Mona Fandey: The Pop Princess Turned Black Magic Killer

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guessed it and it's going to be guest throughout this entire episode you're welcome world i'm going to read what callum has written and jen afterwards is going to well if you're watching this you're going to see some images if you're listening then you're going to hear the kind of background music and some sound effects and all of that stuff you've probably been here before if you haven't well welcome back and uh well i hope you enjoy the show did i say what it's the casual criminalist yeah welcome let's jump in [Music] do you believe in ghosts for me it's a hard no me too callum i mean it's ghosts are just people's brains going wrong even if i saw a ghost if i i'm in my office right now and if over there there was a ghost i don't know what it would look like let's imagine it's like a man with a sheet over his head i'll be like well that's a man with a sheet over his head but even if it looked like a ghost up and even if it you know in every way it was like super ghosty or whatever i'd be like okay i uh i need to get checked out let's uh let's let's book a session with a psychiatrist and maybe get an mri because ghosts aren't real and human brains go wrong all the time i'm 99.999 certain that every spectral sighting is just a result of those misfiring meat computers inside our skulls callum and i same page but regardless even if the spooks and spirits themselves don't exist you can't deny the power of the beliefs themselves yeah absolutely not crazy people believe all sorts of stuff that's the core theme of today i'm just as an aside i'm always amazed by the number of people i meet who are like yeah yeah or i even interact with on the internet or whatever and it's like no no but i don't believe in ghosts but but but this one time and i'm like no not the one time please stop that's the core theme of today's episode a story of black magic and murder from deep in the heart of southeast asia back in 1990s malaysia one bad witch used her fearsome reputation as a celebrity shaman to enthrall the nation throughout one of the most sensational criminal trials in the country's history i don't know much about malaysia do they believe in witches i know like witchcraft is a thing is it is it i don't want to like say it if it's wrong but isn't is it haiti that's famous for like which like believing in witchcraft and i know i feel like that all right i say no i feel like this from african countries where witchcraft is a thing and people are like yeah witches are real curses are real and i don't know there's one where it's like bald guys have gold in their head as well that was weird if you if you if you don't see this episode i am bald i have no gold in my head strange people from far away lance this pop singer turned witch doctor's black magic practices won her more fame than she'd ever dreamed of as the country's well-heeled elite flocked to her doorstep but ultimately her legacy became a warning to all those who seek a shortcut to power and riches don't mess with witchcraft it's bad for your health maybe this is the journey i should you know scroll this youtube stuff it's not this isn't this isn't profitable enough this isn't this isn't famous i need to become a wizard said i mean i would i was going to say said no one ever except for this lady apparently the disappearance of da took maslan idris oh god i'm so sorry everyone from malaysia i just apologize to the entire nation of malaysia and i want to say what's the malay language i've actually been to malaysia uh i believe it's the malay language i apologize i'm so sorry not sorry bahang state malaysia a region of lush mountainous rainforests to the northeast of the country's capital stretching out to the south china sea on the east coast anyone who's ever been there will attest to the natural beauty of this place but after the dark of night falls upon this land this pocket of paradise becomes a very different place i have been to northeast malaysia in fact the only reason i really went to malaysia is i was doing the classic gap year backpacking around asia thing that you know i feel like most people from the uk do or you know it's very very popular and i managed to get a flight for a 150 pounds from malaysia to london it was some special deal with a company called airasia and they're like yeah yeah you could fly there was no food and it's like a massively long flight but it was 150 pounds which was an absolute bargain so i went to malaysia just to fly home and i spent like a few weeks there just for a bit of a laugh you know before work became yet she's like just the idea of going somewhere for a few weeks just because there was a cheap flight is oh my god my life was different in the past malay folklore tells that these forests like many of the secluded rural spots around the country are home to dark forces evil creatures that lurk among the trees waiting to drain your blood and steal your soul even today these superstitions are still a strong part of the culture visit certain towns and villages and everyone knows someone whose grand friend cat's uncle was taken by these dark forces some superstitious thoughts would no doubt have shared such rumors about pahang politician datuk maslan idris when he left his wife and kids at home in early july 1993 and never returned yeah he just ran away didn't he or he was killed or he died in an accident or he killed himself what there's four entirely reasonable things that happened a head of ghosts and witches and black magic but no it was ghosts it's ridiculous the u.s educated state assemblyman a big name with big ambitions within the ruling united malays national organization was officially reported missing after some party engagements in his constituency batu talam his unexplained disappearance became front page news even more so once police discovered the awol politician had withdrawn 300 000 ringgit from his bank accounts at several branches in kuala lumpur isn't ringgit the currency they use in harry potter i feel like there's definitely something to do with ringgits unless i mean i don't know it's been a long time since i read harry potter and honestly i don't really care for it that much oh which is the equivalence about seventy thousand dollars at the time some speculated that oh maz was just off on a mad one seventy thousand dollar mad one however that wasn't exactly in character datuk is an honorific title equivalent to sir in the uk and you wouldn't expect a knight of the realm to blow off his commitments for a week-long bender wait kellem have you seen some of the people who are knighted like rock stars get knighted and uh i mean i guess they're all sort of old and and a bit you know a bit past it by the time they get their knighted but i definitely would have put it past them oh maybe sir rod stewart i suppose that god damn cal i don't read these ahead but callum and i are on the same page today are we not as the weeks passed and no trace of the abysh ambitious assemblyman could be found his family started to worry and those whispers of supernatural suspicion grew a little louder of course most people take these kinds of old wives tales with a grain of salt a serious police detective would class taken by demon as a credible lead yeah they fight his body goes to the mortician and the morticians like yeah yeah what's his cause of death demonized however for the cops working the maslan idris case those terrifying tall tales were about to become a whole lot more realistic the break came weeks after the disappearance and from an unlikely source some beat cops in bahang were out on patrol when they happened to cross a man off his face on drugs which is not something they take likely in malaysia yeah i feel like malaysia's one of those countries where you get there and it's like there's a big sign in the airport you know it arrivals which is like yo if you're smuggling drugs you're gonna be put to death by hanging and there's gonna be a very short trial it's really scary flying into those places oh my god i hope i don't have any drugs on me i'm pretty sure i don't have any drugs i'm quite sure i don't have any drugs i mean like wait do i have drugs he's like no of course i don't have drugs you don't take drugs to an airport i'll like search my bag before i go anywhere i mean i have a story once when i once almost accidentally smuggled drugs but that's the closest i've ever got and it was pot and i was leaving amsterdam on a train should i tell this story let's just say allegedly it wasn't me but i accidentally left a bit of pot in my bag after visiting amsterdam and i was on an overnight train i was i'm not allegedly i'm not sure if i'd left the netherlands but i was like oh i should probably get rid of this and so i flushed someone who's not me allegedly flushed it on the train and then later on some uh like border guards or whoever came on with their sniffer dogs and they were going up my bag and then i was like oh that's where it was wasn't it it's pretty intense and that's why i'm still free today because i flushed it down the toilet and in case you're wondering no this wasn't our renegade politician on a come down from 70 grands worth of coke it was actually a 23 year old guy named uraimi hussein the police arrested the young man and took him to the station with questioning at this point harami was only facing the prospect of a little jail time at the absolute worst but before he could sober up he actually ended up implicating himself in a far more serious crime his statement was rambling and incoherent at first but the police were able to pick up some crucial pieces of information most importantly a name maslan idris it appeared that jerimy was confessing to being involved in the disappearance of the missing politician he was probed for more information over the following hours spinning a strange tale of clandestine deals and magic spells par for the course on drug arrests i'm sure and yeah there's a lesson don't do drugs especially then don't get arrested and admit to crimes they weren't arresting you for during jerimie's interrogation he mentioned another name that pricked the ears of the police mona fandy the arrested man's employer she also happened to be the owner of a certain house in the jungle where jeremy had claimed the most crucial piece of evidence lay waiting to be found that's how officers found themselves driving deep into the mountains in the west of pahang on july the 22nd they are on a chase this sounds this sounds like a good old-fashioned like detective adventure jerimiah described the place to them a bungalow house in the middle of nowhere more specifically he told them that dilapidated storeroom out back would be of particular interest if things were really as he described then perhaps this would be the break that they'd been waiting for and sure enough when the detectives entered this dingy little breakout building it was as he said a patch of freshly laid concrete in the center of the floor the storied career of mona fandy that's how the faced revelations of jeremy hussin brought the cops to the doorstep of mona fandy a glamorous wealthy ex-pop star hardly the sort of person you'd expect to be implicated in a suspicious disappearance but as the detectives took a closer look at her some crucial pieces started falling into place fandy was a controversial figure in the community for reasons that will soon become clear but even more pertinent because she was a witch but even more pertinent were her whereabouts at the time of maslan indris's disappearance she and her husband mohammed afandi abdul rahman just so happened to be in kuala lumpur when the withdrawals from the missing man's accounts were made that same day they bought a brand new mercedes in cash splurged on clothes and jewelry and even scheduled a facelift so the 37 year old singer could turn back the clock to her glory days oh my god you need a fate 37 i'm 34. it's like oh my god am i three years away from like people genuine the age where people consider facelifts or is this just like you know some michael jackson where it's like why so much plastic surgery michael you looked good and now you look weird i mean now you're dead this is inappropriate but michael jackson did look weird and i know he had that disease where his skin turned a different color but it is like he also had like other plastic surgeries right stop making fun of rem i'm gonna get so cancelled stop making fun of michael jackson he's dead [Laughter] oh although then there was that documentary which didn't just make fun of michael jackson but made some pretty serious accusations which we're not going to repeat because uh i like not getting sued not that they were all that glorious mona real named izmeli never really achieved all that much success as a pop singer back in 1987 she forked out cash to self-release an album called diana one which featured the timeless banger we all know and love ku actually joking aside you can easily find it online and it's not that bad it'll be getting a spot alongside charles manson's tracks and uh upcoming cash crim compilation album but unfortunately for mona the people of 1980s malaysia weren't quite as enamored with her music as i am become enamored with this woman's music after a few tv appearances the hype died out and she was forced to leave the music industry behind she did however keep her stage name after all her next career move was still technically a kind of performance just one with a little more goth flare didn't they say she was didn't we say she was wealthy so she must have done okay after the pop music money dried up mona and her husband spent their 30s working as traditional shamans known as bombers these witch doctor type characters are thought to be masters of magic and traditional medicine but the catch is they're just as likely to curse you as heal you definitely not the source of person sort of person you want to meddle with also not the person you'd ever want to go and see can you imagine going to the doctor and it's like yeah yeah i'm not feeling very well and there's an equal chance they'll give you a medical or maybe break your leg they'd be like no no i'm just going to go to the doctor that doesn't break my leg or have a chance of breaking my leg it's like 50 50. you'd just go to the actual doctor wouldn't you rather than the crazy you know flip the coin doctor what is wrong with people it's a question i find myself asking myself a lot on casual criminalists as well as going you psycho apparently i read the comments the buma culture was a kind of uneasy cultural truce with islam in malaysia they'll use the koran and claim to be following islamic teaching teachings but conventional religious leaders usually say that these witch doctors are illegitimate and it's a dangerous sin to dabble in witchcraft despite all that their influence is often extremely strong while most bombers are small-time village shamans others can become multi-millionaires from their trade think of them like your oriental televangelists flashy showman trading spiritual assistance for big bucks that's the level that mona fandy and her husband were aiming for when they got into the blackmagic game luckily for her a 37 year old attractive female bomber stood out against a sea of old men a lot of whom look about as mental as you'd expect from a witch doctor i gotta say like that that televangelism thing is so wild what's that one where there's the guy and he's like they're their interviewers like why do you have a private jet you know that you bought with your church's money which uh it's american of course i don't think you know they're like exemptural taxes and and he's like why do you have a private jet that these big interviews like i don't like riding with those demons it's like oh my god did you just call regular people who could fly commercial demons holy sh my dude you're going to hell allegedly i mean it's also not real this guy probably this guy's like one of those guys it's like probably doesn't even believe in jesus and stuff he just believes in lots and lots of money many people are from around the region were interested in mona's supernatural services she became a semi-famous shaman gaining far more fans and riches than she ever did through singing eventually the glamorous shaman couple was sitting pretty with a luxury kuala lumpur mansion multiple second homes fancy cars and influence running up into the higher echelons of society some were along the way they decided to expand their operation by hiring some help this was jerimy the witch doctor's assistant with a penchant for amphetamines he would aid the couple in preparing their rituals rumored to be performed for high society individuals looking to boost their material wealth and prospects in return for silly amounts of cash it's like yes the more money you give the witch doctor the more money the the universe will return onto you and that's a crazy ass los seek that's like the secret logic isn't minor even claims to have rided members of malaysia's ruling party with talismans which made their political careers she didn't visiting obama is actually a more common practice than you'd think among older politicians so much so that in 2011 xpm dr mahathir mohammad had to issue a statement advising against it given that i think it's safe to assume that mona was probably telling the truth which is most likely how she made the acquaintance of datok israel back in 1993. okay so she did give them talismans it's just crazy that people believe this blows my mind a deal with the devil [Music] it's not clear which one approached the other first but what we do know is that mona fandy and mr idris arrived at an agreement sometime earlier that year she was to provide him a pair of talismans a cane and a song a traditional hat that was supposedly worn by the former president of indonesia sukano i feel like i know how to pronounce that because i might have made a video about cicada my biographics channel i'm not sure i've made so many videos that i lose track if you're wondering what i'm talking about i've several youtube channels one of the school biographics we do biographies of famous people from history and what did mona fandy want in return for the magical cane of warding plus two charisma and the hell of socano plus 20 fire resistance not much at all just a little token gesture 2.5 million malaysian ringgit which is about six hundred thousand dollars jesus christ if it's that easy to get rich i'll be a bomber as well i do have that pair of nike maxes once worn by churchill after all one million dollars or best offer amazingly mr idris never flinched at the cost of his new gear a small price to pay for success beyond his wildest dreams the agreement saw him pay a fifth of the fee up front and offer up 10 land deeds as collateral for the remainder but the politician was about to discover that dealing with dark magic has bigger consequences than just the financial any deal with a bombard is prone to backfiring if you're not careful meaning that you'll end up cursed penniless haunted or worse oh no i'm haunted if only that was a real thing and unfortunately it seems like mr idris must have incurred the wrath of our pop princess witch doctor with a dispute over the money owed maybe he got a touch of buyer's remorse when he realized his fancy new talismans were actually just charity sharp junk upsold by a con woman or maybe a couple of bad days at the office proved that they never had any luck giving properties that he was promised whatever the case it appears that he refused to hold up his end of the bargain but of course when he filed his complaint with mona she adamantly denied being a charlatan the problem wasn't her it was him masland irdris was positively dripping in negative energy how the hell can you expect to become prime minister with all of that bad juju despite his rudeness monafende still only wanted to help maz become his best self so she scheduled a cleaning ritual that would help him better channel the powers of the items and shift all that bad luck from his shoulders yeah and here's a bill mate at this point he was still willing to indulge the shaman probably because he knew full well that a refund wasn't on the cards but what he didn't expect was that the bomber had a very different kind of ritual in mind than the one she described a diabolical diva fully planned on collecting the remaining debt no matter what oh my god is she going to kill him i get the feeling it's not going to be something like a curse because then we'll just they would just laugh it off and be like well that's not real but she's going to murder her isn't she and here we go what a psycho the ritual that's why mazanin just left his house that evening on july the 2nd 1993 and drove in the dark to the rural village of kampung peroas it seems that he never told his wife where he was going probably because he just blew the kids college fund on a fancy walking stick and let's be real if your husband disappears in the night to give thousands of dollars to another woman hundreds of thousands of dollars no wife's going to believe it's just his side witch so the politician made his way to mona fandy's unfinished bungalow house in the middle of the forest that night and she quite rightly assumed that nobody would know where he was maslin drove up to kampung perus following the directions given by the shaman couple he turned off the paved road and onto a dirt track that led into the trees snaking up the hillside i feel like if she's just going to kill him no one knows where he is but when someone very quickly collects all these like land parcels that she's like that she's been promised by him it's going to be extremely suspicious and people are going to be like the witch killed her the witch definitely killed her but uh maybe this feel that the script in front of me feels too long for that to be exactly what's going to happen so i get the feeling there's probably going to be some strong police incompetence involved just because there usually is superstitious types wouldn't dare walk these parts at night especially with a bomber practicing in the area legend has it that their magic draws in the dark spirits of the forest which they can even command to do their bidding it's the sort of spooky story that mothers tell their kids to make sure that they come home before dark don't play too late till the bomber's bogeyman will get you and even though maslen idris was a fully grown man who didn't have time for ghost stories things start to seem very different when you're driving through the woods at night alone yeah i mean absolutely 100 agree with that if i was driving through the malaysian wilderness in the middle of the night on my way to see a witch doctor i wouldn't be like the ghosts are going to get me i'd be like there's probably murderers in these woods i'm not going to get out and pee i'm not going to stop because of the murderers not the ghosts the murderers i mean i'm sure there aren't any murderers and the chances of getting murdered are super low but i mean the chance of getting killed by a ghost or even lower because they're not real are they peering into the spaces between the trees where the car headlights dropped off to a deep darkness those bedtime stories would no doubt have started to creep back into his mind was that just the toppled bar the tree or could it have been a pachong a restless spirit raised from the grave still wrapped in its calf and burial shroud a flash of yellow eyes between the trees probably a wild cat or maybe it was the rn miniak an oil-coated humanoid that stalks and assaults young women well good news you're not a young woman and that thing isn't real the squeak of the car axle on uneven dirt road or the sure laugh of the pontianak the malay vampire women who prowl the woods looking for victims to slaughter or possess as he neared the house on the hill massan idris glanced over at the 38 smith and wesson revolver on the passenger seat just in case the politician parked out front of the unfinished bear concrete bungalow and walked up the driveway flanked with tall weeds and exposed to the dark forest all around the ghosts of his imagination would have put a spring in his step but what he didn't quite reckon with was that the real monsters were waiting for him inside and as is usually the case they were very much human the entrance the windowless building was faintly illuminated by the glow of electric light around the door frame the door swung open as he approached and maslam was welcomed inside by bommoch a fandy and the servant jarai emmy oh god dude you're gonna get murdered you're for sure gonna get murdered my man what are you up to the outside of this witch is why are we laughing the outside of this witch's woodland cottage wasn't quite the typical star found in european fairy tales but the interior looked much as you'd expect a dim empty chamber a few curtains hanging from poles and closing a sleeping area loads of creepy witch stuff and a couple of chairs one of which maslan set himself down on as he prepared for whatever the night might bring the snub-nosed revolver now sat heavy in his jacket pocket it took a moment to adjust to the air inside the main room heavy and humid thick with a sour stench from the rows of bottles and jars on a shelf that rang along the wall these were filled with oily liquids fibers of hair hopefully animal in origin exotic plots plants and other discriminant lumps of pickled something or other everything you'd ever need for a career of demon summoning and political swindling i have to say i'd feel really a lot like pretty comfortable about having a gun i mean i'm sure like guns aren't the like be or save all magical thing but if i've got a little revolver in my pocket i'm gonna feel pretty confident that i'm gonna be all right but this dude isn't somehow he's not on the wall opposite was a portrait of the lady of the manor herself mona bandy painted an opulent ceremonial garb the painting mimicked the slightly manic smile on her face as she welcomed the guest and gathered her ingredients for the ritual while preparing her ingredients at the small altar decorated with figurines of obscure folk folk deities she explained to her client what was about to happen he was to be taken to the kitchen in which there was a raised platform in the center maslin would have to lie down on this slab while the couple performed a mandy bunga flower bath ritual on him it doesn't actually sound all that bad just chill and have a witch toss some magic bath bombs at you it's a niche experience but people will pay a pretty penny for far weirder stuff i'm told yes indeed it kind of sounds like right now he's just being laid out on like a kitchen uh on a breakfast counter doesn't he you know what's it called a kitchen island like they've got a kitchen island yeah it's like lay down on the kitchen island okay and to sweeten the deal even further the supernatural spa day would guarantee him riches and success beyond his wildest dreams so what's not to like maslin would be familiar with the ritual already it's actually a common practice derived from royal households but now enjoyed as a kind of traditional relaxation treatment by people from all walks of life nothing to worry about at all mona's pleasant tone helped further calm the man's nerves as the time to begin approached as he settled into the couple's welcoming hospitality he probably felt less threatened at being alone in the woods with these eccentrics and definitely less inclined to whip out that revolver and start blasting the shamans and their assistant were a picture of professionalism and maslin allowed himself to start believing in their magic again things would soon be back on track at bona signal maslin idris was led through a doorway and into the kitchen he lay down on the top of the stone slab which was already dressed with petals the two bomba donned their ceremonial robes and then started dropping flowers over the politician and chanting incantations to cleanse him seven blessings granted as they poured basins of fragrant fragrant water over his body this does sound just like a super weird spa day so it's like you see i i don't like spots my wife likes bars and so she'll sometimes drag me along like we'll go away for the weekend or whatever and it's just she'll go do some spa and it's like i'll just i feel way more relaxed i'll just grab a beer it's like that just got a bar cool you go do your spa and i'm just gonna chill out in the bar and like read a book and have a beer um but you look at this like all of this weird bit going on with like petals in like a bath and there's like milk water or mud or like chocolate involved i'm like what is all this crazy like whoever came up with this being relaxing it's like why am i in a bath of mud oh it's very rich no it's not you're just in a bath of mud it's just weird sure people will be like simon it's incredibly relaxed is it okay i don't believe you maybe i should try it at one point we're gonna get a sponsor for this podcast it'll be like yeah mud baths and i'd be like best experience ever if that ever happens don't believe me i won't do it because generally i pick sponsors that i actually believe in by generally i mean always like i don't work with sponsors who i think just to be entirely clear and i mean i guess that's because this video is the world's most shameless promotions and it's brought to you by rage it's not it's not they keep emailing me so you've never seen my show when the ritual reached its climax mona fandy said put your head back close your eyes and soon you'll feel the money falling down from the sky hopefully we're talking about banknotes because nothing ruins a nice soak like a roll of pound coins to the forehead but of course no money fell at all mona had something very different in mind to wrap up the ceremony it's gonna be murder isn't it a silent moment passed as maz and idris laid his head back eyes closed neck fully exposed the flower bath was supposed to dispel the politician's bad fortune but what he didn't know was that his luck had already ran dry the last thing he felt was the heavy thud of an axe driven right into his throat holy we couldn't just use a knife i mean you couldn't have poisoned him yet to use an axe to the throat really rip thanks brilliant jeremy hussin looked loomed over him with the hatchet in hand as a shower of blood poured onto the bare floor the first cut almost stepped the victim's head entirely which now hung by just a few red ropes of sinuon tendon thanks for that calum brilliant graphic two more sharp swipes parted it from the neck entirely now at this point in which the poor man lay dead and beheaded on that kitchen platform the story becomes a little less clear it's thought that it was about midnight when the axe struck maslin's neck and judging by the state of the body which you'll see in a minute i mean are you going to describe this to us in detail because i can't imagine there's a photograph of this and if there is jen don't put it on the screen for the video version because that is exactly how youtube decide never to give us any money ever again but i imagine it's gonna get a pretty graphic description it seems as if the bombers might have actually pawned and performed another darker occult ritual on the corpse afterwards is there anything much darker than being slammed in the neck with an axe i mean i realize i just immediately in my mind yes definitely yes why did you even question it simon this involved levels of corpse defilement brilliant that would make dr frankenstein raise a judging eyebrow but we'll get to that in a minute for now almost all i'll say is that the morning after his grizzly affair monafandi and her husband fanby took off for kuala lumpur leaving their crack adult igor to deal with the aftermath our faustian politician never did get the riches that he was promised but after all the ritual was never meant to make him wealthy the bombers on the other hand got quite a handsome payday not quite enough to cover that 2 million debt for the talisman but in reality they were probably worth about 4 pounds 50 anyway you've already heard about the spending spree the two witch doctors treated themselves to so let's instead focus on what young girami got up to after the crime judging by the state of the murder scene he'd been a very busy man indeed it was his handiwork that the detectives were faced with in the dingy storeroom on july the 22nd 1993 after being directed there by the axe man himself ah yeah yeah the drug adult confession brilliant a team was brought in to smash through the concrete cap and dig through the earth below just short of six feet deep with the badly decomposed remains of datak maslin idris he was not in good shape and i'm betting that's not just because he was super decomposed his body is gonna have been ruined great the overpowering stench of decay ended up erupting from the hole like a giza when the police shifted the last layer of dirt revealing a mass of assorted human pieces piled up in a grotesque mess like a picasso piece recreated from butcher's offcuts very nice nice use of language there callum dry me had chopped the body into 18 pieces before dissecting it in the pit the murder weapon and a bunch of knives used for the dismemberment were recovered from the scene absolutely awful for the victim but also for the poor bastards that had to remove and study the remains in the coroner's notes it was mentioned that the body appeared to have been partially skinned which is why i suspect a bit of extra witchcraft went on post-mortem however it's not quite clear how much of this was done with the bomber's present and how much gerani did after they took off why not well by this point the young lad had sobered up got legal representation sure as hell wasn't willing to take the entirety of the blame for the killing oh man that's the worst hangover ever i say oh man what happened last night oh well you were on the streets you got arrested by the police and then you uh you in your drug-out state admitted to skinning a man and burying him under some concrete in the middle of the jungle you'd be like ah not again don't do drugs or murder people also just don't if you don't murder anyone it doesn't matter if you do drugs because you're not gonna get arrested i mean you might get arrested by the peace but then you don't have a murder to confess to which is you know better than the other option of being a murderer obviously why am i stating this let's move on this resulted in some conflicting testimony in questions that were never fully answered what we do know is that jerimie appears to have stayed at the bungalow for weeks after the crime the first days were probably spent burying the body cleaning the mess and burying the revolver in the woods at the edge of the garden after that it thought he spent upwards of two weeks sleeping in the room adjacent to the kitchen where he ended maslin idris's life as contemptible as the killer was it takes a pair of brass balls to stone a witch's lair right after burying your victim beneath the floor can't begrudge the man a little bit of class a's to cope with that the pahang witchtrap at the time jeremy was picked up on the drug offense his two employers had no idea that the net was closing in on them and after the body was recovered it didn't take long to track down the black magic maestros to their kuala lumpur mansion and slap the cuffs on them too at this point they probably regretted not just giving jeremy a little pay rise for his troubles whatever they were giving him it wasn't enough although i don't know we don't know much about him he seemed to be quite into it like he skinned the body it's probably like no no you don't need to pay me i just like skinning bodies why jeremiah it would be another year before the trial got underway but in the meantime the press had a field day with the story of this glamorous sherman shaman an ex-pop star no less than the horrific ritual murder that she orchestrated as i said before malaysia is by and large a deeply religious country and a majority of people also believe in the power of this dark magic from old folklore our gal mona fandy became the smiling botoxed face of those fears each time fresh details of the crime appeared in the papers readers shuddered at the thought of coming under the witch doctor's deadly influence she became a flesh and blood version of those evil spirits of folklore and bedtime stories but there was another side entirely to her character mona almost seemed to be using the trial as a chance to relive her pop star days mona was always waving and smiling for the camera as a constant uncanny smile hyper exaggerated by that surgery she allegedly enjoyed on her victim's dime i mean yeah if you can't be famous in for me is the next best thing throughout the trial i i honestly like people i think people believe this like judged by the crazy people i get up to online in order to get like views on a video just look at the entire prank thing it's like what what pranks and fake pranks and all this crazy on youtube i hate it all i hate it all throughout the trailer makeup and colorful outfits were better suited for a runway than a courtroom i mean this was the biggest audience she'd ever enjoyed bigger than her short-lived pop career you can't turn up looking like a slob journalist estinar covered the story for the star and chronicled some of the ways in which mona fandy's aura of terror affected all involved she even had the bad fortune of coming face to face with the magician murderer a number of times over the course of the proceedings nah recalled the beginning of the trial in 1994 handcuffed the ever-smiling bombard nodded to three of us who who covered the inquiry the year before and spooked us by saying you you and you i know you a picabar don't think i've forgotten your names much to our discomfort she didn't as she was ushered towards the tamalok high court by the gods she absolutely lapped up the attention for mona any publicity was good publicity even when most of your audience thinks you're a monster the guards parted the crowd in front in order to make way for the accused and someone shouted out mona i love you from among the crowd a surgically enhanced smile stretched out even further than before for someone with a serious case of main character syndrome all this attention was a dream come true i've never heard of main character syndrome but i absolutely understand what it means but aren't we all the main character i feel like you live your life and you're like yeah i'm the main character then you're you know everyone thinks exactly the same thing because you know obviously you you are you on one occasion she offered to sing for the judge and later even made a false claim to royal heritage other days she signed autographs for fans or passed out philosophical notes about inner peace in the mornings before court prison guards would sometimes show her articles about the case in the newspapers if she was particularly pleased with the coverage tell the assembled journals thank you for putting in such nice stories and pictures hardly the sort of behavior you'd expect from someone accused of murder especially when that crime carries a mandatory death sentence in malaysia the juxtaposition both fascinated and terrified onlookers how could this larger-than-life figure capable of such horrific violence seem to relish every moment of her own doom because if you're narcissistic enough that's more important than your life which is an insane statement but ivy just look at this this is the explanation you're just so wildly narcissistic that you're like yeah yeah i'd rather die than be nobody which is crazy unless perhaps she had already made a dark deal to dodge the reaper people were already creeped out enough by the idea of ritual murder and mona's bizarre behavior only added fuel to the fire it wasn't long before rumors of supernatural happenings began to swirl around the trial whispers came from the prison claiming that strange things would happen in and around mona's cell objects moving by themselves strange sounds unsettling dreams yeah i mean no no doubt the unsettling dreams because this is a crazy thing it's like she's not in your dreams it's just you're having crazy dreams because of all this crazy that's going on if i ever dream about this tonight i'm not gonna be like moana rented my dreams i'm just gonna be like nice because i made a casual criminalist about it isn't it obviously what are we talking about let's move on with our lives please it was as if she still emanated an energy that drew in all kinds of spooky stuff residents of the area around the prison even reported seeing the bomber free in the middle of the night apparently she used her supernatural powers to leave the jail cell in the middle of the night wandering off to get a drink for herself and then returning before dawn prison officials decried these rumors as ludicrous and i tend to agree could she have pulled off a supernatural shawshank redemption with none of the sewage crawling but then chose to return to her cell like a good prisoner still these stories only enhance the powerful sense of dread lingering over the courtroom every day that the glamorous pontianak appeared i'm totally losing track of all these malaysian words i like wait so she's a bokmat she's also a pontiac i totally did we even mentioned that before i'm so sorry i'm not that bright one day as the press photographers were shuffling to get a close-up of mona entering the courthouse one guy was unfortunate enough to trip and bump into her in a flash her demeanor flipped the diabolical diva shouted the terrified guy and spat a thick glob of saliva onto his arm she might as well have spat acid the poor guy was so legitimately terrified that this cursed saliva might be the end of him that he dumped his gear on the ground and rushed off to the toilets to clean it off better safe than sorry i guess even if mona was killed by the state there was a real concern that a vengeful spirit could linger on after she was gone if your name happened to be in her bad books when that happened well goodbye and good luck maybe the judge is just so afraid he's like yeah i believe in all this witchcraft shift we better let her go it's like no come on judge i'm assuming they don't have a jury i just feel like a country which executes you know drug smugglers and murderers as on a mandatory basis i don't think there's a mandatory mandate mandatory doesn't matter i get the feeling they're not gonna have trial by jury it's just gonna be a judge he's gonna be like yeah guilty and death but of course this was a court of law it didn't deal in ghost stories good the goal was to get to the bottom of the actual facts of the case which risked being drowned in superstition the physical evidence told a much simpler story 18 choice cuts of human found on the property of the two accused found via a direct confession from the third pretty clean cut yeah i would say so the main confusion which remained was focused on just who was responsible for the death itself the middle-aged shaman couple turned on their assistant claiming that jerimie was the one who decided to spice up their perfectly harmless ritual with an impromptu beheading certainly spices things up apparently had just read the wrong wikihow article for flower baths because customers usually leave them with their heads attached to hear mona and a fandy tell it they were shocked with this snap decision to kill the politician although obviously not that shocked because they then lifted the guy's bank cards out of his wallet and calmed their nerves with a brand new benz that much was proven by testimony from the shopkeepers and bank clerks who attested to having seen mona anna fandy in the days after the killing one of them a kuala lumpur jeweller got the fright of his life when giving his testimony as the man listed the items the couple bought that day in his native hakian language a language from china commonly spoken by many chinese ethnics in southeast asia our number one bomber made a surprise interjection in the same tongue i know what you're saying you're lying the witness looked like he might die a fright then and there but the facts don't lie this indiscreet spending spree all but guaranteed their guilt given that you'd have to assume that jeremy's version of events was probably a little closer to the truth he claimed that it killed the politician on the orders of his employers actually what he really said was that he was under a trance brought about by black magic definitely keeping that a's up my sleeve before i get nicked no your honor it was a witch's hex that made me down 20 acre bombs and piss on that police car yeah i don't think pretending to be cursed is a defense whatever the motive jeremy was under no illusions that it was his hand that dealt the fatal blows he told the court i chopped his neck three times to separate the head from the body i also cut maslin's body into pieces before burying his remains his claims of diminished responsibility on the other hand were dubious however many president probably believed such a thing to be very much possible case in point one of the strangest news stories to come out of the trial was that the celebrity bomber was trying to cast a hex over the proceedings this is so bizarre when the forensic pathologist who recovered the body was called to the stand to describe the remains of the victim a strange eerie sound rang around the courtroom two otherworldly groans almost as if the ghost of the dead man himself had come back to take the stand the pathologist stopped immediately as everyone in the room looked around wide-eyed for the source of the sound meanwhile mona fandy sat with her eyes fixed on the dock unblinking unmoving the crowd in the gallery collectively shuddered some even walked out right then and there i mean who wanted to get caught in the crossfire of a curse the next day one bahang newspaper ran a story on the front page describing the sound of something like a duck call and even went as far as interviewing mona's neighbors about the event some claimed to have heard the exact same sound emanating from the remote house on the hillside or the kl mansion whenever monafandi performed her black magic rituals spooky stuff yeah i mean sort of but also there's going to be an entirely rational explanation because of course there is or maybe not the more level-headed reporters who were present that day realized that the sound was probably just the creaking of the gallery benches as the crowd leaned forward to hear the quiet voice the second one was probably just when they all got a phrase and leaned back again but if you have enough believers in one place primed by fear and feeding off each other's superstition the dark world of spirits and magic can actually appear as real as the hand in front of your face does this mean that mona's magic would ultimately save the day as she levitates out of the window cackling like a maniac well no of course not don't be daft curtains down this eerie tension hung over the majority of the trial which saw 65 days of evidence from 76 witnesses in total did it i mean do we need all these witnesses it seems pretty cut and dry i mean how far are we going to bang this home and if moana fandy really was looking to cast a magic spell over the proceedings she seems like she failed pretty miserably on the 9th of february 1995 the foreman of the jury oh they do have a jury shh i totally expected it to just be a judge thing well there you go i'm wrong reached after only 70 minutes of deliberation mona fandi afandi abdul rahman and jarami hasin were all found guilty even when those fatal words were read out the two bomber kept on smiling seemingly unfazed by the fact that their lives would be coming to an end sooner rather than later the next time they found themselves in that courtroom it was for sentencing death by hanging as expected yeah it's mandatory do they really need to have a sentence i guess it's like a formality but also they didn't technically murder him they were just like accomplices to the murder i guess but maybe they have that like i don't know whatever the malaysian equivalent of the gang law is where it's like yo in british law and i'm not entirely sure if this is correct but it's like yo if you're hanging out with your friend and your friend murders someone and you reasonably foresaw that he could murder someone um i believe you're guilty of murder as well or maybe you need to also want to hurt the other person that might be it you need to want to do gbh on that person as well something like that but you basically you could be convicted of murder without actually being the one who committed the murder um and then in malaysia that means you get hung or hanged tanged right but what wasn't expected was mona's bizarre reaction she embraced her husband in the dock kissed him and later declared i'm happy with the decision i want to thank all malaysians i love all the people i love fandy her husband sorry mona did you hear properly they're going to kill you you're acting like you just won x factor apparently this murderous shaman pop star was just thrilled with the idea of being hanged by the neck until dead yeah indeed like that narcissism over insignificance again here we are amnesty international was less ecstatic they and other humanitarian ngos urged their supporters to join a letter-writing campaign to the sultan of pahang and king of malaysia to have him commute the death sentences look amnesty international on the people who are smuggling drugs who are being sentenced to death in other countries how about we focus on that or you know i don't know people being sentenced to death for crimes that they didn't commit or much more minor crimes than murdering a random dude with an axe in the forest and then burying him under concrete i mean i don't like i don't want to be like yeah death penalty is right and amnesty international shouldn't have done this i maybe amnesty internationally your attention could be better focused elsewhere mona's defense team also launched appeals up to the highest level but in 1999 their very final attempt was dismissed the death sentence was upheld at the federal level and so the executions were scheduled for the 2nd of november 2001. ever the entertainer our burma queen believed that the show must go on right until the very end all that's left is to look at the very last chapter in her strangely fascinating life the execution itself for a story wrapped up in so much supernatural myth and media sensation the ending is actually quite intimate yeah and i realize i i also you know i'm such a skeptic i'm like none of this supernatural like witchcraft and all this stuff is just such and i realize that you've probably been listening to this episode and getting a little tired of simon just calling this nonsense every 30 seconds so i apologize for that it probably was a bit much let's just move on to you know this intimate execution if that's brilliant really on the day before they were set to be killed monaf bandy and her husband were allowed an eight-hour visit with their family at kajang prisoner last chance to share some time with their children both from their current and previous marriages prison officials reported that there were tears all round as the clock reached the end of visiting hours and the condemned passed on their final messages to their children take care of yourselves and grow up to be good people despite her creepy reputation the celebrity burma was never shy about showing the softer side even during the very public court proceedings she was clearly a people person fond of lavishing praise upon her husband and fans at any opportunity had her singing career gone a little better it's not difficult to imagine her as a beloved pop princess gracious glamorous beloved by all but of course the fairytale monster she became was a very very different character when it came time to greet the hangman mona fandy decided to leave one last creepy message for the people of malaysia to remember her by one that would haunt their dreams for years to come before the first light of dawn on november the 2nd 2001 mona effendi and jarami were woken and fitted with hoods and handcuffs they were then led out of their holding cells into the execution chamber adjacent the prison doctor and warden were already waiting inside they were alongside justice department officials all of whom watched as the three killers were led up onto the wooden platform of the gallows three nooses hung from the beam overhead the convicts were positioned over the trap doors with their legs bound together then the ropes were fixed tight around their necks the executioners made their final checks and awaited the signal to begin it was reported that in those final moment moments monafendi uttered the ominous words aku tak akon mati i will never die and then she died [Music] savage callum wrap up at 5 59 a.m the platform dropped out from beneath the three candela condemned killer's feet all three died instantly instantly as the ropes snapped tight they were left hanging for an hour before being taken down not sure if that's common practice or if it's a specific anti-witch procedure and then they put a silver uh blah what's it called a stake silver stakes through their heart they didn't really do that i made that up the star of the show was 45 at the time of her death a husband a year younger and their assistant only 31. if any superstitious folks were waiting for her surprise escape and or resurrection then they're still waiting the story of mona fandy ended that day at the prison still though her legacy remains as do those famous last words as a reward for her efforts mona fandy was rewarded with the thing that she coveted most fame her name is widely known to this day 20 years after her death petty kind of immortality but i guess it'll have to do it's called herostratic fame or hirostratic fame i believe i made a video about this and the guy who's called maybe herodotus who uh burned down a temple just so he'd be remembered which is pretty crazy but you know narcissism over death i suppose again or maybe we can take that statement a little more literally mina's abandoned mansion southwest of kl in section 12 shah alam has actually become something of a ghost hunting hotspot i hate all this ball it's apparently so haunted that even some of the bravest ghostbusters dare and enter aside from the dark energies and creatures lingering there locals claim to have actually seen mona's spirit still strong after manifest peering in the windows likewise she's also been spotted wandering around the prison where she died some people have even come forward to report seeing her on the dance floors in kuala lumpur nightclubs good to see the old gal is living her best afterlife but let's forget all of that for a moment because the more important thing is this at the heart of any supernatural murder story is this darker truth all that malice and violence actually came from flesh and blood people not the poor ghosts and monsters who often end up taking the flack for humanity's horribleness yeah all of this basically boils down to is a greedy woman killed a guy who was not going to give her a lot of money in the woods so she'd still get a lot of money and then they buried the body and then they spent it on a mercedes it is so ordinary it is so boring it is so take away all them witchcraft and stuff it's just a regular old murder and uh yeah humans gonna human depressing strip away all the superstition you have a simple tale of narcissism and greed yeah i said boring it's not boring it's an interesting story it is simple i think that's a better way of describing it and that's why callum is the writer for this channel and i'm just a reader for malaysia's most glamorous bomber witchcraft was just another route to riches and acclaim and in the end so was murder she and her husband thought their own wealth was more important than the life of an innocent man and if the rumors to be believed he may not have been the only victim is it possible that other members of malaysian high society fell prey to the couple's deadly cons in the past but the bodies were never found maybe these are just baseless rumors spun around on connected missing persons cases or maybe there are some genuine leads left unfollowed after all some grieving widows might want to keep things hush-hush to save attaching their family's name to this crazy infamous case yeah i mean the person got executed so what other alchemy you're hoping for here that's all speculation on my part so please take it with a pinch of salt mixed with an eye of newton three drops of goat's blood we'll almost never know for sure whether there are more bodies out there and sadly mona fandi herself wasn't available for comments scallon these are savage man maybe one of you out there can sort out a seance to get to the bottom of this matter once and for all don't do that that is sarcasm in closing if you've been affected by any of the issues in today's program well call animal or something i would entangle with no bomber dismembered appendices number one the case of mona fandy left a huge impact on malaysian culture and media and also on the country's legal system the craziness of the whole courtroom affair was actually partly to blame for the abolishment of trial by jury on the 1st of january 1995. wow ok so they had child by jury and then they got rid of it the official reasons cited were problems in getting people to attend jury duty and the fact that they were easily manipulated by the underhand tactics of defense teams slash evil wizard ladies number two five years after the execution filming for a movie version of the story got underway the production was stuck in limbo for years because of problems with the country's media sensors it was finally released back in 2018 after more than a decade on the shelf it's entitled de kun number three if you want a bit more insight into the role of bombers in malaysia this is my favorite anecdote in 2014 millionaire witch doctor ibrahim matt zinn made a spectacle of himself at kl airport by rocking a pair of bamboo binoculars waving coconuts in the air and chanting the quran the boastful bombok claimed that it would help find the malaysia airlines flight mh370 much of the malaysian youth collectively cringed at his nonsense on twitter as you should be cringing right now because obviously it's crazy crazy and also they didn't find that plane so it didn't work and the disappearance of that plane is so crazy it's just missing still wild they found part of it they didn't they which i mean it's probably not good news i mean it's definitely not good news the plane is gone it's it's you know it's not landed somewhere secretly has it although i'm sure there are conspiracy theories out there talking about absolutely that stuff because of course there are finally number four and lastly in recent years mona fandie herself has enjoyed something of a resurrection in the twitter sphere and not as a bad guy fed up with stories of corrupt money hungry politicians some malaysians have turned mona fandy into a meme a symbol of revolt against corruption not sure i'd want to murder witch leading my revolution but i guess i can appreciate the sentiment and with that i hope you appreciated this episode of the casual promise without like a very long one actually uh if you did please do if you're watching this please do like the video make sure you subscribe to the channel if you're listening to this as a podcast it'd be fantastic if you left it a review uh five stars preferred but honestly give it what you think it deserves and yeah that just helps get the show in front of more people i mean obviously if you give it a one star it's probably not happily gonna be like well let's not show that to people but if you give it a good review i'm sure it does so that'll be fantastic thank you for listening or watching however you're doing this and i'll see you in the next episode [Music]

Channel: The Casual Criminalist

Views: 238,146

Keywords: true crime

Id: AibQvvuEsZo

Length: 59min 2sec (3542 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021