280: She Went On A Tinder Date, Then He Cut Out Her Tongue | Zaliya Shamigulova

When 29-year-old Zaliya Shamigulova vanished in what seemed like paradise, the truth that emerged would shock even the most seasoned investigators. What began as a casual Tinder date spiraled into a scene of unimaginable horror. Zaliya believed she was meeting someone in search of love, but instead, she found herself trapped in a deadly encounter that would end with her tongue cut out…🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks 🔎 Join The Club: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to EXTRA deep dive episodes every week on Apple!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164🌸 SPRING MERCH IS OFFICIALLY HERE! 🌸Shop now at https://annieelise.com/collections/shop-allDon't miss out before your faves sell out! 🛒🌷Follow Annie on Socials 📸 🩷Instagram: @ _annieelise💜TikTok: @_annieelise🗞️ Substack: @annieelise💙Facebook: @10tolife⭐️Sponsors ⭐️Buffy: Get 20% off your first Buffy order using code AE at http://Buffy.co. Quince: Go to http://Quince.com/ae for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Shop Annie’s Closet & Must-Haves! 👗Poshmark: https://posh.mk/Tdbki6Ae0RbShopMY: https://shopmy.us/annieeliseAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/shop/10tolife?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_aipsfshop_BKN1ZMCMEZHACVFQ2R75&language=en_USDisclaimer ‣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me.🎙️ Follow the podcast for FREE on all podcast platforms! Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/serialously-with-annie-elise/id1519456164Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/6HdheEH8WeMTHoe5da34qUAll Other Platforms: https://audioboom.com/channels/5100770-serialously-with-annie-eliseGet Involved or Recommend the Case 💬 About Annie: https://annieelise.com/For Business Inquiries: [email protected] Sources 🔗5plusBusiness InsiderChannelNewsDagospiaDefimediaE! NewsIMDBIrish MirrorLaw & CrimeMirrorNBC NewsThe SunWAZAA FMВся Башкирия*Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. ••••••••••••••••••Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 0:42Annie Elise?

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• 1:07Speaker 01

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• 1:32Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleuth.

• 1:56Annie Elise?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleuth with me, Annie Elise. Boy, oh, boy, guys, I'm glad we're all friends here because this case is enough to make you want to probably vomit. I really hope you haven't just had a meal, or hopefully you don't have a sensitive stomach because this one is disgusting. And it also is, one more time, as though if we needed any more examples, it is one more glaring... Bright illustration of how scary online dating can be, truly. Because this episode, it's about obsession. It's about people who just like do not take no for an answer at all. It's about a woman who goes on this dream vacation and then goes missing.

• 2:40Annie Elise?

  She's last seen getting into a car with a guy who she's, you know, casually dating. And then days later, this woman's body is found horribly mutilated. And I am talking like stabbed multiple times, even with her tongue cut out. It is a difficult one to hear, but before we get into all of that part of it, we got to figure out how this all started, what really went down. So we are going to jump right in.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Cut her clothing off and was that symbolic or in a ritualistic kind of a fashion? The removing of a tongue is often happened as a way of punishment for betrayal or lying.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  She was found naked, which into itself is very vulnerable. Then she was murdered, but this is the part that really stuck out with me. Her tongue was cut out of her mouth.

• 3:28Annie Elise?

  Now let's start with this. Vacations, we can all agree are supposed to be relaxing, right? Regardless of what your personal opinion is of how you relax. I know I used to have ex-boyfriends who like to do the hiking, the activities, the sightseeing. That is not my idea of relaxation. My idea of relaxation and vacation is either being parked up on the beach or at a pool with a cocktail in my hand and just like laying in the sun. That is my idea of relaxing. But regardless, whatever avenue you go, whatever path you choose, it's a chance to like be on vacation and hit the reset button. Maybe you're taking a few photos along the way, posting them on Instagram, making your friends a little like jelly because you're in Hawaii, whatever it is. But vacations are happy. They're stress-free. They're enjoyable.

• 4:12Annie Elise?

  Well, in August of 2024, 29-year-old Zaliya Shammagova felt the same way. She was getting ready for a day in true paradise. I mean, she was on her dream vacation, thousands of miles from home. And even better, she was about to go on what should have been a fun and romantic date with somebody that she had met on Tinder. So that day she left her rental apartment, she hopped into To a car and she headed out to go see the sights, hoping for an unforgettable day. She was hoping for it to be something straight out of a romantic movie, you know, a perfect dream vacation with a guy she met online, what could be better? But by the next morning, Zaliya was missing. Now, as far as anybody knew, she wasn't the type of person to ever just disappear like that.

• 4:54Annie Elise?

  But as the hours went by, worry turned into panic for a lot of her friends and family. And over the next week, they would learn that their worst fears and so, so much more, were all about to become reality. See, Zaliya hadn't just vanished into paradise. Something horrifying had happened to her. And the details, well, they're almost too awful to even believe. So in 2024, Zaliya was 29 years old. She was adventurous and she was super excited about going to Mauritius. It's an African tropical paradise that's halfway around the world from where her home in Russia was. And it was no surprise that Zaliya was kind of like all in on going on an adventure. I mean, she was smart, she was independent, she was full of life.

• 5:37Annie Elise?

  She worked at a university and she was known for her ambition and drive. Before that, according to her social media, she even founded a human resources agency. She acted as a director at a different business and she had done recruitment work as well, helping match new employees with open positions. And she loved adventure. She wasn't afraid to chase her dreams, no matter where they took her. And she had done some pretty cool things in her life so far, too. In 2014, she even got to be a torch carrier in the Winter Olympics. Now, just by looking at some of her pictures, you can see that she had this very warm smile and this feel of like confidence to her. She also had this effortless beauty and just an overall radiance about her that just made her stand out. And Zaliya loved to travel.

• 6:21Annie Elise?

  She had been to a ton of different foreign countries already in her life. According to one of her Facebook posts, she was born in South Africa. She had also spent time in Indonesia before moving to Russia. She had actually been living and traveling abroad ever since 2023. And when summer of 2024 rolled around, she decided that it was time for a vacation from her vacation, and she wanted to have a seriously amazing vacation at that. So Zaliya decided to spend a couple of months traveling everywhere, including to Africa. At the time of her trip, it sounded like she was really in a great headspace, too, just generally a great place in life as well. She was doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing as a young, healthy young woman, just a happy person, you know, seeing the world,

• 7:03Annie Elise?

  soaking it all in, having some fun along the way, meeting new people. And clearly, she was super excited about her trip and just really looking forward to life in general, where it was going to take her. She had a ton going for her. So sometime in June, Zaliya landed on the island. And I had to Google this place because honestly, I wasn't too familiar with it, but it does look like a piece of paradise. I mean, there's tropical views, stunning beaches, beautiful turquoise water, even some insane resorts. And honestly, I feel like I want to book a trip there, but it feels really far to me, but it's beautiful. It's also apparently a super welcoming place to foreigners. It's actually the safest country to visit in Africa, and it's the 22nd safest country in the world. It's also a super popular

• 7:46Annie Elise?

  island for South African retirees. It almost kind of sounds like, I know this is a weird comparison, but it kind of sounds like it might be like the Florida of Africa, you know, where everybody goes to retire, it's beautiful, it's sunshine most of the time, something like that. So Zaliya jumped headfirst into the trip, hoping to reset, recharge, and dive into a new culture and meet new people along the way. And let me just read you one of her Facebook posts from June 18th, 2024. And obviously, let's be real, I can't read Russian, so I've translated it, but here's what she wrote. "At the end of April, I stopped working, took a pause on all projects, and went to the desert for the May holidays. I lived without a schedule and a professional role. In May, I finally transferred things to a new company and continued to take on client

• 8:31Annie Elise?

  jobs, but my focus from work shifted more to communicating with my friends, making new friends, and going for walks. My Google Calendar has finally become like a normal person, not a robot. I also started a new HR project. Winter began in Cape Town, so I bought a ticket to Mauritius Island and flew here to warm up." I got to know the local culture and began to learn French. Many speak it here. I'm also having many ideas and finding motivation to jump into a new level of life. It'll be very interesting for me. And then she posted again on June 21st, and again, I've translated this from her native Russian, but here we go. She said, "What happened while I was away from Facebook? One, I continue to work in recruiting and hone my skills.

• 9:15Annie Elise?

  I've managed to help many businesses across Russia with staff selection, both independently and with recruiters on my team. Two, I do career consulting. I am a certified career guidance counselor for adults. I conduct career sessions and help people build their vector of professional development, find a job that matches their values, and solve career problems. Three, I went into employment, grew from HR manager to HR director, restructured the work of the department, brought order to different processes, and built a corporate culture in the company. Four, I took on a project to streamline a company's organizational structure, systematize all regulations and instructions, and it was not easy, but I was very successful. And five, I have been teaching for four years already.

• 9:58Annie Elise?

  I have graduated countless groups and I have been supervising for three years. With the new generation of HR, we are building a modern vision of personnel management, which is all about technology, business needs, and a systematic approach. This is all about work, which has been and remains a very important part of my life. And also, I have been living abroad for seven months now, learning new cultures, going through my personal transformation, through Life by the Ocean, and meeting new people." Zaliya was the kind of person who was always growing, always improving herself to move forward into the next chapter. She wasn't afraid to dive headfirst into anything, and she was good at whatever she put her mind to.

• 10:38Annie Elise?

  Not to mention, it was super impressive that she could do all of this while she simultaneously was traveling abroad. And the island, it wasn't even her last stop for her either. She actually had plans to move to Madagascar on September 1st, so that she could continue her adventure. And Zaliya also wasn't alone in her travels. She was traveling with her friend Elena, a 41-year-old who was also originally from Russia and owned her own business. Just like Zaliya, they had a lot in common. The two of them had both been in South Africa in May, just kind of like living it up, attending this thing called African Burn, which is a festival that looks super similar to Burning Man. And in the island area, they shared a rental apartment together. But Elena wasn't Zaliya's only travel companion.

• 11:21Annie Elise?

  See, after getting to the island, between hitting the beach, diving headfirst into the local scene, like exploring everything that it had to offer, she also became active on dating apps. You know, she was doing some swiping, she was doing some Tinder-ing. And one day, Zaliya opened the app and she swiped right on a guy named Piriavasing Sundar. Now, according to some reports, she actually connected with this guy before she even got to the island, and they had been chatting for a while before she ever had a chance to meet him in person. Yet, other reports say that they didn't connect until she was already in the country, so I'm not entirely sure what's true. Either way, the two of them hit it off, and it sounds like they started seeing each other somewhat regularly when she was on the island.

• 12:02Annie Elise?

  From everything that I've read about the case too, it sounds like maybe he was a little bit more into her than she was into him. I mean, she was traveling, it didn't really sound like she had any plans to stay there for good or anything like that. It was more of kind of like a, you know, fleeting, fun, little vacation fling. I also think it's possible that she wasn't looking for anything serious or long-term or long-distance. He was kind of just a guy that she could have some fun with while she was in the country for a while. A companion, a friend, you know, somebody to hang out with, hook up with, I don't know. So anyway, this guy, Piriavasing, which I'm gonna just call Pier for short, was an IT engineer, and he was in his early 30s. So it was also kind of cool because they were around the same age. He lived and worked on the island, so he was also able to show Zaliya all of the sights, the local hangouts,

• 12:47Annie Elise?

  the places that she might not know about as a tourist. And all in all, he seemed like an average friendly local, a person that Zaliya could connect with, who could also just kind of give her a dose of adventure and romance, what she was really looking for. According to her own Facebook page, on August 10th, 2024, she even went to a wedding on the island. She posted, "I became a guest at an Indian wedding #OurPerfectWorld." So she had clearly made some friends on the island, too. I mean, so much so, she was going to a wedding, she definitely was fitting in, right? But then, on August 17th, just a week after attending that wedding with her friends, things went from a dream vacation to a total nightmare.

• 13:28Annie Elise?

  On the day that she went missing, security cameras showed Zaliya leaving her apartment, but that was the last time that she was ever seen. She was wearing a blue and white outfit that morning, and she was on her way to go meet Pierre, this guy that she had been dating, the guy that she had been spending time with. The plan was for them to go sightseeing around the island. So a blue car pulled up, picked her up at the apartment, she got in, but then she didn't come back. Now, eventually, Zaliya's friend Elena started to get worried. She had been expecting Zaliya to come home sometime that evening or that night, but Zaliya just didn't show up. By the next morning, Zaliya still wasn't home, and this was super out of character for her. I mean, sure, she was, yes, out on a date with Pierre, and maybe it could have gone

• 14:10Annie Elise?

  well, and maybe she stayed overnight with him, but from the sounds of things, it wasn't normal or expected for Zaliya to spend the night with him, not at all. And it just kind of sounds like maybe they didn't even really have that kind of relationship. So Elena didn't even consider the possibility that Zalea was out with him. Instead, she reported her missing. It just sounds like she knew in her gut that something wasn't right. And here's where things start to get a little weirder even, because apparently, after Zalea didn't make it back to her apartment that night, her family started getting text messages from her. But as her family was reading through these messages, they noticed something very strange about them. The tone, the words, even the phrasing, it just did not feel like Zalea, not one bit.

• 15:01Annie Elise?

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• 15:43Annie Elise?

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• 16:28Annie Elise?

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• 16:46Annie Elise?

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• 17:28Annie Elise?

  mint and even their new salted caramel, which that has become my new favorite, especially in the morning. I know you're not supposed to have dessert in the morning, but for me, it feels like I am having a little sweet treat to start my day. And I think it's great when you're craving something sweet and salty, but for me, it's like a great way to start my morning routine. I love it. Embrace your salty side. Go to kachava.com and use code AE for 15% off your first order. That's kachava, K-A-C-H-A-V-A dot com, code AE.

• 18:05Annie Elise?

  The text messages that Zalea's family received were strange, okay, to say the least. I mean, instead of the warm, happy tone that she usually spoke with, the texts sort of had this cold, detached kind of vibe. It came across like either Zalea was having an off day and not her usual self, or maybe even like somebody else was responsible for sending these messages. And in the messages, she told her family that she was, quote, "going off the grid." She was going to, quote, "disappear on purpose," which that is never a good sign.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Almost right away after Zaliya's disappearance, there were some blatant signs that something was off. I think the next thing that really jumped out to me is that her family, back home in Russia where she's from, started to receive text messages from her that basically said, "I'm hoping to disappear. Do not contact me again. I don't want to be in contact with you." This seemed to be out of character. I mean, she usually would keep in touch with her family. She was very active on social media, posting about her trips and her adventures. So is that a red flag right from the jump?

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And we see this happen in many cases where a predator takes control of victim and their phone, and it's a way to buy time to go in and manipulate the phone. So what becomes important in the interview process? Is that the past behavior of this individual is really understood. And that's where interviews with the family, looking at her social media accounts, looking at her just regular text messages on her phone, gives you this sense of what this person's activity is and how much they're willing to expose in a public light.

• 19:43Annie Elise?

  It just didn't sound like something that she would ever say, ever, not at all. But remember, Zaliya was from Russia. That's where her parents were from too. They couldn't just exactly like march down to her apartment and start asking questions and bang on the door and investigate things on their own. They were completely helpless. So obviously, her family wanted answers and they wanted these answers as fast as possible. Because with every single second, the hope of finding any missing person, as we know, it gets smaller and smaller. You have to act fast. Now, at one point, someone actually reached out to Zaliya's family, specifically to her brother Timor. And this person claimed to know exactly what happened to her. However, this person wasn't just being a good Samaritan, trying to share the information they knew.

• 20:27Annie Elise?

  They weren't trying to do this out of the goodness of their heart. Instead, they were asking for cash in exchange for information. Now, this, of course, set off a lot of alarm bells for her brother and his family. They knew a scam when they saw one and heard one. And they weren't sending any information to some random stranger who just texted them out of the blue. So instead, they decided to trust the police and let them solve the case on their own. Now, as far as suspects go, there was obviously one person who stood out right away. The guy that Zaliya had been seeing, Pierre. Obviously, he and Zaliya had only just started seeing each other, though, so it wasn't like they had a ton of history to even go off of. And it's also like they didn't really know each other all that well.

• 21:09Annie Elise?

  But sometimes, we know people can develop these intense attachments really fast, especially when things feel new or feel exciting. So even though he hadn't been around very long, the police and Zaliya's loved ones did have to start to wonder if maybe he had developed something more than just a crush, maybe an obsession, and maybe he was a dangerous person. Add in the fact that Zaliya was not super committed to her relationship with him and was also planning to leave the island really soon. I mean, It was safe to wonder if he could have done something to her because he didn't want her to be out of his grasp. And we've seen stories like this too, right? There are so many stories out there of guys who just feel entitled to their girlfriend or partner's time, their attention, their love, all of those things.

• 21:53Annie Elise?

  But even though we know this kind of thing is sadly common, it still doesn't prove anything. And so far, the police didn't have any real evidence against Pierre, other than the fact that he had been dating Zaliya. And he also was not the only suspect here. There was also her roommate, Elena. I mean, yes, Elena was the one who reported her missing, but that could have easily been an attempt to cover her tracks. And as it turns out, Elena was from the same city in Russia that Zaliya was. So it's pretty likely that they had known each other from back home and then decided to travel together. It wasn't like they just happened to meet while they were traveling. And if you look at her and Zaliya's Instagram pages, they were often posting photos on the same days from the same locations. So they clearly spent a lot of time together on the island.

• 22:37Annie Elise?

  And one thing I did notice after looking into Elena's social media accounts is there was a post on her Instagram from August 17th. That was the day that Zaliya disappeared. In it, she was hosting some sort of game and the caption read, "Five people from all parts of the world and our game master gathered to create something special." And that was in all caps, "Something special." But then after that post, her profile went dark for exactly two months. Now, I don't know what any of that means, but you see something like that with somebody kind of creating some kind of game, doing something special, you've got to wonder, was the game something dangerous? Was there something nefarious involved? And not that this has any sort of correlation with this case, but when I first heard that,

• 23:22Annie Elise?

  the first thing that came to my mind was Amanda Knox. Remember how there were all those allegations of like the sex game gone wrong? And I know she's been exonerated, she had nothing to do with it. Trust me, I get it. But like, that's just kind of where my mind went to. So I was like, could there have been some sort of dangerous game? And then something happened, maybe something went too far. Maybe it was even violent or deadly. Did Elena do something to her friend Zaliya either out of malice or maybe even by accident? And there was also a third suspect in all of this. I mean, don't forget the driver of the car that Zaliya got into on the day of her disappearance. We haven't heard exactly who it was that was behind the wheel yet, or if the driver was alone, but there is that person in play in all of this. Now sadly, the authorities haven't released much information about this guy particularly.

• 24:06Annie Elise?

  I don't know if he was a rideshare driver or maybe someone who Zaliya knew. It's also not clear to me if she ever even made it to her destination, wherever that was, or if something happened to her while she was in the car with this guy. But he was quite literally the last person to ever see Zaliya alive. So it's of course worth looking into in my mind. So I mean, those were the top three theories, the top three suspects in all of this. At first, it was Pierre, it was Elena, and it was the driver. But there was also the possibility that Zaliya had been hurt or taken by somebody who didn't even know her. I mean, Zaliya was a young, attractive woman, traveling mostly solo through this foreign country. She might have been a victim of a stalker, a predator, or just about anyone.

• 24:48Annie Elise?

  We also can't rule out the fact that maybe Zaliya did disappear on her own, as she said. Now, I personally don't find that very likely, given everything we know about her and how driven she was in her life, but stranger things have happened, right? And it really did seem like anything was possible. So the police began their investigation by speaking to people who might have seen her that day. And no surprise, Pierre, the guy, was a major part of their investigation. He admitted that, yeah, he had been with Zaliya on the day that she had vanished. But he also said that he hadn't done anything to her. The disappearance had happened after the two of them were done hanging out. He said he dropped her off later that day, near his workplace. He said it was around 1:15 PM.

• 25:29Annie Elise?

  However, the issue with that, though, was that the police couldn't actually verify that part of his story. Because conveniently, there were no CCTV cameras in that area. After this initial questioning, the police did end up letting him go. However, they did keep his car for further investigation. And at that time, I've got to imagine that they were still hoping that they would track down Zaliya, that she would be alive, that she would be okay. However, these hopes were completely shattered on August 26th, just a few days after her disappearance. Because that's when the police found a body about 40 kilometers away from where Zaliya had been staying. And unfortunately, it was Zaliya.

• 26:12Annie Elise?

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• 26:54Annie Elise?

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• 27:38Annie Elise?

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• 28:23Annie Elise?

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• 28:50Annie Elise?

  Zalea's body was found naked and she had been stabbed 20 times in the chest. Her face had also been slashed. Now honestly, the state of her body was just horrifying. It was clear that this wasn't some kind of accident or random attack. I mean whoever did this, they made it personal. It's not entirely clear to me if her missing clothes were nearby, like maybe if the killer had stripped her and then left her outfit there, right there on the ground, or if maybe all of her clothing was just straight up missing. But there are some reports that say the police are still searching for at least some of her clothes. I'm not sure if that means they have found some other items or if everything is missing, I'm not really sure. But they're also looking for missing parts of Zaliya's body.

• 29:33Annie Elise?

  And that gives me the impression that her killer must have really been trying to dismember her or butcher her and cut pieces off of her in the process. Either way, when someone strips their victim like that, it does have the potential to tell you something. I mentioned before that this attack felt personal, right? It didn't feel like Zaliya was attacked at random. And stripping her naked was part of that. It came across like it was all done in an attempt to humiliate her. That said, another possibility that's worth mentioning is that maybe the killer might have removed her clothing to try to get rid of the evidence. Particularly if they left blood, hair, or other DNA on her clothes. In that case, it's not so much a case of trying to humiliate Zaliya, but more so an attempt for the killer to cover their track.

• 30:17Annie Elise?

  Now beyond the removal of her clothing, another key piece of evidence in this case was how Zaliya was buried. Her body was found in a shallow grave and it wasn't hidden well at all. In fact, the grave was in somewhat of a residential area, a residential area that had like decent foot traffic, a lot of people who were in and out all of the time. So it doesn't exactly sound like the type of place that a killer would typically plan to, you know, bury a body. I mean, usually when somebody goes to the trouble of trying to hide their victim, they want to make sure that it's buried deep, that it's in a place that is very well hidden. The police actually theorized that the killer probably wanted to cut the body up and then hide it better, but that something happened along the way. That either this was a spur of the moment crime of passion and once they realized what

• 31:02Annie Elise?

  they had done, they panicked and they just dumped Zaliya in the nearest area that they could get to, or that even maybe they had planned to bury her somewhere else, but something went wrong and then they had to come up with an emergency plan B. It just didn't seem very thought out. It did not seem strategic. And either way, the grave was pretty poorly dug. And Zaliya was buried so close to the surface that it was almost like the killer didn't even care if her body was found. And that's exactly what happened. The cops found her pretty quickly after she disappeared. I mean, it was within a week. But the most disturbing part of all of this wasn't just the fact that Zaliya was naked or not buried well, or the fact that she had been stabbed repeatedly, but it was the fact that the killer had cut off her tongue.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  The removing of a tongue is often happened as a way of punishment for betrayal or lying.

• 31:52Annie Elise?

  Now, at first, this detail might seem like a truly sick act of violence, which it definitely is, don't get me wrong. But when somebody does something like this and mutilates the body in this kind of way, this sick, sick, strategic and like direct way, it can tell you a little bit about the person who did it. A missing tongue is so distinct that it actually can be a major clue for the police officers. It helps them figure out part of the motive. And then from there, they take that information and back into it to figure out who did it. So one common theory is that when bodies get mutilated like that, it's part of a ritual or that it has some kind of symbolic meaning. Some killers, in particular serial killers, they like to keep trophies from their victims

• 32:36Annie Elise?

  or even leave a Signature of sort, a way of saying like, look at me, I did this. I was the one who killed this person. Now, another theory out there is that the person who cut out Zaliya's tongue did it because they were trying to live out some sick and twisted fantasy. Like that maybe her killer thought that Zaliya talked too much. And at one time, they thought, you know, I wish somebody would just cut her tongue off. And then this killer decided to make it a reality. Or maybe they were trying to keep her quiet from saying something that had happened to her, something like that. And that's just one theory. It definitely could have even been a different fantasy. I mean, the tongue could have represented something else to the killer. But the point was that the murderer might have wanted to humiliate Zaliya or make some kind of point in all of this.

• 33:17Annie Elise?

  Sort of kind of like, own her, own her body, own her as property. And the mutilation might have been their way of putting her in her place. Now, of course, we also can't forget the possibility that this was all a crime of passion, right? Maybe the killer didn't start off at the beginning of this attack wanting to cut out her tongue. Maybe they didn't premeditate that part of the murder. And that maybe in the heat of the moment, they decided to take it a step further and punish her, or maybe even just stop her from screaming if she was screaming during the attack. Now, if this was a crime of passion, that would mean that the killer probably felt very angry, you know, filled with rage towards Zaliya. Which in turn would point towards someone close to her, like, say, a romantic partner. Someone like Pierre, the guy that she was seeing.

• 34:01Annie Elise?

  Now, what we know for sure is that the person who did this went way, way beyond what most people would ever consider doing. Since Zaliya didn't have any family on the island, her friend Elena was the one who had to go and identify the body. Which, you can imagine, that was not pleasant, having to do that. Zaliya had been so horribly mutilated. And it must be so horrible to see someone like that for the very last time, for that to be the image that is stuck in your head for the rest of your life. It was, of course, too late to help or save Zaliya, but there was now time to solve her case and bring her justice. And luckily, by the time Zaliya's body was found and identified, the police had already solved the case.

• 34:42Annie Elise?

  See, the whole reason that they even found Zaliya's remains so quickly was because the killer had told the police exactly where to look when they were being interrogated. They brought him in as a person of interest, not even a suspect at that point, but immediately, as soon as he sat down with them, he just folded, told them everything. Now, as for how the police got this guy in the first place, well, it was through good old fashioned police work. See, they had looked at that CCTV footage of Zaliya getting into that car on the day that she went missing. And thankfully, the cops were able to figure out who that car belonged to and who was the driver of that car. They found it out pretty quickly. And as it turns out, the driver of that car, aka Zaliya's real killer,

• 35:27Annie Elise?

  was not, in fact, some random Uber driver or some rideshare guy. He was someone who knew her personally.

• 35:40Annie Elise?

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• 36:25Annie Elise?

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• 37:06Annie Elise?

  On the day that she went missing, which was also the day that she got murdered, Zaliya got into that car that was being driven by the man who killed her. And that man was Pierre, the guy that she had been seeing, the guy that she had met on Tinder, somebody who she trusted well enough to spend a big chunk of her dream vacation with. He was arrested after her body was found, and there were two other suspects as well, a 24-year-old and a 31-year-old. The police initially thought that they may have helped Pierre bury the body, you know, serve as accomplices in the crime. And when the cops presented Pierre with the information that they had against him, it almost seemed like he didn't even care about trying to get away with it. He just kind of laid out all of his cards, confessed,

• 37:47Annie Elise?

  and he explained exactly what he had done to Zaliya, and even more than that, why? According to him, the reason he killed Zaliya was because he felt betrayed. Apparently, he was in love with her, just absolutely obsessed with her, enamored with her, and he thought that they were going to get married. Which I gotta say, it's pretty surprising because it sounds like Zaliya never had any intention of getting serious with him, not at all. She hadn't even updated her Facebook status from "single", which you might be thinking, "Okay, Annie, it's also 2024, who's really like on Facebook or updating their status? Who cares about that anymore?", which, fair enough. But my point is that everyone who knew Zaliya knew that she was moving on to bigger and better things. She had no intentions of staying on this island.

• 38:32Annie Elise?

  She had no intentions of staying there for some guy and like marrying some guy. And it really seemed like these two people barely even knew each other. They probably went on, yes, a few dates, had some fun, but it doesn't sound like there was really anything more than that. Yet this guy was convinced that he and Zaliya were going to get married. They were going to be husband and wife. I'm not sure if this was a case of where maybe she wasn't as clear with him as she could have been. Maybe she was trying to let him down easy. Maybe she was trying to make it sound like she was more committed to him than she really was. I don't know. It could have also just been wishful thinking on his part, where he saw what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear, and kind of like romanticized it in his own mind. But it doesn't sound to me like Zaliya saw their relationship as serious, or even as

• 39:16Annie Elise?

  an exclusive thing. Cause at some point, she even hooked up with another guy. And when Pierre found out about that, he was devastated and distraught. To him, it felt like she cheated on him. It was a huge betrayal. So anyway, on the day of the murder, Pierre took Zaliya to a beach, and they mostly did have a good time. They were doing the fun, romantic getaway kind of thing. And again, I don't know if that's true, or if that's just how Pierre was seeing the situation. But during the drive back, they ended up getting into an argument. It was apparently, again, about how devoted Zaliya was to Pierre, whether they had a future together, those kinds of things. And when Zaliya made it clear to him that she just wasn't that into him, not like that anyway, he lost it. He described

• 39:58Annie Elise?

  it to the police as though things just got out of hand, which, yeah, I would say murder is pretty far out of hand, but like, he was trying to kind of downplay it a little bit. And as Pierre told it, he flew into a complete rage. He also had a knife on him. So he said he just started stabbing Zaliya, just right there in the car, stabbing her over and over. By the time he calmed down enough to even realize what he had done, it was too late. Zaliya was dead. So he said his next move was to try and get rid of her body, try and cover up what he had done. So he started by stripping her naked. His plan from there was to, get this, chop her body into smaller pieces. But for whatever reason, he decided not to go forward with that idea. So instead, he buried her in that shallow grave, which

• 40:43Annie Elise?

  is where the police eventually found her. The police report summed everything up too by saying, quote, "He said he was deeply in love with 29-year-old Zaliya, and that he was planning on marrying her." And the worst of it is that Pierre didn't just get his signals crossed. This wasn't just like a fling that turned into something messy and ugly. No, he took Zaliya's life over his own inability to read the signals, his own sense of entitlement to her love and her intention. I'm just glad that he came clean so fast, because he was able to get the police the answers that they needed. He helped them solve the case and also bring some closure to Zaliya's family. Now to verify Pierre's story, the police seized his car, and in it, they found Zaliya's

• 41:24Annie Elise?

  DNA, namely, blood. Some of it was in the trunk, which fit with what Pierre had told the investigators, because according to him, after he killed her, Pierre needed to drive home to get a shovel so that he could bury her. So during that drive, he held Zaliya in the trunk. Then when the police searched his home, they found even more blood belonging to her. And it again verified everything that Pierre had told them. Now, there was just one detail that was a little harder to take seriously, a little harder to buy with all of this. Because remember earlier when I was talking about the significance of Zaliya's tongue being cut out? One theory was that this meant that it was a crime of passion, right? The killer had decided to mutilate her on this like spur of the moment moment. And that's what Pierre said too.

• 42:07Annie Elise?

  That he had only cut out her tongue because he was worried that she would scream and draw attention. It was his attempt to keep her quiet. However, that's an explanation that a lot of experts aren't really buying.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  It is one of the more gruesome cases I've heard in recent history, just the way that she died. She was found naked, which into itself is very vulnerable. Then she was murdered, but this is the part that really stuck out with me. Her tongue was cut out of her mouth. Later we learn the suspect allegedly says it's so that she can't scream for help. What do you make of that?

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's a bunch of malarkey as far as screaming for help because she could still vocalize. The tongue doesn't make the noise, it's the lungs and pushing out through the vocal cords. And someone that's going through that would certainly make horrendous cries from agony as they're going through this. So there were a couple of things that troubled me about that. Particularly that that was something that he might have said as a way to justify more of a fantasy that was going on in his mind.

• 43:13Annie Elise?

  Now, interestingly, that expert also had some other doubts about Pierre's entire story. He also didn't buy that this was just a crime of passion, just based on the way that the crime scene was even set up.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Interesting way of hiding her body makes you think this is someone who's probably thought through a process more than someone who has just all of a sudden lost themselves in a fit of rage and acts out. Although this is an organized predator whose plan is to go in, commit this homicide, and then dispose of the body. And in this particular case with the scenario you've painted, mutilate the body and dissect it and move the body parts to different locations. An organized offender would come prepared to do that. But a disorganized offender is not going to be thinking, ah, I need to take an axe

• 44:04Speaker 02

  or a shovel, or I gotta have plastic bags, or all of those things are going to be much more challenging when all of a sudden they're thinking, how do I wash my hands of this mess that I've created? Was this his first?

• 44:18Annie Elise?

  Now, I will say, it's a little surprising to me that Pierre tried to argue that this was a spur of the moment killing, especially given that he had apparently already knew that Zaliya was supposedly cheating on him, right? I mean, I'm guessing that Zaliya probably would not have considered it cheating, but remember, that's how he saw it. So he just happened to have a knife on him for this confrontation, for this outing? Sounds a little planned, doesn't it? I mean, sure, it is possible, people carry knives on them, yes. Sometimes it can be helpful to have something like that, especially if you're like, you know, camping or going out in the woods. You never know when you may need it in an emergency situation. But with the expert saying that this didn't quite match a crime of passion, and with Pierre

• 44:59Annie Elise?

  apparently having everything that he needed right there, on hand, on deck, ready to commit murder, I do wonder if this was premeditated? And as if he maybe just told a version of the story that made him seem somehow less responsible. So after he admitted everything that he did admit to, Pierre was charged with Zaliya's murder. He hasn't gone to trial yet, so he hasn't been found guilty, but if he is, he could end up spending a lot of time behind bars. They're talking about a sentence of 60 years or more, which, considering his age, it could very well be the rest of his life. Now, the island doesn't have a death penalty, so Pierre won't be paying for this with his life, not the way that Zaliya paid for it with her life. And actually, I don't even really want to put it that way, because when you say something

• 45:44Annie Elise?

  like, Zaliya paid with her life, you've got to ask, what did she pay for? What did she do wrong? Which, the answer is nothing. She dated a guy, she didn't like him enough to give up all of her goals and dreams to just become his wife, and that's not a crime, and it's certainly not something that she should have been killed over. The good news in this is that the evidence against Pierre is pretty clear. He confessed, he has the DNA in his car, in his house, all of those things. However, the police are still looking for more, including Zaliya's missing clothes and whatever additional DNA might be found on those.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  When they find her clothes, what would that do? I mean, they've already pretty much determined how she died, why do they need the clothes? Just for extra evidence?

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. The clothing might have physical DNA from the suspect or from her. And as a profiler, one of the things that we always looked at was not just the fact that, for instance, a sexual assault or a homicide occurred, but what was the order of those things? What were the things that were going on before that? And in kind of a creepy Silence of the Lambs kind of a way, you have to think about to a profiler, we want to know things like, did he cut her clothing off? And was that symbolic or in a ritualistic kind of a fashion? Because that tells us what's going on in the mind.

• 46:59Annie Elise?

  Clothes or not, though, it's hard to imagine that he will get away with any of this. I doubt it. I also mentioned two of the other people who were also arrested for allegedly helping Pierre bury the body. And it's not clear what they were charged with or if they're still in custody. But there's also one other possible collaborator out there. The person who texted Zaliya's brother and offered to sell the information about what really happened to Zaliya. Now, it's possible that maybe this was just an opportunistic scam artist. Sure, someone who doesn't really care and they want to hurt anybody to make a quick buck. But police are also considering the possibility that this person might have been in on it as well. Maybe they were trying to intentionally put misinformation out there

• 47:41Annie Elise?

  to throw the police off the trail. Or maybe it's one of those people who helped bury the body and then got a stream of consciousness but wanted to make money off of it and share that tip with her family. Again, it's all just possibilities that the police are considering. We don't know if any of it's true. But if so, it really does speak to how thorough Pierre was in all of this. And it does make you wonder if it really was a spur of the moment crime of passion, or if it's like all these crime scene experts have weighed in on saying that this was all way more calculated and that this was premeditated to some degree. And if Pierre is some kind of serial killer, the sad part about all of this is that even with Pierre locked away in prison, it doesn't bring Zaliya back. Her family is the one who's

• 48:23Annie Elise?

  left to pick up the pieces. After everything that happened, her body was sent back to Russia so that her family could finally give the proper burial. That she deserved. And it must have been so incredibly hard for them to process everything, especially because they were so far away at the time that it happened and they couldn't do anything to help her while she was on the island. And here's what Zaliya's brother told a journalist. He said, quote, "My parents are heartbroken, but they are still strong. Many people are helping and supporting us because my sister was such a kind person. Many people from Russia and elsewhere have expressed their condolences. On behalf of our family, I thank everyone. My sister was a very bright and kind person. Everyone who knew her well is heartbroken.

• 49:05Annie Elise?

  She was the kindest, purest, and most open person I have ever known. Everyone who knew her tells me the same thing. We were supposed to see each other again soon. She had no intention of staying there." It's just absolutely devastating. Every single way that you look at it, it's heartbreaking. And I'm wondering what's going to come out during the trial. Will people testify who were also involved, who knew it? Does he have a history with this kind of controlling, possessive, obsessive behavior? What was the motive with him cutting her tongue out? Was it to hurt her? Was it a fantasy? Could it have also been because he didn't like the answer he was receiving from her? And that's why he cut it out? I don't know. What do you guys think?

• 49:48Annie Elise?

  This is definitely a bizarre one that I personally am still trying to make sense of, but it just makes me very, very cautious. And I want all of you to be cautious about who you meet online. No matter how many dates you've gone on, it's like you never really know who that person is behind the screen or behind the app, right? So, thank you for hearing Zaliya's story today. I will be back on the mic with you first thing on Thursday with Headline Highlight. All right, thanks again, guys, and until the next one. Be nice, don't kill people, and stay safe. Bye.

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