
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: trying to control the narrative from.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: The start, But it was too late. The police already
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: had doubts.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Too many consistencies. When they confronted her again, they laid
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: it all out.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: What do they hit her with?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Everything? The location where the body was found so close
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to home, the house clothes proving it happened inside, the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: lack of any real evidence of external enemies compared to
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: the known domestic fighting, and of course the huge financial
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: motive that Bakery transferre right before his death.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: The pressure must have been immense.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: It was faced with all the evidence, her story crumbled.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: She broke down completely. Didn't just admit her own role
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: as the mastermind. She named every single person involved, her
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: daughters Sabah and Samah, and the two men Mahmoud had
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: trusted like sons Adele and Zayid. Wow.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Wow, So looking back at this whole thing, what's the takeaway?
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Well, you see this twenty year arc right. It starts
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: with Woodie Hart pursuing security, which led her to encourage
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Mahmoud's betrayal of his first family, and it ends it
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: ends with her own ultimate betrayal, not just of Mahmood,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: but of her own daughters and the two young men
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: who were like family, all driven by this obsession with money,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: with securing those assets. In the end, that obsession cost
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: everyone involved absolutely everything.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: What was the legal outcome?
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Justice was quite severe in this case after the investigation
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: in the trials, all five of them, what Jiha, her
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: daughter Saba and Samah, and the brothers Adel and Zaid
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: were found guilty and the sentence they were all sentenced
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: to death execution. The whole intricate plot to gain wealth
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: and security led directly to the loss of their own lives.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: It's a chilling cycle. You mentioned. Mahmood sacrificed his first
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: family for Wajiha back in seventy two.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, seeking convenience, maybe reclaiming his youth.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Through her, and then twenty years later, wu Jiha sacrifices
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: her children, her accomplices, and ultimately herself for his assets.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: It really makes you think, doesn't it? When a life
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: or relationship is founded purely on self interest, on deceit,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: on using and discarding people, is an ending soaked in betrayal?
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Really that surprising?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was just doomed from the start. The initial
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: betrayal just kept echoing, getting louder and bloody earth.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It seems that way the foundation was rotten.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And here's something to leave you with. We know Weujiha
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: had four daughters with the Mahalam. Two of them, Saba
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and Sama, were executed alongside their mother. But what about
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the other two, Swad and Rada. What happened to them
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: after their father was murdered and their mother and sisters
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: were executed. Their lives must have been completely shattered. That's
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: perhaps a story for another deep dive.