The Frightening Case Of Sasha Samsudean

the suspicious death of a 27 year old orlando woman sasha samsudin's body was found saturday night inside of her apartment at uptown place on north orange avenue right now police are not releasing many details but friends and neighbors say they were stunned to hear about it typical girl you know just uh you know nice fun loving girl she wasn't too like boastful too loud just a nice like quiet side you know just so she seemed to get along with everybody i guess kind of nervous because we don't really know like how she was killed or if we should be concerned that there's someone dangerous living in our building sasha with 407 apartments tv i'm here at the edge orlando apartments near ucf so let's go check out what they have to offer twenty-seven-year-old sasha sam sadine was the social media manager for an orlando real estate agency she was full of energy fun sociable and very smart her co-workers said that people often underestimated her and saw her as just a pretty face but she was so much more apartments than that check us out at 407apartments.com people that worked with her said she was amazing at her job and adored being part of that environment friends said she worked hard and played hard making the most of every day and every opportunity that came her way she had recently moved into a beautiful new home at uptown place apartments 911 north orange avenue and was excited to start a new phase in her life [Music] it was the last day of the orlando soccer season and sasha was out in purple to support her team when they won she and her friends headed out to celebrate with drinks and dancing at the attic nightclub on 68 east pine street at around half past midnight sasha decided it was time to leave attic she told one of her friends anthony that she was heading off anthony said as friends they would all frequently separate and meet back up later at another bar or club so with this everyone carried on enjoying their evening and went their separate ways she and anthony had made plans to meet up for breakfast the next morning but he ordered an eight alone sasha didn't show up and wasn't replying to anthony's texts he assumed that she was simply hungover and sleeping it off but hours passed and with still nothing from sasha anthony became concerned sasha was always active on her phone and social media and something just wasn't sitting right with him he reached out to two of the friends and they both agreed to go with him to sasha's apartment when they pulled into the parking lot they spotted sasha's car in the back seat was a gift that she was supposed to be taking to a baby shower that day they banged on apartment 345 but got no response anthony phone 9-1-1 hi i need to fill out this report we went to her apartment to go check she's there and she's on there and what is her first name her first name is sasha police in the building security entered her third floor apartment at 8pm that night to do a welfare check the apartment was still locked and there were no signs of a forced entry everything was silent and nothing in the kitchen or lounge area appeared to be disturbed but in sasha's bedroom officers saw some hair coming out from under the duvet and a hand hanging off the edge of the bed they had found sasha samsodine she had been raped and strangled to death she had strangle marks around her neck and she had been beaten too she had defensive wounds to her arms and abrasions that were consistent with someone restraining her her necklace had been snatched off and it was caught in her hair her shirt and bra had been ripped open and her underwear had been forcibly removed which had left abrasions on her body friends family and co-workers had absolutely no idea who would have ever wanted to hurt sasha and no one could offer up any names of potential suspects to the police sasha's purse phone and key fob to the building were all missing and the bedroom smelled strongly of cleaning products there were some discolored patches on the bed sheets that looked as if they had been caused by bleach the cupboard where sasha kept all of her cleaning supplies had the doors wide open police noted that the toilet seat had been left up something which didn't seem impossible but definitely unusual seeing as sasha lived alone after this they found a condom wrapper near the bed and the imprint of a shoe after swabbing the underneath of the toilet seat they found two fingerprints they also swabbed sasha's body for any dna while performing the autopsy the medical examiner said he had never seen an internal neck fracture as severe as sasha's she was a graduate of seminole high school in sanford police are asking anyone who was in the area of north orange avenue and mark street early saturday morning to please call them the last time friends saw sasha was friday night she returned turned home here to her uptown place apartments just before 2 a.m where she was in the hallway caught by a security camera it's very sad and you know we and our biggest thing is we really do want to solve this and i hope that anyone that sees this picture and that can recognize her that night and you know just to please give us a call as well as the 15 cameras from around the building uptown place had on-site security stephen duxbury had been a security guard there for about five months and he had seen sasha coming home that morning he told police he didn't actually let her in as she had no id and no keys to the building she got in through another resident that opened the door for her steven then went looking for her in the building and when he finally found her she was trying and failing to input the code to get into her apartment sasha asked him if he could walk her to her car to see if her keys were in there but as the pair got outside she said she suddenly remembered the code and ran back in [Applause] keep doing my job but when he returned a little while after she was gone but later on stephen said he saw sasha in the building again this time she was with a man he hadn't seen around before police needed to find out who this mystery man was and fast looking at sasha's movements from that night from the attic nightclub where she left her friends it was around a half an hour walk away to get to her apartment building although it was a very busy night in town police managed to spot her on several cameras she was wearing white jeans and a purple top and stood out quite clearly another camera from down the street showed her again this time she was walking with two people police used this footage to issue a press release hoping whoever was with her would come forward and to their relief they did two women said they had seen sasha downtown that night and could tell she was intoxicated sasha had no id on her and no phone the women said they were concerned for her safety and decided to get an uber with her and drop her home as soon as the uber stopped at some traffic lights sasha darted out pointing to uptown place saying that was where she lived the women waited as she tried to enter the building but because she didn't have her key fob she was unsuccessful before long security guard stephen approached the three women he told them he couldn't let anyone into the building without identification or proof that they were a resident the women told him how concerned they were for her and asked how she would stay safe if he wouldn't let her in as they continued to talk another resident of the building opened the door and let sasha inside stephen carried on talking to the other women for a while before eventually heading back into the building to see where sasha was everyone's story matched up and police still needed footage and witnesses from inside uptown place sasha's ipad was found in her apartment and as it shared some data with her iphone police were able to look at her messages a text had been sent to a man named ben who had previously dated sasha he was supposed to be seeing her that weekend they had been texting during the night and ben asked her if she wanted to meet him at another party but several hours later at 5 12 a.m sasha sent him a text message simply saying ben this appeared to be the last activity on her devices ben willingly let the police take a dna sample and with that plus a watertight alibi he was quickly ruled out police also spoke to a man named taylor who was in a relationship with sasha for two years they had still spoken regularly and taylor said he always thought that one day they might get back together he was working a shift at a bar that night which everyone could attest to and again through dna he was eliminated from the investigation suspicious death of a 27 year old orlando woman sasha samsudin's body was found saturday night inside of her apartment at uptown place on north orange avenue right now police are not releasing many details but friends and neighbors say they were stunned to hear about it just a few days after sasha was found she was laid to rest in a private ceremony which blended hindu islamic and christian practices one of her co-workers recalled that he always knew she was popular and well loved but didn't quite realise the impact she'd had on so many people until he saw the turnout at her funeral the cctv footage from uptown place was always saved off-site but it was now finally in the hands of the police and they began going through it with a fine-tooth comb one camera showed sasha entering the building at around 1 46 am she was followed inside by an unknown male who asked her if she was alright she then headed up the stairs and disappeared from view from around 20 minutes at 206 a.m she was seen running up more stairs followed by security guard stephen just as he said he walked with her to the first floor parking lot at 2 25 am to see if her keys were in her car [Music] but as soon as sasha said she remembered the code the pair walked back inside [Music] [Music] police were still searching to find the unknown mail seen with sasha but they couldn't see sasha on any of the other tapes they appealed to the media in public and asked anyone that had seen sasha or anyone else around the building after 1 46 am to come forward but no one did investigators continued evaluating the footage to see if they'd missed anyone else coming in or out of uptown place in the early hours and at 6 30 6 a.m on one of the cameras they did find something of interest [Music] a familiar face was seen exiting the second floor of the building holding two trash bags it was security guard stephen duxbury he walked into the second floor of the parking lot where his car was parked and returned to the building at 6 38 am stephen had told officers that his shift had ended at six am but he didn't actually leave the building until 6 39 am initially police wondered if taking out the trash was part of the security guard's job but it was soon confirmed that it most definitely wasn't on closer inspection detectives recognized the trash bags they had come from inside sasha's apartment following this police obtained a search warrant for duxbury's home and asked him to come in for a polygraph test during the polygraph he was asked if he had ever set foot inside sasha's apartment he answered no but the polygraph indicated deception the interviewer then asked him if he knew how sasha had died was she poisoned he asked no was she stabbed no was she choked no but on this question again his heart rate shot up and showed signs of deception information about how sasha had been killed had not yet been released to the public and there was absolutely no way of stephen knowing that she had been strangled although a polygraph test is inadmissible in a courtroom this definitely gave officers a lot more to look into in steven's home detectives found a pair of shoes that match the shoe print found inside sasha's apartment and three days later police learned that the thumbprint under the toilet seat matched the right thumb of stephen duxbury the dna found on sasha's chest also belonged to him his phone record showed that a disturbing google search had been made he had looked up how to override a quick set keypad lock the same lock sasha had on her apartment door this internet search had happened at around 5 am that morning almost 3 hours after sasha had last been seen on camera and just a few minutes before sasha had sent the message to her ex-boyfriend ben simply saying his name stephen also had a bite mark on his forearm and scratches to his body it was hard to fathom that the man who had been so helpful with the police and whose job it was to secure the building and protect the residents had been the one to commit this horrific crime october 17th sasha samsodian was found murdered in her apartment today our detectives have arrested stephen duxbury the security guard from uptown apartments in connection with this case stephen duxbury is charged with first-degree murder sexual battery and burglary to an occupied dwelling as a security guard he used his access to prey on someone who was very vulnerable our hearts go out to sasha's family our thoughts and prayers are with them and we hope that this will bring a little bit of closure or start the process of closure for this family police believe that when he saw sasha come home that morning he saw it as nothing more than a twisted opportunity they believed he broke into her apartment before sexually assaulting attacking and killing her he then used her own cleaning products in an attempt to destroy any dna before taking things of evidentiary value out of her apartment to his car where he disposed of them later his trial began in november 2017 with judge lisa t munyan presiding it started with stephen arguing that as a security officer he thought he had to cooperate with law enforcement during his questioning otherwise he would lose his licence and his defense team wanted his initial interviews with the police kept out of the courtroom attorneys saying speculation should not be admitted as evidence but the state says the motion is untimely and should be struck by the court especially with the trial right around the corner state yes how many days do you need i would estimate about five duxbury's attorneys also hinting additional motions could be filed to which the judge said time is running out all right well get them filed because you need to have them heard in front of me before monday so i would suggest you get them filed which means you have tomorrow hours away from the start of a murder trial for a former security guard accused of killing a young woman jury selection starts tomorrow in stephen duxbury's trial channel 9's harry potter is live outside the courthouse in sierra the defense was given a blow when the judge said key pieces of evidence would not be thrown out and that evidence is going to be in it includes some shoes that were found at the defendant's house as well as some statements he made during a polygraph test and earlier today i was talking to our legal analyst and he explains just how big of a deal this is steven duxbury's defense fought to keep statements their client made during a polygraph test as well as these shoes reportedly found at his home that allegedly matched marks at sasha sampson's apartment out of court but the judge says they're in channel 9 legal analyst bill shaffer a circumstantial evidence case is like a puzzle you have to get all of those pieces of that puzzle into evidence so that you can show this defendant is guilty of what you charged him with during the trial schaefer says we can expect the defense will try to get more puzzle pieces thrown out once jury selection begins it's too late to make motions to exclude evidence however the defense during the trial will raise objections as that evidence comes in dutesbury is accused of raping and killing samsodine back in 2015. defend the statement that he was never in that apartment is inconsistent with forensic evidence that could be key to the state's case duxbury's attorney aaron delgado argued that the investigation left too many unanswered questions among them was not testing steven's clothing for dna they also said that the shoe prints attributed to stephen inside sasha's apartment appeared to match a size 9 shoe found in his apartment when he said he wore a size 10 and a half his legal team also argued that there was no surveillance footage that placed duxbury in her apartment or showed him entering it but the prosecution said that although the case was largely circumstantial it didn't make it any less strong dna put him inside her apartment even though video footage didn't this alongside the google searches and the removing of the trash bags was again enough to show they didn't need cctv to prove duxbury was in that apartment when asked about the abrasions to her inner thigh area and lower body the medical examiner said that it was definitely a possibility that the marks could have been made by a utility or security belt during intercourse the defense even made the suggestion that another person could have broken in and committed the murder after sasha and stephen had consensual sex but prosecutor william j simply said her body doesn't tell lies the scene doesn't tell lies [Music] following a seven day trial and just four hours of deliberations stephen duxbury was handed a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of sasha samsodine he was sentenced to a further 15 years for attempted sexual battery with a deadly weapon or force and burglary with assault or battery circuit judge lisa t munyan ordered the sentences should run consecutively stephen declined to speak when the judge gave him the opportunity after the verdict sasha's amsterdam's parents both expressed their sympathy for duxbury's mother who sat through the trial in the back row of the courtroom they acknowledged that his parents had now lost their child too sash's mother tara also expressed her anger at how the defence team had tried to represent her daughter's character in the courtroom tara said i won't have birthdays her father will never get to walk her down the aisle i've attended a lot of weddings since then and every wedding i attend i know we will never have that for my daughter sasha's amsidine's family has a pending lawsuit against the apartment complex that employed stephen duxbury and the security company spectre and brands which manufactured the lock on sasha's door the 102-page lawsuit alleges that the apartment complex and vital security which employed duxbury ignored other residents complaints that they felt harassed by stephen the samsodine's attorney is also trying to convince a judge that the lock on sasha's downtown orlando apartment was defective and that's possibly how steven got inside at a hearing attorney samantha duke representing spectrum brands said there was no way to know for sure because the lock was never collected as evidenced by the orlando police and it was thrown away by the owner of the unit when a new tenant moved in without that product plaintiff it's impossible for plaintiff to prove that any defect with the subject lock was the cause of sasha sam sadine's death the samsodine's attorney fired back saying that spectrum brands knew its product was defective citing an article that describes how someone could beat the lock in a matter of seconds with something as simple as a screwdriver and they could have said something to the police but naturally they wouldn't want to say hey just so you know that design we know that millions of these are easily broken into so you might want to save that in february 2019 stephen filed an appeal claiming that the court had made a mistake in denying his motion to suppress his post-miranda statements and in denying his motion for acquittal on the attempted sexual battery charge this appeal was denied ken and tara samsodine worked to honor their daughter's legacy by working with the orange county sheriff's office to help other families deal with the grief that comes with being a victim more than two years after their daughter was killed tara and ken samsodine still deal with the grief sometimes you don't know what you don't know now the couple is honoring their daughter's legacy by working alongside the orange county sheriff's office someone to hold your hands someone to guide you through the system for tara samsodine she struggled to work as a trauma nurse after the death of her daughter instead she's helping people like those at this annual victims rights breakfast we help ourselves by telling our stories but we also help them by listening to their stories sasha samsodine was a vivacious spirited and gregarious young woman someone who undoubtedly had so much more to achieve in her life one of her friends and co-workers said sasha was such a beautiful soul who cared about so many people she made such an impact her loved ones continued to celebrate her life her amazing qualities and strive to keep her vibrant energy [Music] alive you

Channel: Truly Criminal

Views: 3,336,542

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Id: yW21sry32HM

Length: 25min 47sec (1547 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 17 2021