I wouldn't bother. It fluffs around with unsubstantiated theories and gets nowhere, while probably offending almost every person effected by the actual murder. It's also an example of really bad web development. Every paragraph is a separate React element, and the source has been mangled in many instances (The string "ff" being a common problem, for example "This is not a conclusion he o≠ers gracefully"). Also, there's a point early on where some frame tries to load at the bottom, but it's empty (no ad-blocking, JS enabled) and makes it really hard to read a few specific paragraphs.
Honestly people, just use normal HTML for the article text. Actually, just use normal HTML wherever possible.
Oh, and try to make sure your article actually has a conclusion.
Personally, I'm not ever going to be clicking on any further GQ links. They not only have terrible articles, they have terrible presentation.
While we're at it, Criminal podcast is a little less obsessive about one case and takes an look at a number of interesting\quirky\old cases http://thisiscriminal.com/
I found serial interesting for a few episodes, then she started spending hours analyzing the memories and text messages of high school students and it quickly became exhausting to listen to. I hope the guy gets a fair trial but it was simply a slog to listen to.
What Iraqi engineer has a million dollars in a Swiss account? Even if it were legitimate, it certainly isn't the norm. Also to get that many head shots at a distance, obviously professional. Then one must ask, why did this man warrant the expenditure of a professional hit? Certainly not just some local random violence -- French hunters can barely hit the side of a barn let alone multiple head shots and common thugs are very rare in Annecy. Motive is the key here. If this were in Marseille, then I'd suggest drugs or smuggling, but this kind of hit on a person with that sort of background? The killers had to have intelligence, funding and logistical help. Perculiar.
This is explained in the story - the sort of Iraqi engineer whose father was a deceased and successful businessman. It sounds like you're familiar with the case but haven't actually read the story as you're asking exact same questions which are (attempted to be) addressed by this very article.
story actually goes much deeper than these basic questions.
nice to clearly see you went straight to comments without caring much about the article itself :)
> Saad screamed at Zainab to get in the car. He quickstepped to the driver’s door, twisted into the seat. But Zainab hadn’t moved, just stood there, frozen. Saad probably didn’t realize that. What man leaves his daughter to get shot? He slapped the gearshift into reverse, cranked the wheel hard to the left, stomped on the gas. The BMW skittered backward in an arc, a jittery half circle.
No ordinary 50 year old engineer does that. That guy had training. And not in STEM.
I'm French and I've almost read all the articles related to this murder and a lot of the comments associated with these articles (it was quite surprising to find this on HN btw).
They all think that something don't add-up, they all have their favorite theory and they always know better than the investigators.
Take the shooter for instance : sometimes he's a pro (2 to the head, mosts of the shots were hits) sometimes an amateur (didn't pick-up the brass, used an antique gun) and on and on.
I think the only thing safe to say is that we don't know sh.. (pardon my French ;-).
Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro.
Once you go to the level of "this was state sponsored in some way" all normal investigation and inference goes out the window. State sponsored folks would know how normal police investigations are conducted and have plenty of ways to counter them.
Why a particular state would want these people dead is another matter entirely though.
"Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro."
I think a more likely explanation would be that the killer was a pro, and didn't care about the brass since they planned on dumping the weapon, which couldn't be traced to them anyway.
Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists ;-)
And I think that the older girl (the one that was shot and beaten) talked about a "bad guy" in her statement btw.
I think not picking-up the brass doesn't mean anything : you can find the imprint of the barrel's grooves on the fired bullets (unless they are too deformed by the impact, but would you bet it on all 21 bullets ?) so the gun will be identifiable even if they don't have the brass.
> Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists
Not really. And that's not because I'm some PC-police kind of person, either. Women are being allowed into more and more places in the military (in the US, other countries are far ahead of us on this) and I suspect that there are tons of them in the intelligence community.
Finally given that it's "always" "bad guys" that do this kind of thing if you're playing a strategic game at some point you have to realize that women have a huge advantage; since it "can't" be a woman who does that, women can absolutely get away easier and more cleanly than men can. And if you really are doing stuff at a national security level where it never becomes public anyhow then there's no reason not to use women to their full potential aside from squeamishness on the part of the people giving the orders. I suspect that isn't a huge roadblock; either you're a sociopath who's fine with sending people to their death because "who cares?" or you're a true believer in which case everyone can fight for the cause.
Now I'm not suggesting that women commit violent crimes at the same rate that men do by any means. The statistics bear out that they don't. But at a state-sponsored level I would imagine that a lot of bets are off.
These kind of women are very rare (much more than men which are more prone to be sociopaths and as sociopaths are more prone to use direct violence), why would you risk this "rare asset" on a "simple shooting" that can be done by a man ?
If a woman had been seen the investigator would have still tried to find her even if they thought she was just a witness.
I'm not even aware of one known instance of a pro killer that was a woman in the last 10 years. I don't say they don't exist but they're in "black swan" category.
BTW the investigators know exactly the sex and probably even the ethnicity of the killer. It's not clear in this article, but it was said in several others that they have his ( ;-) ) DNA, I think from the piece of the gun that was left on the crime scene.
I think there's even some tech that allows you to make a mug shot of someone from her DNA, I doubt it's really accurate though.
They're rare that we know of. If the various intelligence/security institutions know how to find/train them, surely they wouldn't tell everyone as it then destroys their tactical advantage.
I'm not suggesting that I know they're common by any stretch of the imagination. But to say that you know they aren't is intellectually dishonest.
"Uniformed officers closed off the road, the Route de la Combe d’Ire, and forensic technicians gathered shell casings and marked where they fell and photographed the blood and studied Saad’s BMW without disturbing any of the bodies. They did this with such delicacy that they did not notice for almost eight hours that Saad’s younger daughter, 4-year-old Zeena, was alive and physically unharmed, hiding beneath the folds of her dead mother’s skirt."
I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
When I was around 6 years old, I was playing hide and seek with my sister. I fell asleep underneath a folded-up roll-away bed in a spare bedroom of our small house (~1000 sqft).
When my sister and my parents couldn't find me, they feared the worst and called the police who came and searched the house and couldn't find me. I woke up, walked out into the living room and everyone stared at me in disbelief.
All that to say that I can very easily see a small child hiding under a skirt remaining unnoticed for several hours. How the child stayed quiet for that long would be surprising to me, but stranger things have happened.
My fiancée's son was about 6-7 years old at the time, he was playing hide and seek with some children at his grandmother's church and he hid in a small book case.
When the other kids couldn't find him, he didn't come out.
His grandmother and the other adults looked for him and he didn't come out.
They searched the interior of the church and he didn't come out.
They searched the grounds of the church and he didn't come out.
They called the police and while the police were searching the church again, he came out.
They had checked the book case on numerous occasions but he was in a compartment in the bottom of the book case and they had only checked the top.
He wasn't allowed to play hide and seek at the church after that.
The investigators took a lot of similar criticism at the time.
Some psychiatrist said that the little girl was completely shocked and in a "coma like" state, so she didn't move or make any sound at all.
They quickly checked that everybody was dead from outside of the car but didn't see the girl which apparently was hidden under the bodies of her mother and grandmother. So they closed of the crime scene and started to comb everything outside the car.
Only when they actually opened the car door did they find the little girl. It was said that she didn't even react when they took her.
This case bums me out so much, so much mystery! From my perspective only one who has dehumanized the family could have done this. I am not sure how effective training is for dehumanizing little girls. But what certainly is effective is hate (racism, religious judgement). A semi-pro murder of a wealthy Iranian family with a WW2 era german pistol (it might be Swiss issued, but I bet it looks just like the one the Nazis used) just reeks of hate crime.
I really love all the intriguing stories around it, but they just stem from the fact that beautiful/successful/rich people have interesting things happen to them. It's like red herrings in a British detective show.
If I had to be a rational serious detective on this case I'd certainly be looking for a Nazi gun nut with a good shot and social issues either locally or one that could've met the family somewhere along their trip.
A Swiss gun used near (40 minutes drive) Switzerland but yeah let's look for a Nazi ...
And how do you justify the cyclist murder : judging by his photos he was white (yeah I know, embarrassing witness whatever).
Like I told in another comment, everybody and his dog has its own theory and knows better than the investigators.
You can say a lot of bad things on the French police (Gendarmerie in this instance) but on big cases like this one their track record is pretty good. So if they didn't find the killer there are only 2 options imho : they were ordered from above to not find anyone (possible in the case of a state sponsored murder) or the killer simply didn't leave enough clues to be found.
If the guy is not local, not in European fingerprints / DNA databases and was not seen, explain me how can they find him ?
I never claim I know better than any investigators. I poked a bit at the media that hype the intrigue stories, but I am sure the investigators are doing their work proper.
My theory is just what I thought of in 5 minutes for fun. Is it really so bad it deserves to be downvoted?
I totally agree with your options, I even think it's rather unlikely they were ordered not to find him. Shooting someone in the woods is just a very difficult to solve crime.
Did Zeena die or is she still alive? In all of this article, I kept wondering if she saw anything or anyone and could serve as a witness or if there's a law against kids serving as witnesses in France/Britain. Wouldn't she have seen/heard something that could have been used as a lead?
Actually both children survived. But considering their age at that time and the inconceivability of the event I doubt that their testimonials would be worth much.
They're both alive and live in with their family (something like their father uncle) in England.
The investigators questioned her for about 30 minutes I recall. Even before her interview they explained that she would probably be of not much help and they didn't want to add to the trauma.
The only thing that got out in the press was that she saw one bad guy (at the time it was thought there was more than one shooter due to the number of shell casings found at the scene).
Fascinating piece of long form journalism. There's no gotcha, big reveal at the end. And because it was so thorough and balanced throughout, that didn't take away from the effect.
Often I've said "You typically hear about criminals who get caught, not the ones who got away" because there doesn't seem to be a good case for glamorizing successful crime...but wow. Terrible loss of life. Looking for answers is in our nature - as this story shows, we can go to great lengths. There's no guarantee we'll ever find out though.
A lot of murders get solved not because of great forensic work, but because someone comes forward with information; here, nobody has, or at least not with good enough information.
Also, it's not just sex or money that lead to murder. Anger and stupidity are huge factors. Every day, people get into fights over the stupidest stuff and, given the right circumstances, kill other people just because they can.
Fantastic writing (Full Disclosure: using uBlock origin I had none of the ad distractions that some mentioned).
Why this case is so puzzling is that it mixes the seemingly pro level like hit with the unpredictability of the location(it took a few coincidences for the car to get up that hill) and seemingly unneeded extra kills.
I was thinking that one explanation would be that someone(individual or state) outsources the killing of the engineer or the cyclist (or both).
This hired gun is a pro but also a loose cannon who enjoys killing just because. So he is no Golgo13.
The other explanation is that it is a completely nonsensical crime, ie someone with military training camped up in those hills with the intention of killing whoever came up there and then left the area. This seems so unbelievable yet it is possible.
Zaid appears to be guilty not only because of the money but because of the physical altercation in 2011 a year before the murders. I suspect Saad seriously threatened Zaid during the altercation to the point revenge never left his mind. And since there was so much built up rage/hate in Zaid, he hired a hit-man to take out all of the heirs to provide a clean sweep to the mula. The heirs had to go because I suspect Zaid had to pay or payoff big for an undiscoverable hit! The cyclist was in the wrong place at the wrong time and aggressively targeted to throw off the investigation. But it is very clear who the mastermind is. I'm just wondering why he is being treated so kindly? And who does he know that may be protecting him? Hopefully Zaid doesn't have access to Saad's children.
55 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadCan't really blame people for using ad blockers on pages like that. That said, I'm quite interested in the story so I'll give it a read regardless...
Honestly people, just use normal HTML for the article text. Actually, just use normal HTML wherever possible.
Oh, and try to make sure your article actually has a conclusion.
Personally, I'm not ever going to be clicking on any further GQ links. They not only have terrible articles, they have terrible presentation.
-- Mike @GQ
--Mike @GQ
Rather just make a top level comment : Mike @GQ here,...
http://serialpodcast.org/
No ordinary 50 year old engineer does that. That guy had training. And not in STEM.
They all think that something don't add-up, they all have their favorite theory and they always know better than the investigators.
Take the shooter for instance : sometimes he's a pro (2 to the head, mosts of the shots were hits) sometimes an amateur (didn't pick-up the brass, used an antique gun) and on and on.
I think the only thing safe to say is that we don't know sh.. (pardon my French ;-).
Once you go to the level of "this was state sponsored in some way" all normal investigation and inference goes out the window. State sponsored folks would know how normal police investigations are conducted and have plenty of ways to counter them.
Why a particular state would want these people dead is another matter entirely though.
I think a more likely explanation would be that the killer was a pro, and didn't care about the brass since they planned on dumping the weapon, which couldn't be traced to them anyway.
I think not picking-up the brass doesn't mean anything : you can find the imprint of the barrel's grooves on the fired bullets (unless they are too deformed by the impact, but would you bet it on all 21 bullets ?) so the gun will be identifiable even if they don't have the brass.
Not really. And that's not because I'm some PC-police kind of person, either. Women are being allowed into more and more places in the military (in the US, other countries are far ahead of us on this) and I suspect that there are tons of them in the intelligence community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Fo...
Finally given that it's "always" "bad guys" that do this kind of thing if you're playing a strategic game at some point you have to realize that women have a huge advantage; since it "can't" be a woman who does that, women can absolutely get away easier and more cleanly than men can. And if you really are doing stuff at a national security level where it never becomes public anyhow then there's no reason not to use women to their full potential aside from squeamishness on the part of the people giving the orders. I suspect that isn't a huge roadblock; either you're a sociopath who's fine with sending people to their death because "who cares?" or you're a true believer in which case everyone can fight for the cause.
Now I'm not suggesting that women commit violent crimes at the same rate that men do by any means. The statistics bear out that they don't. But at a state-sponsored level I would imagine that a lot of bets are off.
If a woman had been seen the investigator would have still tried to find her even if they thought she was just a witness.
I'm not even aware of one known instance of a pro killer that was a woman in the last 10 years. I don't say they don't exist but they're in "black swan" category.
BTW the investigators know exactly the sex and probably even the ethnicity of the killer. It's not clear in this article, but it was said in several others that they have his ( ;-) ) DNA, I think from the piece of the gun that was left on the crime scene. I think there's even some tech that allows you to make a mug shot of someone from her DNA, I doubt it's really accurate though.
I'm not suggesting that I know they're common by any stretch of the imagination. But to say that you know they aren't is intellectually dishonest.
I think it says a lot about our culture that if you don't wait in shock to get shot by a killer some think you're a kind of trained commando.
Until someone shoots at me I won't know in what category I am, commando or sheep. I wouldn't mind never finding out ;-)
I'm not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
When my sister and my parents couldn't find me, they feared the worst and called the police who came and searched the house and couldn't find me. I woke up, walked out into the living room and everyone stared at me in disbelief.
All that to say that I can very easily see a small child hiding under a skirt remaining unnoticed for several hours. How the child stayed quiet for that long would be surprising to me, but stranger things have happened.
When the other kids couldn't find him, he didn't come out. His grandmother and the other adults looked for him and he didn't come out. They searched the interior of the church and he didn't come out. They searched the grounds of the church and he didn't come out.
They called the police and while the police were searching the church again, he came out.
They had checked the book case on numerous occasions but he was in a compartment in the bottom of the book case and they had only checked the top.
He wasn't allowed to play hide and seek at the church after that.
Some psychiatrist said that the little girl was completely shocked and in a "coma like" state, so she didn't move or make any sound at all.
They quickly checked that everybody was dead from outside of the car but didn't see the girl which apparently was hidden under the bodies of her mother and grandmother. So they closed of the crime scene and started to comb everything outside the car.
Only when they actually opened the car door did they find the little girl. It was said that she didn't even react when they took her.
I really love all the intriguing stories around it, but they just stem from the fact that beautiful/successful/rich people have interesting things happen to them. It's like red herrings in a British detective show.
If I had to be a rational serious detective on this case I'd certainly be looking for a Nazi gun nut with a good shot and social issues either locally or one that could've met the family somewhere along their trip.
And how do you justify the cyclist murder : judging by his photos he was white (yeah I know, embarrassing witness whatever).
Like I told in another comment, everybody and his dog has its own theory and knows better than the investigators.
You can say a lot of bad things on the French police (Gendarmerie in this instance) but on big cases like this one their track record is pretty good. So if they didn't find the killer there are only 2 options imho : they were ordered from above to not find anyone (possible in the case of a state sponsored murder) or the killer simply didn't leave enough clues to be found.
If the guy is not local, not in European fingerprints / DNA databases and was not seen, explain me how can they find him ?
My theory is just what I thought of in 5 minutes for fun. Is it really so bad it deserves to be downvoted?
I totally agree with your options, I even think it's rather unlikely they were ordered not to find him. Shooting someone in the woods is just a very difficult to solve crime.
The investigators questioned her for about 30 minutes I recall. Even before her interview they explained that she would probably be of not much help and they didn't want to add to the trauma.
The only thing that got out in the press was that she saw one bad guy (at the time it was thought there was more than one shooter due to the number of shell casings found at the scene).
Often I've said "You typically hear about criminals who get caught, not the ones who got away" because there doesn't seem to be a good case for glamorizing successful crime...but wow. Terrible loss of life. Looking for answers is in our nature - as this story shows, we can go to great lengths. There's no guarantee we'll ever find out though.
Also, it's not just sex or money that lead to murder. Anger and stupidity are huge factors. Every day, people get into fights over the stupidest stuff and, given the right circumstances, kill other people just because they can.
Why this case is so puzzling is that it mixes the seemingly pro level like hit with the unpredictability of the location(it took a few coincidences for the car to get up that hill) and seemingly unneeded extra kills.
I was thinking that one explanation would be that someone(individual or state) outsources the killing of the engineer or the cyclist (or both).
This hired gun is a pro but also a loose cannon who enjoys killing just because. So he is no Golgo13.
The other explanation is that it is a completely nonsensical crime, ie someone with military training camped up in those hills with the intention of killing whoever came up there and then left the area. This seems so unbelievable yet it is possible.