I cover a lot of unsolved mysteries on this
channel, but occasionally it’s nice to have
some answers, so today we’ll be examining
4 former mysteries that have thankfully been
cracked by smarter minds than my own. We’ll
kick things off with a case that only just
resolved last month… and lemme tell ya,
this one’s like something straight out of
American Psycho.
Fahim Saleh was a young man with big ideas.
Described by his friends as the Elon Musk
of the Developing World, he started his first
business while still in high school, before
going on to co-found 3 multi-million dollar
companies in Bangladesh, Nepal and Nigeria.
But despite achieving such success, Fahim
wasn’t the type of guy to cash out and live
a party lifestyle. Instead, he turned his
sights to the land of opportunity: America,
where he founded a Manhattan-based venture
capital firm in 2018. By the start of this
year his estimated net worth was around $150m
US. With so much cash under his coffers, the
only limited resource this young entrepreneur
had was time. Unfortunately, his was about
to run out.
On July 14th, 2020, Fahim’s sister went
to his luxury 2.25m dollar apartment in New
York to check up on him. Fahim’s neighbours
had contacted her the day prior, saying they’d
heard loud screaming coming from his place.
Since he wasn’t picking up his phone, she
went over to see what all the commotion was
about. When she opened the door, she was immediately
hit by a nauseating, metallic smell. She stepped
inside, and noticed something on the ground.
It didn’t quite register at first, but after
a moment, she realised what she was looking
at. It was Fahim’s torso, lying next to
an electric power-saw. His head, arms and
legs had been cut off and placed in garbage
bags elsewhere in the apartment. Can you imagine
going to visit your brother and being confronted
by that? Needless to say, she contacted the
authorities immediately. Multiple large plastic
bags were found in the apartment, suggesting
his killer had been attempting to clean up
the scene and dispose of his remains. Investigators
said he’d been butchered the night before,
and that Fahim’s sister had likely interrupted
the killer’s clean-up job. He more than
likely escaped through the back entrance when
he realised she was coming in.
The tech world was in shock, and theories
started to fly around about who’d taken
the CEO’s life. Could this have been some
sort of organised hit? On his way to the top,
Fahim had made his fair share of enemies and
competitors, so they couldn’t rule that
out. Was this simply a robbery gone wrong?
When you live in such a fancy condominium,
you’re bound to attract the eyes of some
evil people.
Well, one of the first things the detectives
did was check the complex’s security tapes.
What they found was of extreme interest. On
the night of his death, Fahim was captured
on CCTV entering the building with a man dressed
entirely in black, and wearing a face mask.
This unknown individual was carrying a brief-case.
The two men entered the key-secured elevator
that led to Fahim’s seventh floor apartment.
When the door to the elevator opened, Fahim
could be seen struggling with the man in black
before being forced into his flat.
So, who was behind Fahim’s untimely demise?
Well, this has to be one of the shortest mysteries
I’ve ever covered, as it only lasted 3 days.
On July 17th, Fahim’s assistant Tyrese Haspil
was arrested and charged with the slaying.
Tyrese had recently been caught stealing $90,000
from Fahim and was fired. Rather than going
to the authorities, Fahim gave Tyrese an opportunity
to pay back the money and avoid criminal charges.
By all accounts Fahim was a nice guy who liked
to give people a chance, especially young
people. In this instance however, he shouldn’t
have, as Tyrese responded by masking up, following
his former boss into his apartment building,
and using a taser to incapacitate him before
stabbing him several times in his apartment.
He then used the electric saw he’d brought
in his briefcase to slice up Fahim into easily
disposable pieces. Tyrese was far from a mastermind,
however, as he’d used his own credit card
to buy the saw and taser found at the scene.
Their serial numbers were linked to his purchases,
and he was also captured on CCTV shopping
for them, as well as for cleaning supplies.
As it stands, Tyrese has pleaded not guilty
to taking Fahim’s life, though with so much
evidence against him it seems like a pretty
open and shut case. Regardless, I had to include
this one for how recent and grisly it is.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to return
some videotapes…
Well we’ve covered a case that was solved
just last month, so now let’s explore a
case that came to a close just last week…
He was known by many names during his active
years. In the early days when he’d simply
sneak into homes and steal cheap trinkets
and nightwear, he was dubbed the Visalia Ransacker.
In the late 70s when he’d forcefully have
his way with women, he became known as The
Original Nightstalker. As his crimes progressed
so too did his alias. When he started taking
lives, the media started calling him The Diamond
Knot Killer. In fact, the authorities weren’t
even sure if all these incidents were even
the work of the same guy. When they finally
realised they were dealing with just one perp,
however, they settled on a name that would
stick. They called him The Golden State Killer.
During his 13 year long reign of terror, he’d
take the lives of 13 people, and have his
way with more than 50. He’s one of the reasons
Americans started locking their doors at night.
Let’s start from the beginning…
Over a 20 month period starting in 1973, a
man in Visalia, California broke into at least
120 homes. Once inside, this unknown burglar
would go through the homeowner’s property,
ignoring any valuable items or cash that he
came across, and would simply vandalise their
possessions, scatter women’s underwear around,
and steal low-value items to keep as souvenirs.
His motivation for doing this wasn’t clear
to anyone at the time, but it seems likely
that he was using Visalia as a sort of training
ground, honing his skills and nerve for his
future activity. This all came to a head at
the end of his time in the city, when he shot
and killed a homeowner after he caught him
trying to steal his daughter away from her
room. The Golden State Killer had claimed
his first life, and unfortunately, like a
dog that tastes blood for the first time,
he hungered for more.
Old Goldylocks escaped the heat by fleeing
the city and moving to Sacramento, where his
crimes escalated. Now no longer content with
just breaking into houses and trashing the
property, he instead would intentionally target
the homes of couples. He’d come in the middle
of the night, armed, and would tie up the
male partner, before forcefully having his
way with the female. When Bob and Gay Hardwick
awoke in the early hours in the spring of
1978, they saw an unknown figure standing
at the foot of their bed, shining a flashlight
in their faces. He ordered Mrs Hardwick to
tie up her husband, and then stacked plates
and dishes on his back. He then took her into
another room, warning Mr Hardick to remain
still, because if he heard any of the dishes
fall or smash, he’d take both of their lives.
For several hours the intruder had his way
with Mrs Hardwick, stopping occasionally to
help himself to snack from their fridge, and
sometimes going back to taunt Mr Hardwick.
He would often go quiet and hide in the shadows,
leading the couple to think he’d finally
left them alone, only for him to jump out
again and continue tormenting them. Luckily
he stopped short of slaying the couple, and
after he’d had his fun, he skulked off into
the night, leaving the Harwicks wondering
if he’d really left, or if he was still
hiding in the house somewhere. This was just
one of 50 known instances where he did this
exact thing in and around Sacramento, shattering
countless lives in the process.
After this, Golden State moved to Southern
California, and with this new move he again
kicked things up a notch. Now after he’d
broken into his victims homes and had his
way with the females, he’d end their lives,
usually by bludgeoning them with a pipe wrench
or some similar tool. In total, he took the
lives of 13 people during his spree, and would
frequently call up the authorities and leave
messages, wishing them Merry Christmas, telling
them they’d never catch him, etc. There
was a massive campaign to catch Golden State
- billboards with various composites were
put up, and a huge $50,000 reward was offered
to anyone with information. Then, in 1986,
after 13 years of activity, his spree came
to an abrupt end. Perhaps the heat was getting
too much for ol’ Goldy, or perhaps he’d
just had his fill and decided enough was enough.
Ultimately, no-one knows why he decided to
stop.
Still, detective never gave up looking for
him. He’d caused far too much carnage to
escape justice. Sadly, their efforts were
futile. That was, until the introduction of
DNA analysing technology. Only then did they
come to realise that the cases in Visalia,
Sacramento and Southern California were all
the work of one man. 20 of Goldy’s distant
relatives had submitted their DNA to a website
called GEDmatch. Detectives were able to link
DNA found at the crime scenes to that of the
relatives, and from that they were able to
build a family tree. From there, they came
across one individual who fit the profile
of the man they were looking for perfectly.
After 45 years of hunting and numerous failed
leads and arrests, the investigators finally
found their man: Joseph James DeAngelo, a
former police-officer. He was taken into custody
in 2018, and ended up pleading guilty to 26
charges as a way to escape the chair. Last
week, he was sentenced to 11 consecutive life
sentences without the possibility for parole.
Now, at the age of 74, he’ll be spending
the remainder of his life behind bars.
There’s something particularly sickening
about evil doctors and nurses who purposefully
take the lives of their patients. Perhaps
it’s because they’ve sworn an oath to
do the exact opposite of that, or because
they’re in a position of power over such
vulnerable people, or because their medical
knowledge helps them cover their tracks more
easily… Anyway, no prizes for guessing what
this next entry’s about!
A few days ago I was surfing through Reddit
as one does, when I came across an AMA titled
“I Hunt Medical Serial Killers. Ask Me Anything”.
Well that caught my attention. The whole thread
was hosted by a guy who worked on exposing
doctors and nurses that use their medical
expertise to prematurely end the lives of
their patients, mostly just for the thrill
of it. He even shared the disturbing insight
that, although in a lot of these cases the
other staff-members know their coworker is
killing their patients, they frequently still
remain working without any administrative
action taken against them until the media
or law enforcement gets involved. That’s
disappointing to hear, but perhaps most of
them don’t want to believe that one of their
own could really be doing something so terrible,
and become convinced they’re imagining things
- I’m trying to look at this positively
guys.
Anyway, one user asked the question: In your
opinion, what are some of the most crazy stories
of medical serial killers? (I'm sure all of
them are crazy, but which ones are extra-crazy?).
“They are similar in some respects and unique
in others. I think the nurse in Italy who
took a selfie with her and the patient she
had just murdered is pretty crazy.”
The nurse he was talking about is Daniela
Poggiali, otherwise known as the “Angel
of Death”.
At her hospital in Lugo, Northern Italy, medical
staff started to become concerned with their
rising mortality rate. A lot of patients,
particularly the older ones, were dying at
an alarming rate. This perplexed most of them,
who wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.
After a while, some of the other nurses started
to become suspicious of Daniela. They began
to notice that she would sedate patients that
would bother her during her shifts. This behaviour
started to raise a few eyebrows, and people
secretly started paying more attention to
what Daniela was getting up to on her rounds.
The more keen eyed amongst them realised that
the whenever Daniella was on duty, the death
rate at the hospital went up, and whenever
she’d go on vacation it would drop back
down again. A coincidence? Maybe. But definitely
an observation that warranted closer inspection.
In the end it turned out that Daniella was
indeed poisoning her patients with potassium
chloride. A woman named Manuela Alci recalled
how when her mother was sick at the hospital
with a mild ailment, Daniella rushed her out
of the room saying she had things to do. 10
minutes later Manuela returned to find a small
glass phial attached to her mother’s drip
feed which hadn't been there before, and which
ran out in just a few minutes. After that,
her mother started convulsing, and her eyes
rolling back into her head. A few minutes
later, she was gone. Daniella likely used
potassium chloride as traces of it leave the
body very quickly and it’s extremely hard
to detect. At this point, one of her suspicious
coworkers quickly tested the dead woman’s
aqueous humour and found traces of the poison
just in time. A used vial of potassium chloride
was also found in a disposal unit.
This was reported, and the authorities soon
paid a visit to Miss Poggiali. They asked
if she could explain something to them: why
was she present for 93 deaths in two years
at the hospital, more than 3 or 4 times the
average of her other colleagues, and double
that of the nurse with the second highest
figure? Bad luck, she said. Daniella was quickly
arrested.
During their investigation, a lot of disturbing
details emerged surrounding Daniella; how
she stole her patient’s personal belongings,
gave them extra laxatives to cause trouble
for the next person on shift, administered
sleeping agents to ensure an easy shift for
herself. When one of her coworkers said they
were going to report her for this, Daniella
threatened them by leaving a funeral bouquet
on the hood of their car.
Most shockingly of all, they found these two
pictures of her smiling and laughing next
to the bodies of 2 patients whose lives she
had just ended.
She appeared in court, laughing a smiling
just like in the photos, and didn’t appear
to be taking the whole affair very seriously,
despite the fact she was accused of slaying
38 people. While in prison, the blonde nurse
received a slew of fan-mail from admirers
and even the odd marriage proposal or two.
In a twisted way, she seemed to enjoy the
publicity she was receiving.
In 2016 she was sentenced to life behind bars.
Despite the authorities being sure of her
guilt and this case effectively solved, Daniella
made an appeal the following year, and was
released in 2017 over a technicality. She
still faces criminal action over the other
deaths she’s suspected of.
Here’s an example of a case that was solved
by the perp himself.
It was 1977, and several people had gone missing
in Indianapolis, Indiana. They were 24-year-old
Karen Nills, her 2-year-old son Robert, and
17-year-old Sandra Harris. This was alarming,
but sadly not surprising to the local authorities.
Over the course of a decade there’d been
a spike in unexplained vanishings and disappearances.
The only thing they all had in common was
that foul play was suspected in each instance.
It seemed as if Indianapolis detectives had
a serial killer on their hands - and whoever
the perp was was doing a good job at hiding
his victims. Investigators spent day and night
searching for this illusive man, hoping that
one day he’d slip up and give them the lead
they needed. Well, he went one step further
than that…
On April 20th of that year, Harriet Carr noticed
that the door to her garage was ajar. She
could hear the family car’s motor running.
She went to look inside, and found her husband,
“Ted” Carr, on the ground, dead from carbon
monoxide poisoning. She rushed inside to turn
off the still running car, only to find her
husband wasn’t the only one inside the garage.
Three other people were dead in the trunk
of the vehicle: two females and a young boy.
As you can guess, they were the missing Karen,
Sandra and Robert. A vacuum cleaner hose was
leading from the car’s tailpipe towards
the trunk of the car, and they, too, had perished
from the engine’s fumes. Harriet ran screaming
from the garage, and her neighbours contacted
the authorities.
After looking over the scene, they found a
revolver in Ted’s jacket pocket and a handkerchief
in his hand. After examining all the evidence,
they were able to piece together a pretty
clear picture about what’d happened.
Ted had forcefully taken the three victims,
had his way with the two females, and then
ordered them all inside the trunk of his car
at gunpoint. He drove them back to the family
garage, where he connected the hose to the
exhaust. He placed the other end inside the
trunk, and started the engine. He then closed
and locked the trunk, and left Karen, Robert
and Sandra to suffocate.
Some time later, Ted went back inside to check
that all three of them were dead. He used
a handkerchief to cover his nose as he opened
the trunk, to protect him from the fumes inside.
He didn’t realise just how much toxic gas
there would be when he opened the lid, though,
and upon opening it up, he immediately fell
victim to his own plan. The smoke engulfed
him, and he died there and then.
With the perp now identified and out of the
picture, the investigators started working
backwards to fill in the gaps of the case.
It’s like they had A and Z, but not B through
Y. They began by looking into Ted’s record,
and boy did this guy have a background history.
He’d done some pretty horrendous things
in the past, most of which he’d gotten away
with. This included picking up a pair of hitchhikers
in 1947, only to drive them out to the woods,
handcuff the male to a trailer hitch, and
forcefully have his way with the female. He’d
also swindled a blind elderly woman out of
her life-savings, and took a 14-year old to
Mexico for, quote unquote, “immoral purposes”.
For that last one he received 5 years in prison,
but was released after 3. A “simpler time”,
let’s put it like that.
The biggest thing the investigators turned
up, however, was that Ted was very likely
responsible for another set of disappearances
in 1967, 10 years prior to his fatal blunder.
Lois Williams and her 17 year old daughter
Karen went missing back in February of that
year, and it was even rumoured that both of
them had an intimate relationship with Ted.
Back then Ted owned a a service station that
Louis would frequently use. On the night the
two ladies disappeared, one of Ted’s employees
saw them both leave the gas station in Ted’s
car. The next morning, when he came into work,
that same employee found Ted lying in the
street outside the station, bloody and dazed.
Ted said that he’d just been mugged, but
insisted that nobody call the police. The
employee ran into the store to check if anything
had been stolen. Nothing had, but he did find
something interesting. Ted’s car was on
one of the lifts, and it had been cleaned
with a pressure washer, with particular focus
on the trunk.
One night after Louis and Karen went missing,
that same employee’s wife received a phone
call. Both she and her husband lived next
to Ted, and while she was home alone he rang
her up with a request. He said he was in hospital,
and that he thought he’d accidentally left
his garage door open - would she be a dear
and check for him? He was worried someone
might take his tools inside. Well, her husband
had told her about the pressure washed car,
and she decided not to check things out for
him, a decision that likely saved her life.
Another neighbour later reported seeing Ted’s
car parked a few blocks away, so Ted’s request
was likely a trap.
After Ted’s passing and his twisted pastime
being discovered, Lois and Karen’s case
was reopened, now with Ted as the main suspect.
His garden was dug up, and his house searched
thoroughly. Nothing was found, and unfortunately,
the investigators felt they weren’t given
enough time to check the place fully. Ted
was revered as a master craftsman, and he’d
remodelled his entire basement shortly after
Louis and Karen vanished. They believe that
their bones are still somewhere inside that
house, likely hidden within the walls.
With the mystery of the Indianapolis killer
finally solved thanks to sheer luck, now the
only questions left are these: where did Ted
hide the remains of the other people he killed,
and how many other victims are there that
we still don’t know about?
Last year, a 27-year Canadian cold case finally
came to a close thanks to an inquisitive 13
year old boy’s love of swimming. Canadian
cold case; try saying that 10 times fast.
Back in 1992, 69 year old Janet Farris mysteriously
vanished whilst on her way to a wedding. She
got in her car that morning and set off to
the venue in Alberta, but she never arrived.
For nearly 3 decades her family and friends
were left wondering what happened to her.
It wouldn’t be until 2019 that the truth
behind her disappearance came to light. Max
Werenka, 13 was swimming in Griffin Lake near
Revelstoke, British Columbia, when he came
upon something unusual. At the bottom of the
lake was an upturned car - a 1980s Honda.
He became concerned, and immediately alerted
the Royal Canadian Mounties. Acting as their
guide, he led them to the spot he’d found
the car, and dived down with his GoPro to
get footage of it. Now with proof, they called
in a dive team to check things out. Inside
the submerged, rusty vehicle, they found the
decomposed remains of Janet Farris.
After a short investigation, they determined
that there was no foul play involved in Janet’s
demise. They determined that she probably
swerved to avoid hitting an animal in the
road, and accidentally plunged into the lake
where she perished inside her car. Max’s
decision to investigate his strange discovery
further led to this cold case finally being
solved, and gave allowed Janet’s family
some sense of closure.
‘I think the worst thing was not knowing,'
said her son George Farris, 62.
‘This is a happy story in the end,’ said
her granddaughter Erin. ‘knowing her final
resting place and knowing that it was an accident.’
