1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,680 Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on 2 00:00:07,900 --> 00:00:11,680 harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind. 3 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:17,280 Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast. 4 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:19,920 Listener discretion is strongly advised. 5 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:27,440 Hi everyone, I'm Deb and I'm Beth and we want to welcome you to our newest episode of Dying to be Found. 6 00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:29,760 Thanks so much for coming to join us today. 7 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:36,320 Beth and I are trying to find stories that you can relate to and leave the content up to you, our listeners. 8 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:42,720 So if you have a story you would like to hear, please email us at dyingtobefound at gmail.com 9 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:47,200 or you can message us on Instagram at Dying the Number Two 10 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:52,720 the letter B found or there is a new Linktree link that I'll put in our show notes. 11 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:57,440 Feel free to go in there and you can fill out a really quick gmail form. 12 00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:01,440 It won't take you more than one minute to do and we'll be looking for that. 13 00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:06,560 So we appreciate your being here today. Before we get started, as always, I want to check in with Beth. 14 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:08,560 Bethyboo, what are you up to today? 15 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:11,840 Well, I'm just worrying about tomorrow's weather. 16 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:18,240 It's supposed to be excruciating hot. I was about to ask you if it was going to snow. 17 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:23,280 I wasn't expecting a heat wave up there in the great white north. 18 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:31,680 Oh yeah, it's been very dry summer for Ontario, not much rain and tomorrow there's a big weather advisory. 19 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:36,800 Oh goodness. Snow usually comes around our October Thanksgiving. 20 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:44,960 That's the earliest and then if it doesn't happen then then maybe November. 21 00:01:44,960 --> 00:01:49,280 That's not terrible. Well, snow flurries are known to come around here by Thanksgiving. 22 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:55,440 At least sometimes do, but also you need to know or maybe our listeners don't know that our Thanksgiving is different. 23 00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:59,360 Yes, ours is a second Monday in October and when is yours? 24 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,880 I'm going to say it's a third Thursday of November. 25 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:03,760 I think it is. 26 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:07,680 I don't know. I just put it on my calendar. That's all I know and I follow it. 27 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:09,600 Do you do Black Friday shopping? 28 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:15,120 I've only done it one time. I can't handle all that. I am more of an online shopper today. 29 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:21,280 But I would say when Black Friday was big and popular, I'm not one of these early bird people 30 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:26,160 that can get up at four o'clock in the morning to hit all the stores. It's just not my forte. 31 00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,720 Yeah, well I guess that's something to look forward to. 32 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:32,880 I've already done my Amazon Prime and got some really good deals this summer. 33 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:34,960 So that's the new Black Friday. 34 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:36,560 Oh good, good. 35 00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:42,240 Yeah, okay. So today we're going to talk about Menhaz Zaman. 36 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:48,880 He is a 20-something year old son who was born to Bengali immigrants in 1996. 37 00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:54,960 I kind of want to give a little bit of a pretext to what we're talking about, Beth. 38 00:02:54,960 --> 00:03:04,000 If our listeners wanted to backtrack to episode number four, we had talked about Luca Magnotta, 39 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,640 and he's also known as the Canadian psycho. Do you remember talking about him, Beth? 40 00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:09,520 Sure do. 41 00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:16,000 Yeah. So we had talked about that and how people were on the internet trying to track him down. 42 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,280 Dog gone it. Dennis is at work again. He is barking. 43 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:21,680 And then I think somebody's yelling at him. 44 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:26,640 Nope, that's Ava chiming in. So we'll give it just a second. 45 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:30,640 In the meantime, I'm going to give you... Okay, have you heard of stupid dad jokes? 46 00:03:30,640 --> 00:03:31,200 Yes. 47 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:33,680 I came up with some stupid Deb jokes. 48 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,080 Okay, let's hear a stupid Deb joke. 49 00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:42,640 Because back in the day before we changed our platform, you dropped all the time. 50 00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:43,680 I did. 51 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:47,920 And I took great pleasure of telling stories about you. 52 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:52,480 And I can't do that anymore because we have an awesome platform that we're recording on now. 53 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:53,760 But exactly. 54 00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,680 So yeah, I have some stupid Deb jokes that I came up with. 55 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:03,280 And I'm glad that Dennis did not decide to bark in the middle of our recording. 56 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:07,840 He's doing it at the beginning. So I think I can throw this in until he stops barking. 57 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:10,160 Do you have a genealogy account, Beth? 58 00:04:10,160 --> 00:04:10,560 No. 59 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:11,920 You know what that is, right? 60 00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:12,240 Yeah. 61 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:17,840 Okay. So I do. I mean, I've been looking at our family history for a couple of years now. 62 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:20,080 Did you know that we have an Uncle Frank? 63 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:20,640 Where? 64 00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:22,400 Well, in Canada, of course. 65 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:30,880 And in the notes in our ancestry, it says that when he died, he wanted his ashes to be put in his favorite beer mug. 66 00:04:30,880 --> 00:04:31,920 Get out. 67 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:36,400 Yeah. Because his last wish, Beth, was to be Frankenstein. 68 00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:44,880 Oh my gosh, you got me good. 69 00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:49,280 Yeah. We don't have an Uncle Frank, not that I know of. At least I haven't found him in the family tree yet. 70 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,240 Okay. Well, that was my stupid Deb joke. 71 00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:55,120 You know what you should put in? Can you put sound effects in? 72 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:55,920 Yeah, maybe. 73 00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:01,600 I love it. We have to use it. 74 00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:09,440 Okay. Beth liked my joke today. So yeah, things are about to get real heavy because we're going 75 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:16,560 to be talking today about this story that I had found and it's, I wouldn't say it's extremely 76 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:21,840 similar to the Canadian psycho case that we had talked about in the past, but I will say that 77 00:05:21,840 --> 00:05:29,600 people online did the same thing that the people in our episode number four did with Luca Magnata. 78 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:31,840 They tracked down a killer. 79 00:05:31,840 --> 00:05:34,640 Oh, wonderful. Now tell me, how did you find this story? 80 00:05:34,640 --> 00:05:40,880 Okay. So a couple months ago, I was just, oh my gosh, hold up now. Let me go talk to Dennis. 81 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:41,680 I'll be right back. 82 00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:48,720 Somebody was in our driveway, folks. Okay. Good God. I hope that didn't take too long. Anyway. 83 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:55,600 Okay. So today we are going to get into somewhat of a heavy case, Beth. This is one of those cases 84 00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:02,880 where the surrounding community took action and hunted down a killer within a couple of hours. 85 00:06:02,880 --> 00:06:04,000 Oh, amazing. 86 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:10,400 Yeah. So today we're going to talk about Menhas Zaman, who was a 20 something year old son, 87 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:18,320 who was born to Bengali immigrants in 1996. His parents immigrated to Canada in the 1980s 88 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:20,080 in the hopes for a better life. 89 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:21,280 Canada, eh? 90 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:24,000 Yeah. 91 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,560 So we're going to talk about Canada again. 92 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:30,080 We are talking about Canada, believe it or not. 93 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:32,400 Wow. More criminals than I thought. 94 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:37,120 Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think we've done quite a bit on Canada as of late. 95 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:44,160 So this just happened to be falling in the queue and it's not like we're always focusing on 96 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:48,880 United States or Canada because I have a story coming up, Beth, that is going to be overseas. 97 00:06:48,880 --> 00:06:53,840 But yeah, so it's just the luck of the draw, I guess. Let's talk about Menhas. 98 00:06:53,840 --> 00:07:00,000 He has one younger sibling who was a sister who went by the name of Melissa, 99 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:04,640 which is a Bengali reference to what we commonly refer to as Melissa. 100 00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:05,200 Okay. 101 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:12,080 Like most immigrants commonly do, Menhas' parents brought their children up with the belief that 102 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:17,920 obtaining a good education will contribute to better opportunities. I will say I spun my 103 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:22,720 wheels for years, Beth, but once I got a degree, it really did open doors. 104 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:24,160 I don't think I realized that. 105 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:31,520 Mm-hmm. You know also that some cultures are very, very big on education. Well, Menhas' dad 106 00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:38,080 expected him to grow up to be an engineer while Melissa dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon. 107 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:43,840 So they had some aspiring dreams. However, if you see the difference here, Beth, 108 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:51,440 you can see that Menhas' dad wanted him to be an engineer, but he was letting his daughter 109 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:58,480 follow her dreams. For the most part of his upbringing, Menhas played the dutiful role of 110 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:05,200 a Bengali son. He was respectful towards his parents. He did his chores, and he did very well 111 00:08:05,200 --> 00:08:10,960 in school. In his spare time, like anybody his age, Beth, in his teenage years in high school, 112 00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:18,800 Menhas had a passion toward playing video games. Melissa, on the other hand, was rebellious and 113 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:23,600 often went rounds with her parents. She was a little headstrong, Beth, because she was bucking 114 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:32,240 up against her Bengali values versus Canadian values. However, she was an A student, but often 115 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:38,720 found herself in trouble for what we would refer to as acting out. Can you give us an example? 116 00:08:38,720 --> 00:08:45,520 Oh, yeah. So one time, Melissa got suspended for flipping off a teacher in class. 117 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:54,640 Oh my gosh. Can I just add that my son was being babysat, and he did the same thing to the babysitter? 118 00:08:54,640 --> 00:09:00,720 Are you kidding? I'm not kidding. So the babysitter immediately called my husband, 119 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:07,440 who immediately left work, came home, and gave him the spanking of the year. 120 00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:12,560 Wow. So how old was he? Oh, he would have probably been around four. 121 00:09:12,560 --> 00:09:16,560 And where did he learn that from, do you think? Because he had to learn it from somewhere. 122 00:09:16,560 --> 00:09:20,800 Certainly not our household. You don't think that his older sibling? 123 00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:26,480 Maybe. Who knows? Just kidding. We'll have to find out. 124 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:30,400 Yeah, I'll ask him. Hey, we'll ask him. Sarah, did you teach 125 00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:36,640 Adam how to flip the babysitter off? All right. So Melissa also smoked weed and drank, 126 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:42,640 and even dated boys secretly without her parents knowing. Holy cow. 127 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:47,200 I mean, I don't think anything's wrong with that if you're dating some... Now, okay, yeah, 128 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:53,200 drinking and smoking underage, not acceptable. But dating somebody, I don't know what the rules 129 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:57,920 and regulations are for that culture, but I mean, I can understand, especially if they had 130 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:02,880 certain values that they did follow with their traditions. Right, but not... 131 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:08,320 You don't think I should have been dating in high school? Well, you were the wild one. 132 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:13,200 Define wild. I was not that wild. I just had spirit. 133 00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:21,200 Yes. You're a very spirited young lady. Young lassie. 134 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:27,280 All right. So Melissa's personality often led to strife with her parents, obviously, 135 00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:33,440 because they were butting heads. She turned into a teenager and she would often break curfew and 136 00:10:33,440 --> 00:10:39,920 would suffer at her father's hand for this. So of course she's going to be punished. Her brother, 137 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:46,640 Menhaz, would sometimes get in between them, but more often than not, he really just put his 138 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:51,600 earphones on and went to go play video games in the other room just to drown out all the yelling. 139 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:56,720 All right. So what do you think about the differences between Menhaz and his personality 140 00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:01,440 versus Melissa's? Well, Melissa seems to be a wild child. 141 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:07,120 She does. And I wonder how she was able to get away with that versus Menhaz. Would it be the 142 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:10,800 cultural differences between male and female? I think that's what it is. 143 00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:15,200 All right. Canadian culture, males and females 144 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:22,480 are somewhat treated the same. And I am underlining that somewhat, but in other countries 145 00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:29,440 and their religious beliefs, boys and girls are treated differently and they are very tough on 146 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:35,840 the girls. They want them to be on the straight and narrow. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, 147 00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:42,640 unfortunately, we know that many people do not come from more prominent countries to make a better 148 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:49,600 life for their own children. They usually trek westward and try to make a go of it, at least in 149 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:57,040 North America. And when this occurs, parents often take on menial jobs to provide for the family. 150 00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:04,080 I want to give you an example. I have a coworker, Beth, who moved to America and works as an office 151 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:10,560 clerk, but in their own country, they were a lawyer. So I've had coworkers who have moved to 152 00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:17,840 America and now work in office clerk positions, but in their own country, they were lawyers or 153 00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:24,240 doctors. I have an interesting story if I can interrupt. Absolutely. I worked for a physician 154 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:32,000 and he was a prominent, well-known pediatrician in Poland. And he decided that he didn't want to 155 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:39,200 stay there anymore. So he went to speak in the United States, I believe it was, and then he 156 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:47,360 defected. Oh, wow. And he's a doctor in Canada now? He is now, but the poor man had to start out 157 00:12:47,360 --> 00:12:55,760 here in Toronto. He had to drive for a sausage factory and he also worked as a taxi driver. 158 00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:02,160 Wow. Now, interesting that you say that, Beth, because I was going to tell you that 159 00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:08,080 Menhaz's dad ended up becoming a taxi driver when he came to Canada. 160 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:09,200 For goodness sakes. 161 00:13:10,560 --> 00:13:16,400 And it happens a lot. So immigrants can give their children, obviously, a better opportunity, 162 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:24,240 but the trade-off sometimes passes onto the children. And because of that shift in what they 163 00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:30,800 did in their own country, children feel a lot of pressure to become something that their parents 164 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:33,600 could not become when they came to the land of opportunity. 165 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:34,800 That's very true. 166 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:41,360 Yeah. Well, like I mentioned, Menhaz's father worked as a taxi driver just to make ends meet. 167 00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:48,000 And in this case, Menhaz felt pressure to meet his parents' expectations, although he felt 168 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:52,880 compelled to go down another path in life. All right. So I've witnessed this, Beth, 169 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:57,920 and to our listeners, I'm going to go ahead and let you in on a secret that I've not really 170 00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:02,960 mentioned before now. I've hinted it, but just in case you have not figured it out, 171 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:08,480 I teach for a living. So I wanted to give you an example. And several years ago, 172 00:14:08,480 --> 00:14:14,960 an Asian student of mine came to me who was not even in one of my classes, but she knew that I 173 00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:20,480 taught business classes. And she would just sit with me after school and tell me about how much 174 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:26,720 pressure she felt from her family to become a doctor or lawyer. And what she really wanted to 175 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:33,520 do is she wanted to pursue business. So I encouraged her to participate in some of my club activities. 176 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:36,560 And she actually went to some conferences with me too, Beth. 177 00:14:36,560 --> 00:14:37,760 Fantastic. 178 00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:42,720 Yeah. I wanted her to, of course, I'm never going to get in the way of family tradition. 179 00:14:42,720 --> 00:14:48,160 That's not my place to do that. But I was just encouraging her to see what the business world 180 00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:54,160 was like. She could take it home. She could talk to her parents. She could show them how she was 181 00:14:54,160 --> 00:15:00,960 making leaps and bounds. She did really good. She loved it. She ended up in my class a year later, 182 00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:05,600 but honestly, COVID happened and I'm not really sure what happened to her. I don't know what path 183 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:10,560 she's taken. She has graduated. That is a sad case. And thank you for sharing that. 184 00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:17,120 Yeah. Well, coming back to Menhaz, obviously his immigrant parents placed a lot of pressure on 185 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:23,120 his shoulders to be successful and to help reach their own unfulfilled dreams. You know, 186 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:30,960 how people tend to live their life through their child. Yes. His parents often bragged about Menhaz. 187 00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:37,360 And so it was likely that Menhaz began to feel isolated from his friends because in his eyes, 188 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:43,040 he was probably not living up to the expectations that his parents had on him. And during his 189 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:49,360 upbringing, Menhaz was taught that a high work ethic was important, which is part of his culture 190 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:55,760 and heritage. I get that because we were brought up the same way. So my expectations on work ethic is 191 00:15:55,760 --> 00:16:02,720 pretty up there. It's likely that Menhaz suffered from culture shock actually, because at school 192 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:08,960 in the Canadian system, Beth, he was able to exercise more freedom within the Canadian culture 193 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:14,880 and who he was exposed to all day, all of his friends in the high school that he attended. But 194 00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:21,680 when he got home, he had to transform into his own family culture. So realistically, these differences 195 00:16:21,680 --> 00:16:29,120 have been known to lead to depression and homicide plus suicidal tendencies, Beth. So is this a common 196 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:34,480 occurrence? I don't know how common it is because I'm not a healthcare professional. I'm not a mental 197 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:41,280 health care professional. But in today's day and age, I can honestly tell you that mental health is 198 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:47,760 really a big thing these days. There's just so many stressor points, social media, even all this 199 00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:52,960 isolation that we have experienced with COVID. You know, people are just not socializing like they 200 00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:59,040 used to. Oh, that's so right. Yeah. So hopefully things will get back to normal soon. I want to 201 00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:04,720 take a moment to provide you with a background on Menhaz's family, because I will give you a little 202 00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:12,080 spoiler alert. Unfortunately, there were many deaths that occurred in this situation. And I want 203 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:20,160 to tell you their ages at the time of death. His mother, Momotaz, was aged 50. She nurtured her 204 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:26,960 children, was very generous to others, and even drove friends to their doctor's appointments. 205 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:34,160 She'd often cook meals for neighbors and was classy in her own rights. And by that, I mean 206 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:41,120 that she really had style. If you guys go look up pictures of Momotaz, she's a beautiful, beautiful 207 00:17:41,120 --> 00:17:50,960 woman. Wow. She sounds like a very lovely lady. Yeah. Now, Monaru's Zaman, who is Menhaz's father, 208 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:58,480 he was 59. Quite opposite from his wife, he was a little bit more introverted, very humble, 209 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:05,200 and very devoted to his Muslim faith. He dressed in traditional Muslim attire that represented a 210 00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:12,000 rich representation towards his own culture, which I think is great. Yes. Monaru's received 211 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:19,200 recognition at his job as a taxi driver as one of his company's most outstanding drivers. 212 00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:26,720 Fantastic. Yeah, because, you know, work ethic. So he was probably all about work ethic. He spent 213 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:34,400 years working long hours to provide for his family and was able to buy his own home, along with two 214 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:42,080 other rental properties. So good for him. Hardworking man. For Rosa Zaman is Menhaz's 215 00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:49,600 grandmother. She was age 70. And she eventually followed her own daughter, Momotaz, to Canada 216 00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:55,760 and was Menhaz's and Melissa's caregiver while their father drove taxis and their mom tended to 217 00:18:55,760 --> 00:19:03,280 the rental properties. So the parents worked, grandma took care of them. Melissa Zaman was only 218 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:11,360 21 years old. And as I mentioned, she was a little spirited, Beth, she was rebellious, conformed to 219 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:18,000 much more of the Canadian culture over her own and lived life at the speed of her own drum. 220 00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:24,960 I think that's wonderful. She just seems like a very vibrant personality. In contrast, however, 221 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:31,840 Melissa was very devoted to her faith and even memorized most of the Quran by the time that she 222 00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:37,760 had reached grade 10. That's quite a feat. Yeah. I don't really know much about the Quran, but 223 00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:45,120 I have heard that it is definitely a feat to certainly memorize that for sure. Well, it seemed 224 00:19:45,120 --> 00:19:52,480 to be a pretty tough year for the Zaman household, Beth, because it was during the tumultuous moments 225 00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:59,920 between his sister and their dad that Menhaz began to recluse into his own world of video gaming. 226 00:19:59,920 --> 00:20:06,800 And as I mentioned, he often drowned himself out in online gaming, just to drown out the arguing 227 00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:11,520 that was going on behind the scenes between his sister and his father. And this is when he 228 00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:18,400 discovered a video game called Perfect World. This is an online video game platform that launched in 229 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:25,760 2005. And it allows players to interact with each other across Israel, Belgium and Tunisia. So it's 230 00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:31,680 a worldwide game, Beth. Wow, that sounds interesting. Yeah. Now in today's world, 231 00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:38,400 this was back in 2017, but definitely in 2022, you can pretty much get on some of these video games 232 00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:44,800 and do the same thing, talk with people worldwide. I know Corey's done it in the past. Menhaz's father 233 00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:54,560 in 2017 was arrested for shoplifting from Canadian Tire. Oh no. Yeah. Charges were eventually dropped 234 00:20:54,560 --> 00:20:59,520 in exchange for community service. So I had mentioned this was a somewhat challenging year 235 00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:05,040 for the household. Melissa decided it was time to move out and go live with her boyfriend. I'm 236 00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:11,120 pretty sure that didn't go off well. Nope. I cannot imagine that it would not in their culture. Well, 237 00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:19,680 Menhaz became much more withdrawn as the pressure to become the perfect son really started to surface. 238 00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:26,320 And he soon identified himself as an atheist, telling his online friends that he had become 239 00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:33,360 disillusioned with Islam. So his personality is changing a little bit. Yes, it is. As time went on, 240 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:38,880 Menhaz expressed to his online friends that he wished to become more independent from his home 241 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:46,240 life. And he began spending more and more time online to the point that he was online more than 242 00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:52,880 he slept in a 24 hour period. Well, that's dangerous. Not good at all. Dangerous for the 243 00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:59,920 health and for the psychological aspect. And I will say this, when I was doing my studies, 244 00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:06,560 Beth, I had 17 hour days between work and then school work. It was 17 hours. So I was not getting 245 00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:11,760 my eight hours sleep. And then I was pretty much running on empty, I would say for over three years. 246 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:19,280 Wow. And that can do a lot as far as not really my psyche. It didn't do that. It was just a sense 247 00:22:19,280 --> 00:22:27,760 of exhaustion at all times. Yeah. So Menhaz eventually graduated from high school in 2015 248 00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:34,640 and was accepted into York University. He had told his parents that he had earned a full scholarship 249 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:41,600 to attend for electrical engineering and that he was doing very well in his courses. But in fact, 250 00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:48,400 he was actually enrolled at Seneca College, a community college that offered an electronics 251 00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:54,800 engineering program. He failed all of his classes during his first semester, but had signed up to 252 00:22:54,800 --> 00:23:00,720 retake them the very next semester. And ultimately, Beth, he ended up dropping out. Oh my gosh, 253 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:06,880 I didn't see that coming. You didn't? No. Huh? Yeah. So he's trying to be one person for his parents 254 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:12,800 as usual, but yeah, it's about to turn. It's interesting that he was leading that double life. 255 00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:18,880 Yes. So I'm going to stop here for just a moment because I have another story that I like to tell 256 00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:25,120 my students that I'm a college dropout with a doctorate degree, Beth, because I've told you 257 00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:30,640 before that I struggled in that darn geology class that I was taking when I first left high school. 258 00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:37,280 I went directly into university and I struggled with science. It's just not my forte. And getting 259 00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,760 up in the morning. No, I actually had no problem. I had eight o'clock classes and I could get up in 260 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:47,600 the morning for that. Yeah. Anyways, at the time I really do feel I was discouraged just because I 261 00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:53,600 could not pass that geology class. And I ended up dropping out, Beth, I think because I was 262 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,720 discouraged. But a couple of years later, I did go back to community college to take a math class. 263 00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:09,600 And guess what? Oh no, what? I failed. Again. And it's not for a lack of trying. I am seriously 264 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:16,320 not good with math or science. If it helps, I'm not neither. I mean, I struggled. I could study 265 00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:21,440 for hours and I just, I just, I don't know where my mind block is at. I'm more of a art and 266 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:27,040 literature type person. So, and I know you are at least art. I wonder if that has anything to do 267 00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:32,960 with why I'm not good at math and science. How so? I didn't complete a grade 12 math or science 268 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:39,760 program. How did you graduate without that? My counselor, she gave me a pass on taking those 269 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:47,120 courses. She says, because I would never pass the course. So they accommodated me. Wow. That's good 270 00:24:47,120 --> 00:24:55,520 to hear. Well, I did try very hard, Beth, contrary to what anybody believes, but I didn't give up. 271 00:24:55,520 --> 00:25:00,080 Later in life, Beth, it came a little bit more naturally to me because once I got my groove 272 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:05,920 going, it was almost like I couldn't get enough. And I've finished. I can't go any further than 273 00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:11,520 what I am now, but it took me. I don't, I just don't think that that time in my life was the 274 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:18,640 right time. So when kids say that they do not want to go to college, I encourage them to go fly with 275 00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:23,760 the airlines and see where you want to live. And you can learn about cultures just from the people 276 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:29,120 that you meet on planes. So go test the waters. If you don't think that you're ready for college, 277 00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:33,600 the first year after high school, give it a year, but you better go back after one year, 278 00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:41,360 or you will never go back at all. I heard that. So in Menhaz's case, he decided to drop out of 279 00:25:41,360 --> 00:25:48,080 university altogether. But rather than telling his parents what he did, Beth Menhaz would get up 280 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:55,040 every day, like he always did, conduct his regular morning routine, then head on out to the college 281 00:25:55,040 --> 00:26:02,320 campus or go to the gym before heading back home at the end of the day. So he is already forming 282 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:09,200 this routine that he's deceiving his parents on. I mean, what's going to happen when graduation day 283 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:14,880 comes? Well, what did he fill his time with when he was out of the house? What he would normally do, 284 00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:20,960 he'd go to the mall, hang out at the food court, and he would video game all day long, all day. 285 00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:26,080 Goodness, goodness. Yep. Because he'd be packing up his computer and heading out for the day. 286 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:33,680 For three years, he kept this routine and did not raise any suspicion with his parents whatsoever. 287 00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:38,240 That is very strange. Three years and nobody caught on. 288 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:44,560 No. I mean, if he's living at home, I can see if he's supposedly living on campus or 289 00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:49,600 in an apartment somewhere, but living at home, it's just difficult to keep up the facade for 290 00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:56,320 that long, I would think. I would think too. Well, some of his gaming buddies maintained 291 00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:02,720 contact for over five years where they had talked to each other every day. So he's going to, or he's 292 00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:08,160 supposedly going to school, and I'm sure that they probably all have a schedule to say, hey, 293 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:13,520 I'm going to be online at four o'clock today. So meet me in the room and we will play the video 294 00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:19,840 games today. Imagine that if you have even online gamers who have the same interests. So imagine the 295 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:25,280 relationships that they built over this period of time. Very true. Yeah. Because if they talk every 296 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:33,760 day. I am in a stamp forum. Oh yeah. And every couple of days I'm posting what I'm up to and 297 00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:42,000 we interact. And once a month we do Zoom meetings and we learn a new card. Okay. New technique. 298 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:49,200 Okay. So you do tutorials for each other. Yes. That's so cool. So you understand the concept then. 299 00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:57,200 I do. Yeah. Well, gaming became Manhaj's world. He was accepted into this platform as a priest 300 00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:04,240 and a healer. So the characters that these people played, he was accepted as a priest and a healer, 301 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:10,880 which leveraged his ability to game and be classified as a good at both offensive 302 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:17,680 and defensive gaming tactics. So he was trusted. He talked with other gamers on the chat platform 303 00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:24,080 and this platform was called Discord. So I didn't really look much into this, but I'm going to assume 304 00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:30,000 that you've got one platform for the game where you're playing the video game. And then of course 305 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:35,040 you have something like a chat room like Zoom does. I mean, Zoom's got a chat room and the video, 306 00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:43,440 right? Yes. So same concept. And then because he was trusted, this led the fellow gamers to believe 307 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:50,640 that Manhaj's eccentricities were related to having autism. And that didn't matter because he was 308 00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:58,080 socially accepted and pretty much free to speak openly. With that being said, he was feeling 309 00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:06,160 socially accepted by his friends. He felt he was able to speak freely. And on July 11th of 2019, 310 00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:13,760 Manhaj's was online as usual chatting with all his gaming friends. He talked about how he had 311 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:21,440 intended to leave the perfect world to go kill his parents and go to jail. Oh my gosh. So out of the 312 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:26,640 blue, you're gaming with him for a couple hours. And when he just randomly says, Hey, I'm going to 313 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:33,680 leave you all so I can go kill my parents. Oh, that's freaky. I know. Well, he had spent three 314 00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:41,120 years plotting this, Beth. Three years. And he was at the point where he was about ready to set out 315 00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:47,120 what he wanted to do. Other gamers did not take him seriously and basically shrugged this off as 316 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:54,080 dark humor since Manhaj's often referenced homophobic and religious slurs while he was online. 317 00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:58,480 I mean, if you're in the middle of gaming, you've known this guy for five years and he says something 318 00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:03,520 random like that. Are you, are you going to take him seriously? I'm not quite sure. Yeah, I'm sure 319 00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:10,560 that that's how his gamers were also feeling. But his dialogue became so extreme that he was banned 320 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:17,680 from the chatting site for two weeks because he consistently made racist remarks. Well, that's 321 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:25,600 unusual because compared to Canada, he would be racial. So he's calling the kettle black as the 322 00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:33,520 saying goes. Yeah, he sure was. Well, during the month of June in 2019, Manhaj's parents were 323 00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:40,160 preparing to throw him a graduation party because that time has come. Oh my. And not only this, 324 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:46,480 they were also about to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. Manhaj's parents held their 325 00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:52,640 anniversary party with 40 close friends and relatives. And the next day, Beth, they held a 326 00:30:52,640 --> 00:31:00,240 graduation party for Manhaj's that held 100 guests. That just blows my mind. Yeah. So they were a 327 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:06,480 caring family. They celebrated. They loved their family and friends. During Manhaj's party, his 328 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:13,280 parents talked to the guests about him moving on to his master's degree. So again, culturally, they 329 00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:18,960 want him to be the best that he can be. He's about to graduate in engineering with a bachelor's and 330 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:24,880 now they already want him to move on to his master's. Manhaj's grandmother, Feroza, came to 331 00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:31,760 visit from her apartment that she kept in Toronto. And as party goers enjoyed the lavish celebration, 332 00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:40,240 Beth, Manhaj's took his plate and ate alone in his room at his own party. Yeah, I think he's probably 333 00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:46,320 feeling the pressure at this point. He's trying to decide what he's going to do. And he logged onto 334 00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:53,120 Perfect World and changed his handle to Don't Deserve Life. So basically he changed his gaming 335 00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:58,720 name to Don't Deserve Life. And he talked to his friends about wanting to kill himself. And again, 336 00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:04,240 they didn't really know what to do. They weren't taking him very seriously at this point. So at 337 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:12,320 the end of June on the 27th 2019, instead of graduating from York University with a mechanical 338 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:18,560 engineering degree that his parents had been so proud of him accomplishing Beth, Manhaj's 339 00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:26,000 Zamen took a different plan of action. First, he posted on his Perfect World platform, quote, 340 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:32,000 gonna kill my parents and go to jail yo, end quote. You know, I think if I saw that I would 341 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:36,080 actually report it. I would think so at this point, because this is not the first time he brought it 342 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:44,240 up. So Manhaj's mom and grandmother had fallen asleep in the master bedroom while his father and 343 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:51,040 sister were both at work. And around 3pm that day, Manhaj's went to his mother's bedroom and 344 00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:56,720 attacked her with a crowbar before leaving her for dead and then returning to his video gaming. 345 00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:04,800 Oh, brutal. Yeah. And he then proceeded to post a picture online saying, this is my mom. He took a 346 00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:11,520 picture of her and posted it online. There's just no words. No, an hour later, Beth, an hour later, 347 00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:16,960 he took another break and attacked his grandmother with a crowbar and again went back to his video 348 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:23,520 gaming. An hour later. Yeah. At some point, Manhaj's looked at the clock and told his gaming buddies 349 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:29,360 what he had done, then said he was about to take a break for about five minutes because he was going 350 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:35,200 to take his sister out and his father an hour later. He's telling his friends online, Beth, 351 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:41,840 what he's about to do. Clearly he's sick. You know, it's going to change those lives forever. Yes. 352 00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:47,440 Yes. That would be very traumatic. I could imagine. So without going into full details, 353 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:52,400 I'm not going to give you all that. He did follow through with his plan because his sister had 354 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:58,560 arrived home five minutes later, like he had said around 11 o'clock PM from work. And he attacked her 355 00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:04,800 with a crowbar. An hour later, around midnight, when his dad arrived home, he also attacked him 356 00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:10,800 with the crowbar. Just to be sure that he had finished the job, Manhaj's had taken a knife to 357 00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:18,720 all four of his family members throats just to make sure they were dead. That is just so horrid. It is. 358 00:34:18,720 --> 00:34:25,280 I think I do. I barely remember this case because I remember now that he took a knife to all his 359 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:31,440 family members. I do not recall hearing though, that it was a crowbar. So you remember this is 360 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:36,080 only five years ago. So, I mean, this would probably be a pretty big story at the time. 361 00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:43,600 It was. Which is such a shame. So I do want to kind of talk about the gamers interactions at this 362 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:49,600 point because once his mission was accomplished, Manhaj's got back online and returned to his 363 00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:54,160 video gaming to tell his friends what he'd done. And of course they didn't believe him and thought 364 00:34:54,160 --> 00:35:00,720 he was just trying to gain attention. But to prove to them what he had done, Manhaj's posted pictures 365 00:35:00,720 --> 00:35:07,200 of the murder scene and some of the interactions held between Manhaj's and his other online gaming 366 00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:13,600 friends consisted of this dialogue. And I'm just going to say open quote, I just slaughtered my entire 367 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:19,920 family and will most likely spend the rest of my life in jail if I manage to survive. And one of 368 00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:25,360 the gamers asked him, what are you going to do now? Manhaj's response was, I'm going to go see my 369 00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:32,080 girlfriend. I wanted them to die so they didn't suffer knowing how much of a pathetic subhuman I was. 370 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:37,280 Well, that's an interesting take. I would have guessed that he was just angry with them all, but 371 00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:46,240 really he's embarrassed and down on himself. Yes, that is exactly right. He was feeling the pressure 372 00:35:46,240 --> 00:35:52,720 from being somebody that he knew he was not. And it was time to pay the piper. Graduation was coming 373 00:35:52,720 --> 00:35:59,200 up. I know he was probably feeling like he said subhuman to what his parents' expectations were. 374 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:06,640 What I don't get is that he had plotted this for three years. I mean, go get a job or fess up. 375 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:12,640 It's not going to be, I mean, I can understand parents might be upset for the time being, but 376 00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:18,160 this too shall pass. Don't sit there and plot for three years what you're going to do. No, 377 00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:23,920 you'd think in those three years he would seek help for his thoughts. I'm not sure that he really had 378 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:30,560 escalating thoughts. I think that he was just trying to figure a way out to get past his 379 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:37,280 expectations with his culture. Because to me, I don't know if the video gaming itself could 380 00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:43,680 have contributed to his thought processes. I mean, that's a real thing because at some point in time, 381 00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:50,480 some people can't differentiate between reality and fantasy, eh? Right. Yeah. He had mentioned to 382 00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:56,080 his gaming group that he might move the bodies to different areas of the house so that they would 383 00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:02,480 photograph better. Oh. Then he mentioned that he might just take one last group picture. So clearly 384 00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:08,480 he's disconnected at this point. What would you do in this situation if you were online with your 385 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:13,600 Zooming friends and they said any of this to you? What would you do? I'd call authorities. Yeah. 386 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:20,080 That is exactly the direction that the gamer's action plan went because once he started talking 387 00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:25,040 about it, it didn't seem like he was stopping. And remember that he was interacting with people 388 00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:32,800 worldwide, Beth, fearing that Menhaz would harm more people. These gamers who were interacting with 389 00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:38,960 him attempted at this point to keep him online and talking because they did not want him to go out 390 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,200 and hurt other people. He had mentioned he was going to see his girlfriend. Would he do the same 391 00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:49,840 to her? Oh, I bet you he would. Mm-hmm. The gamers were interacting with him. They created a 392 00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:56,800 private chat to talk amongst themselves and attempted to track Menhaz's IP address. And for 393 00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:03,120 anybody who is not technically savvy, it doesn't matter what computer system you use, all computers, 394 00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:09,200 your cell phone, a laptop, a PC, they all have an address that can be tracked to you. Get out of 395 00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:15,520 here. Did you not know that? No. Yeah. What I don't understand is how does it do that? Because when 396 00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:21,120 you buy the thing or maybe does that is that how when you buy it, it's attached to you then? Yeah. 397 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:25,600 Do you know what the differences between hardware and software? Yes. Yeah. So it's part of the 398 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:34,560 hardware system. Okay. And at this point, all the gamers had to go on was the username Menhaz and 399 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:40,320 Canada being his location. So if you're online, then those were the two identifiers that they 400 00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:45,440 could physically see on screen. They knew his screen name, they knew his location, but that's it. 401 00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:51,440 That's all they had to go on. One of the gamers, and we're going to call her Nicole, was a criminal 402 00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:57,600 justice student and let the group know that she felt that the pictures were very real and they had 403 00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:05,120 to take this situation seriously. So one gamer from Texas attempted to contact police, but just like 404 00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:12,080 that Luca Mignotta case, the police did not take him seriously. But another gamer living in Tunisia 405 00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:18,880 still believed that this was a hoax until he saw a selfie that Menhaz had posted with him holding 406 00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:24,080 a bloody knife. And this is when he called Crime Stoppers International. At least they're getting 407 00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:29,680 the ball rolling, right? Yes, exactly. All the gamers came together. They were all talking in 408 00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:36,560 their chat room, remember? So the pictures that Menhaz was posting online, they had opened other 409 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:42,000 tabs and were trying to locate those pictures online. They were Googling, they were just surfing 410 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:49,520 the net to see if any pictures would come up and they had no luck. One gamer boldly asked Menhaz for 411 00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:55,920 his address and he brushed them off. So he was like, yeah, no dude, I'm not, you know, I'm not 412 00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:02,560 going to give you that. And then digging through chat records and looking at Menhaz's IP address, 413 00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:09,200 the gamers were able to distinguish at some point that he was in the Eastern time zone. Okay, so 414 00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:15,360 even in Canada, as here in America, you've got the Eastern time zone, Central time zone, 415 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:21,600 mountain and Pacific. They were at least able to identify that he was on the Eastern region of 416 00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:27,680 Canada at this time. They were also able to contact a perfect world administrator, I'll call him 417 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:34,880 Austin. Austin began monitoring this IP address, which was somewhat difficult to do because if 418 00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:41,920 Menhaz was offline, he was not able to track him. However, because of his tendencies and you know, 419 00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:48,720 Menhaz got off the computer and got back on, he'd log off, log on, log off, log back in. Well, 420 00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:55,200 Austin was able to locate a New Brunswick address based on the IP address. And I will say that that 421 00:40:55,200 --> 00:41:01,360 was not accurate, but they were getting closer and the chat group knew him not as a residence 422 00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:06,400 of that province. So they just kept going. They said, no, he's not a New Brunswick. That's not 423 00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:12,240 correct. So they all stalled Menhaz for a certain period of time and basically came right out and 424 00:41:12,240 --> 00:41:17,360 said, why'd you do it? Why didn't you confide in anybody? And why do you think murder was your 425 00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:24,720 only way out? Obviously this worked because Menhaz response was, I spent three years planning this 426 00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:29,520 and I couldn't delay it any longer. I did this because I didn't want my parents to be ashamed 427 00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:35,200 to have a son like me. I'm a pathetic coward. And since I'm an atheist, I don't believe in the 428 00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:42,240 afterlife. So I was afraid to die. It's all very selfish really. Okay. So he's somewhat owning up 429 00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:48,000 to what he had done, but I still don't think that there's a connection, Beth. Does he even realize 430 00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:53,600 what he did or is it fantasy because he's been gaming in this perfect world platform? 431 00:41:54,640 --> 00:42:02,000 Yeah, I've heard of that. So as the group continued to try to locate Menhaz, they did contact the 432 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:07,840 administrators from Discord, which was that chat room I had mentioned. It's on a different server 433 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:13,680 because they're two different companies. So they were able to contact an administrator from Discord 434 00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:20,720 and as they continued to dig, the group was able to identify a Skype account from the Greater 435 00:42:20,720 --> 00:42:27,040 Toronto area. Bingo. He lived in Greater Toronto area and we've talked a lot about the Greater 436 00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:34,000 Toronto area in several of our podcasts. We have. The gamers were told to contact the Toronto police 437 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:41,280 who were then able to file an emergency request with Discord to find out Menhaz's identity. So 438 00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:47,680 basically it's like getting a search warrant. Right. And while this was going on behind the scenes, 439 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:54,480 Menhaz proceeded to offer compensation to his gaming friends just for listening and said he 440 00:42:54,480 --> 00:43:00,560 would send them money through his PayPal account. That's very crazy. It is. He thought at this point, 441 00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:06,320 Beth, that he no longer needed money where he was about to go. True. Now one of these gamers was a 442 00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:13,120 little slick and we're going to call her Bianca. She accepted Menhaz's offer for cash and allowed 443 00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:19,920 him to send money through PayPal. Why? Because she was able to connect Menhaz's home address through 444 00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:25,440 the PayPal account. Apparently there's some way when you are gaming and you're sending money through 445 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:32,720 PayPal, there is a way that you could connect home addresses. It happened to be 12 kilometers or 18 446 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:39,360 miles away from Bianca in Markham, Ontario. Have you heard of Markham? I don't think I've heard of 447 00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:46,400 that tune. Oh yes. It probably wasn't around. It was just, it's now part of Toronto area, like the 448 00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:53,920 greater. Yeah. The Metro area. Yes. So she was able to locate him and then she was able to contact the 449 00:43:53,920 --> 00:44:02,080 police with that physical address without Menhaz PayPaling Bianca. It would have been virtually 450 00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:10,080 impossible to track an exact location from the IP address. Really? Yep. So thank God for technology. 451 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:16,080 Oh, for sure. Now Bianca looked up previous payments. This is how she found out Beth, 452 00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:23,360 because of previous payments, she was able to find that home address and 12 hours later, police 453 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:30,800 came to Menhaz's door for a wellness check. Obviously Menhaz was still gaming when they came 454 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:37,760 to the door. This was 12 hours later. As the police knocked on the door, he wrote in the chat room, 455 00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:44,800 quote, the police are here. Goodbye. End quote and logged off. That's crazy again. Yeah. He just 456 00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:51,120 sat there and waited for them. Probably a relief to him too. I think so too. I mean, you have to, 457 00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:57,200 it was just a burden on him to live up to his parents' expectations in no way, shape or form. 458 00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:03,760 Is it acceptable what he did? But I'm sure, like you said, he definitely had some sense of relief. 459 00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:10,480 So all of these events took place within the span of 18 hours from the time that he told his gaming 460 00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:17,360 friends what he had done until the police showed up at his door. Bravo to his gaming buddies on this 461 00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:26,160 platform who were able to track down a killer in 18 hours or less. Fantastic. These are wonder stories 462 00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:32,000 that people can be so savvy to do that. I think I would attempt to do the same thing if I were 463 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:37,360 put in that situation. Hopefully I will never ever be in that situation, but I'm so glad that 464 00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:43,280 people come together when they have to. Yes. So I'm going to talk about the charges very briefly. 465 00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:49,360 Menhaz was charged with four counts of first degree murder and in September of 2020, he pled 466 00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:56,560 guilty to three of these charges. The fourth guilty plea was to second degree murder of his mother. 467 00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:03,200 Had he gone to court and said he was not guilty, Menhaz would have had that charge up to first 468 00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:09,360 degree murder, but he took a deal. He did apologize to the court for his actions. But honestly, Beth, 469 00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:16,000 the judge wasn't taking any of that. He went off on Menhaz pretty hard and really reprimanded him, 470 00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:21,200 saying in open court that he deserved severe punishment due to the violence that took place 471 00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:26,640 and the betrayal of trust that had occurred. The judge was especially appalled with the fact that 472 00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:33,360 Menhaz continued playing video games in between each action of murder that he had committed. 473 00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:39,200 Yeah, that bothered me too. Well, yeah, I'm sorry to hear that because it's quite disturbing. 474 00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:46,000 And Menhaz was automatically sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for a combined 475 00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:53,440 40 years. So he will be 64 years old before he has the opportunity to be released. And that's older 476 00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:58,000 than his dad, Beth, which is still pretty young in this day and age in the whole scheme of things. 477 00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:03,600 59 year old dad. Yes. He's going to be older than his own dad. I hope he never gets out. 478 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:10,240 I hope not too. Well, if you're interested, there is a documentary and it's on Peacock TV. I don't 479 00:47:10,240 --> 00:47:15,680 know if you have that where you're at, Beth. It's relatively new. No, I don't personally. 480 00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:21,120 Okay. So it's just another one of those apps that's pretty new and it looks like it's from NBC. 481 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:27,040 I have not watched this documentary, but this is where I got the idea of the storyline. So, 482 00:47:27,040 --> 00:47:31,680 I mean, all of my information came from online resources, which I will put in the show notes. 483 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:37,680 And kudos to the gamers who took them down relatively quickly. My heart goes out to the 484 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:43,440 family because nothing like this should ever happen. No. Well, thank you for sharing that 485 00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:49,840 story with us. This case was quite a tough one. It was very hard to listen to because I can't 486 00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:56,400 imagine your own son coming towards you and killing you and then going back to the game 487 00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:03,200 and then killing again. He really had mental health issues and clearly needed help years before, 488 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,280 never sought help. But on the other hand, he seemed to know he was doing wrong. 489 00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:12,960 Yeah, but he was so emotionless about it too. I mean, he literally told people what he had done, 490 00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:18,320 but he didn't have any remorse because he went back and did it again. True. Yeah. I see where 491 00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:24,080 you're coming from. It was, I mean, as I was digging into this, Beth, I couldn't believe what I was 492 00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:29,760 reading too. I mean, you'll see in the resources, I always try to find the most reputable resources 493 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:37,120 that I can find. And had I watched the documentary on Peacock, I might have taken a different spin 494 00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:43,280 on this, but the outcome was not what I expected either. No. I just can't believe that somebody 495 00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:49,440 could go on for three years and not actively do something to change their path. You know what I 496 00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:56,320 mean? For sure. Yeah. So at this moment, do you have a teachable moment? Sure. So let's talk about 497 00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:04,080 the gamers who interacted with Menhaz. First off, Beth, bravo to you for everything that you did to 498 00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:09,680 work together to get this guy off the streets. But we talked several times throughout this entire 499 00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:15,840 podcast that mental health is real and it's not getting any better from this day and age and 500 00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:23,440 everything that people are experiencing with COVID and things like physical trauma, or we don't see 501 00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:29,680 the trauma that people are experiencing, but it doesn't mean that people do not experience mental 502 00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:35,840 health trauma. It happens all the time. And in the case of the gamers, they had to have been 503 00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:41,440 experiencing a traumatic event as well. And Beth, I think you mentioned that earlier in this podcast, 504 00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:47,120 what they had to have gone through, right? They didn't see this coming, but they saw pictures, 505 00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:53,840 they talked to this guy. Then the situation became very real that when they moved into catch this 506 00:49:53,840 --> 00:50:01,120 killer, they also had to have experienced trauma throughout the whole process. So my suggestion is 507 00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:08,000 that if you are a witness to something that personally impacts you through your own experiences 508 00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:14,720 or other people's actions, please, I implore you to reach out to healthcare professionals and at 509 00:50:14,720 --> 00:50:20,080 least talk to someone about how things may affect you. A lot of people sweep this under the rug, 510 00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:25,440 Beth, but that is not always the best approach. Some people can handle things better than others, 511 00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:30,400 but at some point, you know, things will come to the surface. You might find that you're stronger 512 00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:36,400 than you think, or you might find that you really could use some help to get through it. So that's 513 00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:42,320 my teachable moment. If you experience something that you have a hard time dealing with, go talk 514 00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:47,440 to someone. Yes, there's a lot of people they can talk to. They can go to friends, they can go to 515 00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:54,800 their doctor. There's crisis lines. There's a lot of help out there now and people are starting to 516 00:50:54,800 --> 00:51:01,440 learn a little bit more about mental health. So please do your part for yourself. Absolutely. 517 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:07,440 That was very well said. Well, that's the case of Menhaz Zaman. I really, I didn't look up to see 518 00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:14,080 where he's at today, but I'm pretty sure we all know where he is. And that's a wrap. That is a wrap. 519 00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:19,680 And thanks for listening. Before we go, we would love for you to leave a review on your favorite 520 00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:25,840 podcast platform that really helps us in our rankings. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, 521 00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:32,000 Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest at Dying the number two, the letter B found. And if you like 522 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:38,000 our episodes, please rate, share, and consider buying us a coffee. Be sure to leave a comment 523 00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:44,560 at buymeacoffee.com slash dying to be found spelled just like you see it on our logo. And to learn 524 00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:51,040 more about our podcast or your hosts, you can visit us at dying to be found.com again spelled 525 00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:56,000 just like you see it on our logo. And thanks everybody. We will talk to you next Thursday. 526 00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:21,760 Bye. Goodbye.