Speaker 1: Welcome to tonight's classic episode, Fellow conspiracy realist. This is
Speaker 1: a deep cut. We called this as you could see
Speaker 1: if you saw the title Pop Music, black Magic and
Speaker 1: Murder The Case of Moda Fan Day.
Speaker 2: I gotta be honest, guys, I don't remember a whole
Speaker 2: heck of a lot about this one.
Speaker 3: Oh dude, this is a wild one. Yes, I don't
Speaker 3: even want to spoil stuff with this. It just it
Speaker 3: unfolds in a way where you're like, wait, how it
Speaker 3: matches up with some of the rumors that you hear
Speaker 3: about super popular singers specifically, but people in Hollywood. You're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're definitely doing like rituals and stuff and they got
Speaker 3: power somehow through that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did they get famous? It's a question a
Speaker 1: lot of people ask, especially in a society that worships celebrity,
Speaker 1: Why not me? What did this person do? Differently, and
Speaker 1: often the public looks toward darker or more sinister explanations
Speaker 1: behind that success.
Speaker 2: When right off the bat, it seems to have a
Speaker 2: lot in common with some of the conspiracies and actual
Speaker 2: real occurrences surrounding some Swedish black metal bands that actually
Speaker 2: got into satanic rituals and murdering each other. But this
Speaker 2: is in the realm of pop music, which I think
Speaker 2: is something that people don't often consider.
Speaker 1: This is the story of Nur Masna binti Ismael, who
Speaker 1: was a four time a quite successful musician under the
Speaker 1: name Mona Fandy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
Speaker 1: history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
Speaker 1: now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Speaker 3: Noel is not here today.
Speaker 1: But will be returning in the future. They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Speaker 1: Mission control Decan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: So we're traveling abroad today, Matt, Yes, through the power
Speaker 1: of imagination, podcast and the mind.
Speaker 3: Really it's the only traveling outside of the United States
Speaker 3: that I've gotten to do in a long time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Now you have been to other countries.
Speaker 3: I have, but not in a very very long time. So,
Speaker 3: through the magic of research and podcasting, we're going to
Speaker 3: take a trip today.
Speaker 1: Yes, a very strange trip, as we are wont to
Speaker 1: do on this show. Let's check in real quick with
Speaker 1: Mission Control. How we doing man thumbs up, thumbs down,
Speaker 1: Pretty good thumb that was. That was a solid thumb, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a solid thumb. We are taking
Speaker 1: a trip together, the three of us. That is a
Speaker 1: weird thing. Maybe we'll reveal more about that in the future.
Speaker 1: Right by the time this podcast comes out, we may
Speaker 1: have completed our trip.
Speaker 3: I'm almost certain. Yeah, I'm almost certain we'll be arriving
Speaker 3: back here from New York.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, time is getting weird. What is the present now?
Speaker 1: It's the moment for those of us listening to this
Speaker 1: for the first time anyway, time space, it's a whole
Speaker 1: bag of badgers and a messy calendar of spaghetti. But
Speaker 1: today we're not dealing with time and space. We have
Speaker 1: been covering quite a few tech science or social related
Speaker 1: topics and conspiracies in recent episodes, So this time we're
Speaker 1: planning to explore something a little different, a bit grizzly,
Speaker 1: magic Mania, murder, and I want to apologize in advance, yes,
Speaker 1: any mispronunciations, because Matt, neither you nor I speak the
Speaker 1: languages that will occur in today's.
Speaker 3: Show, very very true, the languages that are spoken as
Speaker 3: we travel to Malaysia.
Speaker 1: Now, it is true that some of our fellow listeners
Speaker 1: actually live in Malaysia or have spent time there. We
Speaker 1: found that out when we did an earlier episode on
Speaker 1: the Oily Manes No of that, we.
Speaker 3: Had several people write in with.
Speaker 1: Specifics, specific anecdotes of similar events, also some helpful handy
Speaker 1: pronunciation guides. So if you are listening, feel free to
Speaker 1: help us out. We always prefer a bit of illumination
Speaker 1: to the darkness that surrounds us in this chaotic universe.
Speaker 1: If you are familiar with Malaysian pop music, if you
Speaker 1: have a deep, deep knowledge of it, then you may
Speaker 1: notice the song that we played is Malaysian in origin.
Speaker 1: If you were a very ardent, knowledgeable fan of Malay music,
Speaker 1: you might have said, hey, that's Mona Fandy.
Speaker 3: Also known as or born as nurmaz Na binti ismail And.
Speaker 3: She was born in Kangar Perlis or Perlee pe r Lis.
Speaker 1: As a child, she was she was engaged in regular
Speaker 1: extracurricular events, you know, school dances. She was a water
Speaker 1: ballet performer, and she became a mildly successful singer under
Speaker 1: the stage name Mona Fandy with an album called Diana One.
Speaker 1: It was released in nineteen eighty seven, and.
Speaker 3: It should be noted that that was a self produced
Speaker 3: album and it was also distributed by herself and her husband.
Speaker 1: That's right, right, her husband who during courtship actually met
Speaker 1: her because he said he was her biggest fan, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is beautiful, and he said, I want to help
Speaker 1: you attain the fame that you deserve. They had some
Speaker 1: limited success. Mona Fandi was for a long time best
Speaker 1: known for the song Ku Nan Yikan Lagueni and that's
Speaker 1: that's what we played a snippet of earlier, and it
Speaker 1: feels very late eighties, it feels very in the moment, right.
Speaker 1: She continued working toward that dream of fame. She had
Speaker 1: a few TV appearances, but her career wasn't taking off.
Speaker 1: And this is something that happens to many many people,
Speaker 1: right Hollywood and the music industry, entertainment in general is
Speaker 1: paved with broken dreams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she clearly had the drive and you know, quite
Speaker 3: a bit of talent there, as you heard in that song.
Speaker 3: But there's so much luck that comes into a lot
Speaker 3: of the performance based careers, just with who you end
Speaker 3: up meeting, who ends up hearing your thing or seeing
Speaker 3: your thing, right, who talks about you at what party?
Speaker 1: And no small amount of corruption. Oh yeah, I just
Speaker 1: when I see this very cynical and sad. But when
Speaker 1: I see people become big stars quote unquote out of nowhere,
Speaker 1: I just assume that they are the product of music
Speaker 1: industry campaign and that's not a ding on their talent.
Speaker 1: That's just how this broken system functions exactly. So it's
Speaker 1: through no fault of her own, really that Mona Fandi
Speaker 1: does not become an international Malaysian superstar in the world
Speaker 1: of pop music. It just didn't work out, and she
Speaker 1: found a different calling. She and her husband switched careers.
Speaker 1: They pivoted their focus. They began studying traditional medicinal practice,
Speaker 1: you know, healing through herbs, meditation, seasonal rituals, that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. And she seems set to gently, quietly fade
Speaker 1: from the public consciousness and live out the remainder of
Speaker 1: her life quietly with her husband always to mention his
Speaker 1: name mode of Fondi Abdul Rahman.
Speaker 3: But all of this changed in nineteen ninety three, when
Speaker 3: this relatively unknown obscurer former pop star was implicated in
Speaker 3: something much much more serious. See the whole time she'd
Speaker 3: been claiming to, you know, practice traditional medicine with her husband,
Speaker 3: she was actually engaging in a more sinister and dangerous
Speaker 3: form of magic.
Speaker 1: That's correct, Matt mona Fandi. She was a bomo, a sorcerer.
Speaker 1: She had just committed murder. We'll be back after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. For
Speaker 1: a time, Fandy and her husband had a fairly successful traditional,
Speaker 1: let's call it magical consulting business.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Well, you know this kind of profession, it
Speaker 3: really makes you have to search for, you know, clients.
Speaker 3: I mean, in any profession, you're looking for someone else
Speaker 3: to use your service or buy your goods or anything
Speaker 3: like that. But in this case, because it is a
Speaker 3: little more I don't know what you'd call it, of
Speaker 3: a boutique kind of thing, or that's not the right word.
Speaker 3: High end, it could, yeah, it could be high end,
Speaker 3: especially if you're paying for services of a bomo a
Speaker 3: sorcerer to you know, give you either fame or fortune
Speaker 3: or power or something like that. That's generally the reason
Speaker 3: that people seek out these types of sorcerers, and they
Speaker 3: were always looking for clients, you know, who are in
Speaker 3: the upper echelons of things, sure VIPs, and they found
Speaker 3: a few, at least according to the two of them,
Speaker 3: they found several high end clients within the government and
Speaker 3: a few other places.
Speaker 1: Who wish to remain anonymous. That was a big thing
Speaker 1: with their service too. People weren't openly identified as clients because,
Speaker 1: you know, magic has always been a divisive thing in
Speaker 1: the modern day. Some people very much believe in traditional
Speaker 1: shamanistic practices. Other people eschew it entirely and prefer to
Speaker 1: live a more secular life. So, especially in the world
Speaker 1: of politics, depending upon your constituency, it might be really
Speaker 1: cool that you engage in these practices, or it may
Speaker 1: make you seem less credible to some voters.
Speaker 3: But either way, if you're using them for a darker purpose,
Speaker 3: you probably want to keep that hidden.
Speaker 1: Right and Fandy and co. Found a big fish in
Speaker 1: the form of a state assemblyman from Batu Talan named
Speaker 1: Datuk Moslin. Idris Moslin was educated in the US and
Speaker 1: he was thirsty. He was an ambitious politician from the
Speaker 1: ruling party Unite in malays National Organization or um NO.
Speaker 1: He wanted the BOMO to provide services that would boost
Speaker 1: his political career. He wanted to be the chief Minister,
Speaker 1: and thought, you know, if we keep this quiet through
Speaker 1: the use of magic, we can you know, we can
Speaker 1: make my career more auspicious. We can tilt the scales
Speaker 1: a bit, the scales of luck and corruption that are
Speaker 1: so common in the entertainment industry and in the world
Speaker 1: of politics. A little finger finger on a scale, just
Speaker 1: swing the needle a bit, just enough. So Muna Fandi
Speaker 1: did not work alone her husband, of course we had
Speaker 1: mentioned Afondi worked with her and they had an assistant
Speaker 1: named Jerami Hassan. So there are three people involved, and.
Speaker 3: The assistant was a little bit younger than them.
Speaker 1: Yes, very important. You'll hear some reports that he was
Speaker 1: thirty one. You'll hear some reports that he was in
Speaker 1: his late twenties.
Speaker 3: And you'll also hear reports that he was maybe I
Speaker 3: don't know the correct term, but a little learning disabled
Speaker 3: or something to that effect.
Speaker 1: Right, that he had lower intelligence. That's a very important
Speaker 1: point too for this story. So Mona and her husband
Speaker 1: promised to help this politician Moslaan by giving him a
Speaker 1: talisman consisting of a cane and spot me headgear. The headgear,
Speaker 1: they said, was supposedly owned once upon a time by
Speaker 1: former Indonesian President Sukarno, who is tremendously important in the
Speaker 1: history of Indonesia, is involved with the struggle for independence,
Speaker 1: and he was the actual first president of Indonesia as
Speaker 1: an independent country. So a very powerful person, kind of
Speaker 1: a George Washington figure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're saying that these talismans were owned by
Speaker 3: this powerful person, and if we give them to you,
Speaker 3: it's also going to imbue you with some powers exactly.
Speaker 1: So they convinced him, they said, not only will you
Speaker 1: be a more powerful and favored politician, you will be invincible. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you physically hold this.
Speaker 3: Objects invincible and you know, to get that kind of
Speaker 3: power if you truly believe it could be incredible. And
Speaker 3: in return for this power, they demanded that Moslin pay
Speaker 3: them two point five million ring itt or RM. That's
Speaker 3: just the currency there in Malaysia at the time, and
Speaker 3: that is equal to at least in two thousand and
Speaker 3: one dollars, because that's the last time we saw it
Speaker 3: actually switched over. It was around six hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So that might vary a little bit because this is
Speaker 1: back in the early nineties, but that's a good ballpark, right,
Speaker 1: So more than half a million dollars US. He paid
Speaker 1: them five hundred thousand ring as a deposit, and then
Speaker 1: he wanted to give them a guarantee so that they
Speaker 1: knew he wouldn't just vanish. Well, they probably demanded it,
Speaker 1: so he gave them ten land titles to hold on
Speaker 1: to and that would cover the remaining two million.
Speaker 3: That's an incredible amount of money and land to give
Speaker 3: to something that may or may not be true. You
Speaker 3: have to believe that this politician believes so deeply in
Speaker 3: this that he was willing to give up all of that.
Speaker 1: And here's what happened next. They made an appointment for
Speaker 1: these cleansing rituals to be performed at the Fandy household.
Speaker 1: Maslam visited the couple's house in uludung Rob for what
Speaker 1: was called a Mandibunga ceremony, a ritual flower bath. Maslim
Speaker 1: was told to lie on the ground face up. Mona
Speaker 1: placed flower hours around him and on him. Ritualistically, she
Speaker 1: told Moslan to close his eyes and wait for the
Speaker 1: money to fall from the sky. He did close his eyes.
Speaker 3: But flowers weren't the only thing that fell down upon him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's stay in this moment for a second. What
Speaker 1: do you think he's expecting to happen.
Speaker 3: He's given them riches, he's given them land. All he's
Speaker 3: asking for in return is this ritual and this talisman.
Speaker 3: And you know he will be invincible, he'll be ready
Speaker 3: to go. But that's not what happens. Instead, an axe
Speaker 3: falls down upon his neck and he is killed.
Speaker 1: He is decapitated, and decapitation is a gruesome, strange way
Speaker 1: to die. Studies show that the brain and the attached
Speaker 1: sensory organs are still functioning for some time. So decapitation
Speaker 1: is one of those few one of those few forms
Speaker 1: of death where you can be physically removed from the
Speaker 1: rest of your body and see your headless corpse on
Speaker 1: your way out. Yeah, but of course you'll probably be
Speaker 1: in such shock and so panicked that you won't really
Speaker 1: calmly observe that the assistant is the one. Drami Hassan
Speaker 1: is the one who is believed to have played the
Speaker 1: headsman and separated Maslim from his body.
Speaker 3: At least that's according to reports we've read, and it
Speaker 3: came out in part of the trial that will learn
Speaker 3: about here in a moment.
Speaker 1: They didn't stop there, though, did they met no.
Speaker 3: It then proceeded to dismember Maslin fully. They cut him
Speaker 3: up into eighteen different parts. They also skinned part of
Speaker 3: Maslin's body, and later on they discovered those eighteen parts
Speaker 3: buried in a storeroom underneath the ground your Mona's house
Speaker 3: in Penang. It was underneath this concrete slab, essentially right.
Speaker 3: And another big thing here is that they didn't find
Speaker 3: all of him. There were parts of him missing.
Speaker 1: And no one knows what happened to those parts.
Speaker 3: But the rumors, of course you could imagine, are that
Speaker 3: those parts were.
Speaker 1: Consumed by the three people, or at the very least
Speaker 1: used in ritual. It's a bit strange for the neighborhood
Speaker 1: hippie to engage in such behavior. But you see, Mona Fandy,
Speaker 1: her husband and their assistant were not your friendly neighborhood herbalist.
Speaker 1: They were a different kind of Bomo will examine this
Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsor return Bomo b Omoh.
Speaker 1: This term often gets mistranslated in the West. It's something
Speaker 1: that you and I have run into before and people
Speaker 1: will say, oh, bomo means you know, medicine man or
Speaker 1: the more offensive witch doctor. Right yeah. However, at its heart,
Speaker 1: the term bomo describes a shaman. Indonesian speakers often describe
Speaker 1: this profession with the term ducan d u k u n.
Speaker 1: Bomo are mainly herbalist and healers, but the practice of
Speaker 1: magic is inseparable from these medicinal pursuits. Thus a bomo
Speaker 1: is also a geomancer, or times a sorcerer. In Malaysian culture,
Speaker 1: most bomo are what we would call bomo pute p
Speaker 1: u tih white bomo. This is the equivalent of the
Speaker 1: right hand path in Western magic systems, someone who helps
Speaker 1: other people while also obeying the dictates of shamanic tradition
Speaker 1: and at the same time straddling the tenets of Islam
Speaker 1: because this is a heavily Muslim population.
Speaker 3: But that is not the path that will continue to
Speaker 3: call her mona fandy just for the ease of pronunciation
Speaker 3: on our end, It was not the path that she
Speaker 3: chose as well as her husband and the assistant. She
Speaker 3: was instead a bomo hitam or hitam or black bomo.
Speaker 3: Now that's a different, a different path here, the other path,
Speaker 3: the forbidden path. Right, who are going to be working
Speaker 3: with things like spirits that are not necessarily supposed to
Speaker 3: be interacted with. They will look at the laws that
Speaker 3: are put forth in whatever religion is current or popular
Speaker 3: wherever this magic is being done, in this case, Islam,
Speaker 3: and they will see those laws as something that are
Speaker 3: not meant to be followed or are meant to be flouted.
Speaker 1: Right. The idea being that working around these laws, these
Speaker 1: moral and magical and social laws, will allow you influence
Speaker 1: and power that would ordinarily be out of your reach.
Speaker 1: Bomo hittam and that's hi tam are supposed to be
Speaker 1: the sorts of monsters you would see in horror movies,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Not in real life. To
Speaker 1: call someone bomo hitam would be very, very offensive because
Speaker 1: it's essentially the same thing as calling a doctor or
Speaker 1: a life saving surgeon, a butcher or a serial killer.
Speaker 1: It's the opposite of what bomo are supposed to be doing. However,
Speaker 1: that's what the Mona Fandi group appeared to be, at
Speaker 1: least in the media when this story it hit big.
Speaker 1: So they did this ritual realistically, killed dimember probably used
Speaker 1: to some degree the body of Maslin and other rituals,
Speaker 1: and they might have gotten away with it. Maslim was
Speaker 1: not reported missing until July second, nineteen ninety three, after
Speaker 1: withdrawing three hundred thousand ring it from a bank and
Speaker 1: directly after the murder, Mona Fandi was reported to have
Speaker 1: gone on a shopping spree. She didn't just buy, you know,
Speaker 1: colorful clothing or jewelry or so, she went big. She
Speaker 1: bought a Mercedes Benz. She bought a facelift. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you could just do that, You could just buy
Speaker 1: a facelift.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange and one of the most
Speaker 3: odd things here is the timeline, because it is reported
Speaker 3: that he went missing on July second, and it was
Speaker 3: immediately after he withdrew a large amount of money. He
Speaker 3: did not withdraw five hundred thousand ring it right like
Speaker 3: it was originally reported early on, or at least that
Speaker 3: was the deal. I guess, so he at least could
Speaker 3: withdraw three hundred thousand, assuming it was him that withdrew
Speaker 3: it on that day before he went missing, and then
Speaker 3: paid them. So he paid them money.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, just not all of it. Not long after
Speaker 1: Moslan's murder, the assistant Jami Hassan was picked up for
Speaker 1: a drug offense. He was under the influence of these drugs,
Speaker 1: and this this country with harsh drug laws. While he
Speaker 1: was under the influence of these drugs and speaking with
Speaker 1: the police, he confessed to them that he had been
Speaker 1: involved in the murder of a politician, an up and
Speaker 1: coming politician.
Speaker 3: Now that you know, that's one of those things where
Speaker 3: you're dealing with somebody who may not be you know,
Speaker 3: of the highest intelligence, who was also perhaps high on
Speaker 3: a substance, who was being pressed, you know, by by
Speaker 3: an interrogators. Then he admits to you know, these police
Speaker 3: officers that he had something to do with it, and
Speaker 3: it may not have held much sand, but if he
Speaker 3: hadn't had led them. He is the person that actually
Speaker 3: led the police to where the body was.
Speaker 1: Buried under that concrete slab. Not long after, the couple
Speaker 1: was arrested fanding her husband because Hassan it was on
Speaker 1: her property. And then also Hassan openly said that they
Speaker 1: did this, they committed this murder together, and then the
Speaker 1: circus began. It was in a way, it was reminiscent
Speaker 1: of how American culture treats the infamous murderers and the
Speaker 1: depraved right, they get a lot of attention. There are celebrities.
Speaker 1: For a time, Mona Fandi, as a murder suspect, gained
Speaker 1: far more fame and celebrity and public recognition than she
Speaker 1: ever did as a pop singer. And if all she
Speaker 1: wanted to do was to be famous, this strikes me
Speaker 1: as one of those one of those infernal deals you
Speaker 1: hear about in folklore. Yeah, right, where the wording is
Speaker 1: very important. Make a sacrifice to me, says some powerful
Speaker 1: entity or spirit, and I shall give you that which
Speaker 1: you desire. And then they said, we will make these sacrifices.
Speaker 1: We will obey the rules of this ritual. Make me famous, Yeah,
Speaker 1: make me famous.
Speaker 3: Carry it should they carry it out, and they sure
Speaker 3: as heck do get famous.
Speaker 1: It's strange. It's interesting when you think about it. Right now,
Speaker 1: we don't have we don't have any primary source for
Speaker 1: that kind of conversation, just like we don't have any
Speaker 1: source for what happened to the rest of Malaslan's body parts,
Speaker 1: Nor do we have a source for what Mona and
Speaker 1: her husband and their assistant talked about her personally believed and.
Speaker 3: We also don't know exactly the circumstances, at least Moslin's
Speaker 3: side of giving them all of this money for these things,
Speaker 3: as well as giving them the land titles, because there
Speaker 3: we'll talk about it towards the end there. But it
Speaker 3: may have been something else going on entirely that didn't
Speaker 3: even occur in the trial, and that would this It
Speaker 3: would just be me speculating. But I think I have
Speaker 3: I have a hypothesis.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear this. I'm very curious. Let's
Speaker 1: let's explore the trial so in a way, in a
Speaker 1: very dark way, Mona Fandy finally gets her wish, and
Speaker 1: she seems to be enjoying this new uh social position,
Speaker 1: somewhere between fascinating and shunned and vilified. Rightly so, throughout
Speaker 1: the trial, Mona Fandy exhibits strange, incongruous behaviors. She is
Speaker 1: always cheerful, she's constantly smiling, mugging for the camera, posing
Speaker 1: for the press. She's dressing extravagantly with bright, colorful designs,
Speaker 1: and she's got a new banging outfit every day. Why then,
Speaker 1: did they murder this politicis we have a we have
Speaker 1: one guess from another Bomo, a self styled king of
Speaker 1: the Bomo, Ibrahim matt Zin, and he said that Fandy
Speaker 1: and her associates used their shamanistic knowledge for evil, because
Speaker 1: Fandy was consumed by the idea of gain, of getting vengeance,
Speaker 1: because Fandy was consumed by the idea of revenge that
Speaker 1: the politician Maslin had made and broken multiple promises, and
Speaker 1: she said, we will, we will have vengeance. We should
Speaker 1: also point out that Ibrahim matt Zen is not the
Speaker 1: most ironclad source. He gained the most notoriety in his
Speaker 1: home country and in the Western news for a series
Speaker 1: of rituals he conducted in an effort to help locate
Speaker 1: the missing Malaysian Airlines plane MG three seventy, which we
Speaker 1: had talked about before. He was not successful with this,
Speaker 1: but later he recanted on what he was saying because
Speaker 1: he he apologized. He said, I'm no longer king of
Speaker 1: the Bomo. These rituals I was doing. I was just
Speaker 1: doing what they told me to do. And he said
Speaker 1: that some of the things he had done, like using
Speaker 1: bamboo binoculars in a fish trap hook to help locate
Speaker 1: the aircraft, said, you know, I was peering through these
Speaker 1: band and really see anything geez. So he may not
Speaker 1: be the best source, but he was also a bomo
Speaker 1: and he so he'd be one of the most famous,
Speaker 1: you know, he remarked on this trial. So here's what
Speaker 1: they found, and it's very strange. The dates are confusing.
Speaker 1: The court found that the murder occurred sometime between ten
Speaker 1: pm and midnight on July eighteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: That's weird, yeah, because they you know, he was reported
Speaker 3: miss on the second of that month, so what happened
Speaker 3: sixteen days later? They think that's when he was killed. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go ahead and bring it up. This
Speaker 3: is where my hypothesis comes in. I think if he
Speaker 3: truly was missing from at least the second, we can
Speaker 3: maybe assume even the first or the last of the
Speaker 3: previous month, because it, you know, generally takes that long
Speaker 3: to declare someone missing, and he took money out on
Speaker 3: the second. I think he must have been held captive
Speaker 3: there because in my mind, you don't, you know, have
Speaker 3: someone go missing the day that they pay you three
Speaker 3: hundred ring it, then hang around your house for several days,
Speaker 3: let's say sixteen days in this case, then do a ritual.
Speaker 4: Was a multi day ritual maybe sixteen days though, and
Speaker 4: if it's a multi day ritual, and then the way
Speaker 4: it's discribed in every report that I've seen of this,
Speaker 4: it's that it was a very fast thing.
Speaker 3: He was having the flower pedal ritual occurred, and then
Speaker 3: he got his head chopped off. To me, this seems
Speaker 3: like they were holding him captive.
Speaker 1: I see. They were tried in court by a seven
Speaker 1: person jury, this was before trial by jury was abolished
Speaker 1: in the country, and the High Court found all three
Speaker 1: of them guilty, sentenced them to death by hanging, and
Speaker 1: the legal representatives for Hassan the assistant, argued that he
Speaker 1: couldn't essentially be tried as an adult due to his
Speaker 1: limited mental capacity and that our source for these ideas
Speaker 1: about his cognitive difficulties do all come from that lawyer.
Speaker 1: So the trial goes on until nineteen ninety five, at
Speaker 1: which point the High Court finds all three defendants guilty
Speaker 1: and sentences to death. The method of death is hanging,
Speaker 1: hanging by the neck until dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it feels old school like it's a British
Speaker 3: knot tied to basically a pole that's running above a
Speaker 3: floor that drops down.
Speaker 1: And mona Fandi, as well as her husband and their assistant,
Speaker 1: seemed to take the news in stride. This was bizarre.
Speaker 1: She did not stop smiling. She's a brave public face.
Speaker 3: She thanked the court and the Malaysian people immediately after
Speaker 3: the guilty verdicts.
Speaker 1: Yep, that is true, and we know that they did
Speaker 1: exercise some emotion in the intervening time because they filed appeals.
Speaker 1: There was an appeal system here, so the sentence was
Speaker 1: not actually carried out for a number of years.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for quite a while. They continued through all
Speaker 3: of the possible appeals processes.
Speaker 1: Which of course you would do if your life was
Speaker 1: on the line.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, the court dismissed all their appeals
Speaker 1: upheld the previous death sentence, and so it came to
Speaker 1: pass that November two thousand and one, all three were hanged.
Speaker 1: A prison official said the three people expressed zero remorse
Speaker 1: at the execution that took place in the early hours
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it says. You know, you'll see reports that say
Speaker 3: they met up with their families. They were allowed eight
Speaker 3: hours or so to meet up with their families prior
Speaker 3: to being killed. The you'll also find it reported that
Speaker 3: they ate KFC as a last meal, and then simultaneously
Speaker 3: you'll see it reported that they chose not to eat
Speaker 3: a last meal.
Speaker 1: Right. And part of this, part of the divergent reporting
Speaker 1: here comes about from muckraking journalism, you know, or sensationalism,
Speaker 1: I guess, sure well.
Speaker 3: And there's also the problem of translation, and it occurring
Speaker 3: so long ago, right before the Internet was so available,
Speaker 3: with so many sources.
Speaker 1: This leads us to one thing that has been reported
Speaker 1: in multiple sources and is chilling. So Mona Fandy seems calm.
Speaker 1: Perhaps she has resigned herself to this grizzly end, or
Speaker 1: perhaps she knows something. I think she knows something that
Speaker 1: other people do not. During her execution, while she was
Speaker 1: calm and smiling under her hood, she uttered her final
Speaker 1: words aku ta khan mati in English. That means I
Speaker 1: will never die.
Speaker 3: Spooky stuff, certainly, And in a way, she's right. We
Speaker 3: played you that music of her voice. It's still around.
Speaker 3: She didn't fully die. Her corporeal body is gone, but
Speaker 3: she lives on.
Speaker 1: Let's play another clip from that's song and see if
Speaker 1: your experience of this music changes. Knowing what you will
Speaker 1: know now.
Speaker 3: Well, There's one thing for certain. As we mentioned before,
Speaker 3: parts of this politician Maslin's body were never found. We
Speaker 3: will never know exactly what was done with those because
Speaker 3: the only people who do know are now in their graves.
Speaker 1: True. This case also led for national calls to outlaw witchcraft.
Speaker 1: That's a difficult thing to enforce. What is how do
Speaker 1: we define witchcraft? Right? How do we separate that from
Speaker 1: traditional religious beliefs?
Speaker 3: It was? Yeah, I mean that's a strange thing. It's
Speaker 3: always going to be a strange thing.
Speaker 1: I think, very blurry line.
Speaker 3: We also know that this was one of the last
Speaker 3: jury trials in Malaysia because they stopped using trials by jury.
Speaker 1: Yep. It also led to a controversial film loosely based
Speaker 1: on these events, film called Ducan, which, as you recall,
Speaker 1: is the earlier sided Indonesian word described in Bomo. The
Speaker 1: film was completed I think around two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: and it was banned from release for eleven years because
Speaker 1: of the controversy surrounding it.
Speaker 3: And then Facebook leaked it. Somebody on Facebook leaked the
Speaker 3: entire movie.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen. That's how I got out. Yeah, ah,
Speaker 1: and then it after it got out, after the demons
Speaker 1: were out of Pandora's jar. The film went on to
Speaker 1: be quite successful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they decided, well, I guess we can release this.
Speaker 3: And you know it is base it's you said, loosely based,
Speaker 3: like so loosely based, but it is about a bomo
Speaker 3: hiton of sorts doing some pretty intense things, including you know,
Speaker 3: a murder. But this time it's spoiler alert with a sword.
Speaker 1: Right. Ducan is probably best described as a a legal
Speaker 1: thriller slash horror.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh yeah, sure very The trailer looks cool.
Speaker 1: The trailer does look cool. So at this point we
Speaker 1: run into a couple of a couple of questions, and
Speaker 1: these are questions that we would like to give to you.
Speaker 1: We want to hear your take on this. First, what
Speaker 1: do you think about the practice? This goes back to
Speaker 1: our idea of the serial killer merchandise people. What do
Speaker 1: you think about the practice making films based on these
Speaker 1: events and profiting from them? Is it ethical? Is it
Speaker 1: a big deal? Not a big deal? And what do
Speaker 1: you think about this, this strange, sordid, grizzly tale. Was
Speaker 1: their actual magic involved or was this all just window dressing?
Speaker 1: So much ornamentation for a human all too real, all
Speaker 1: to mundane con job and murder?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And also why why do you think even after
Speaker 3: they got paid, that they decided to kill this person?
Speaker 3: That is perplexing to me. It seems to me that
Speaker 3: if what they are saying is true and their story
Speaker 3: checks out, they could have builked him for so much
Speaker 3: more money if he was willing to pay that much
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 1: And what if it was a case of accident. What
Speaker 1: if Hassan was meant to like ritualistically to send the
Speaker 1: acts and in some way avoid harming the guy so
Speaker 1: that he believes he's invulnerable. I mean, that's what you
Speaker 1: would do in a con job, right ooh?
Speaker 3: Or yeah, dude, you're so right? And maybe he just
Speaker 3: actually did it, or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 1: Or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 3: Whoa?
Speaker 1: So what do you think? One of the fascinating things
Speaker 1: about this sort of story is that there are multiple
Speaker 1: stories or in recent years, concerning this sort of interaction
Speaker 1: between magic and true crime. You know, we've heard of
Speaker 1: I don't know if we ever did a full episode
Speaker 1: under this. Who heard of the practice in some countries
Speaker 1: of abducting and dismembering people suffering from albutism, right, so
Speaker 1: we want to hear your stories. Is there anything like
Speaker 1: this that's occurred in your country or your part of
Speaker 1: the world. The US is not immune to this. By
Speaker 1: the way, True Detective Season one HBO series is based
Speaker 1: on a very real, very real Satanic conspiracy that occurred
Speaker 1: in a church in the South. It's a true story,
Speaker 1: and Nick Pisolado did base a lot of True Detective
Speaker 1: on it, no matter what he said at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, except for that whole part with
Speaker 3: the I don't know, multi dimensional monster guy like whatever
Speaker 3: he was, who knows about that? The King and Yellow Yeah,
Speaker 3: that dude, I still want him to explain to me.
Speaker 3: The shot in the last episode of season one, Well,
Speaker 3: maybe I'll just talk to him about I don't want
Speaker 3: to spoil it for anybody who may have not seen
Speaker 3: the entire thing.
Speaker 1: Spoiler warning after this moment there are spoilers three two one.
Speaker 3: So the shot where they're trying to follow him down
Speaker 3: this maze, do you remember at the very end the climax,
Speaker 3: Essentially they're following the Yellow King through his essentially into
Speaker 3: this other world that he's created and his underworld.
Speaker 1: To the old the old what seemed tostensibly be a
Speaker 1: pirate for it or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. And then I believe one
Speaker 3: of one or both of the detectives look up at
Speaker 3: the ceiling. I'm just Gonnam looking at police if he
Speaker 3: remembers this, and it becomes a shot of basically the
Speaker 3: universe or the galaxies or something.
Speaker 1: Or familiar night sky.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But they're inside, you know, a location somewhere, and
Speaker 3: they're looking up and seeing this, and it gives you
Speaker 3: this feeling of maybe this is a multi dimensional situation.
Speaker 3: Maybe they went through some kind of portal to get
Speaker 3: somewhere else. I don't understand what's happening. And then they
Speaker 3: fight with this guy who seems to have superhuman powers,
Speaker 3: and then it's over.
Speaker 1: This is okay, this is interesting. This may be a
Speaker 1: bit of a tangent, but it is established during the
Speaker 1: show the rust Coal, the one who sees glimpses of
Speaker 1: this other universe, suffer from, or leverages at least hallucinations visions. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's already prone to doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I read a very interesting theory that I do not
Speaker 1: completely agree with, which is that the Yellow King is
Speaker 1: the king in yellow is some sort of non corporeal entity,
Speaker 1: and that by killing the scard Man, the spaghetti faced guy,
Speaker 1: Russ Cole, when he sees this multi dimensional thing just
Speaker 1: before he opens, he essentially becomes possessed by this entity.
Speaker 1: And that's why at the very end, when Woody Harrelson's
Speaker 1: character is talking to him and wants to tell him
Speaker 1: more about you know what's gonna happen and you know
Speaker 1: new leads the cauld follow that's why Cole immediately dismisses
Speaker 1: it and is calm and serene as they get wheeled out.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I think it is really
Speaker 1: cool and I love a dose of cosmic horror me too.
Speaker 3: I was so excited when it happened, and I thought
Speaker 3: we were gonna get at or a little more something,
Speaker 3: or at least an extra piece of it, like confirming,
Speaker 3: well confirming at least that it was mystical in some way.
Speaker 3: But then it was just like, well, all, all's good,
Speaker 3: see see you later. Let's get out of this hospital.
Speaker 1: Right right. And I have I have sort of my
Speaker 1: own origin story about the cult that I would love
Speaker 1: to talk talk with you guys with, maybe over a
Speaker 1: beer or something. We can have an episode of Beers
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Beers where it gets crazy. And can we write
Speaker 3: a prequel? Why not where it's it's you and me
Speaker 3: and Paul and Nole and everybody else listening. We're all
Speaker 3: just trying to find out who the Orange Duke is.
Speaker 1: Let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot,
Speaker 1: and we can just send it to Nick Bisilano as
Speaker 1: a as a fan piece. Let's do it, and that's
Speaker 1: our class episode for this evening. We can't wait to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts. It's right, let us know what you think.
Speaker 2: You can reach to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
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Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok ork Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 3: If you want to call us dial one eight three
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