Pod Insights Rotten Mango Influencer Hunts For Twin Lookalike On Instagram & Brutally Kills Her - But She Won't Say Why About this episode Mattheo is driving to a town called Nuremberg in Germany. A good friend of his is sitting shotgun and just as they’re driving past a local pizzeria, about to get onto the highway ramp, Mattheo spots something in his peripheral.
He slams the brakes, his friend’s head almost hits the dash, and he pulls a U-turn as fast as physically possible.
The moment the car stops, he’s out and walking straight up to a girl with long, dark hair standing in front of the pizzeria. She looks a bit skittish. Her eyes are giant as he stares back at her.
He says the first thing he asks her is, “Are you dead?”
She responds slowly, “I don’t know…” Then she bolts. Runs off. Mattheo jumps back into the car to follow her.
She’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to be anywhere.
She’s supposed to be dead.
Full show notes available at RottenMangoPodcast.com
Transcript 13,426 words · 6 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Twenty years after Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, Natalie's mother Beth is ready to tell the complete story. Taken: Natalie Holloway is a three-part series that follows Beth's relentless pursuit of answers and justice for her daughter and gives a fuller picture of who Natalie was as a person. It's the definitive account of a case that gripped multiple nations and never let go. Watch Taken: Natalie Holloway, November 4th, only on Netflix. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like showing up for movie night, ready for a heart-pounding thriller, but getting a three-hour documentary on lawn care. That's kind of like insurance. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface,
0:43 Speaker 00 but when it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. You wouldn't settle for a snooze fest when you came for a thrill ride. So don't settle for just any insurance when there's State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
0:58 Speaker 00 Aliens just never land in Central Park. They are rarely ever spotted flying above Times Square. It's a thing. It's like extraterrestrial beings just have an aversion to high costs of living and expensive real estate. But you will see a UFO flying over a cattle ranch in the middle of Montana. And the only witness to that is gonna be a guy named Dale, who takes a quick picture of it on his russet potato that he has now converted into a camera. And to be fair, maybe the aliens, they could be flying over Times Square, and we just don't see it. But the concept of it is interesting. Why always in the middle of nowhere? Why do aliens choose to fly the routes that they choose? It's almost like if you want to go see an alien, you have to go to the middle of nowhere, where you least expect it.
1:41 Speaker 00 And for Mateo, the place that he least expects to see something out of the ordinary, out of this world, is the local pizza shop. Mateo is driving to town. It's a town called Nuremberg, and this is in Germany. It's about two hours from Munich. He's in the driver's seat. His friend that he dragged along for no reason, other than the fact that he did not want to go on a lonely road trip, is sitting in the passenger seat. They start driving, and it's towards this highway ramp, where there's like a little pizza shop. It's a local pizza shop. Everybody knows this pizzeria. It's not like the most delicious pizza in the world. It's not like the hottest restaurant. It's just been around for a while, and the locals like it. As they're driving past this restaurant, Mateo glances out the side of his window, and in that exact moment, he sees...
2:25 Speaker 00 I mean, he sees something and his friend's head in the passenger seat almost hits the dash because Mateo is slamming on the brakes and his friend is like, what the hell is that? Mateo barely responds. He just says, quote, "Screw Nuremberg. There's something more important right now." He does the quickest U-turn he can physically manage. He pulls right up into the lot of the pizza restaurant. It's honestly a surprise that he puts the car into park because he's just flying out the driver's side door. He walks straight up to a girl with very long, dark hair, standing in front of the pizzeria. She looks very like skittish. Her eyes are really big and she's staring at him and he's staring at her and she's staring at him. And he says, the first thing he asks her is, "Are you? Are you dead?"
3:10 Speaker 01 What?
3:11 Speaker 00 She's staring at him and she responds slowly, "I don't know."
3:17 Speaker 00 And then she runs away! Mateo jumps back into his car and he's gotta follow her because she's not supposed to be here. I mean, she's not supposed to be anywhere. She's supposed to be dead.
3:49 Speaker 00 We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit focused on immigrant civic engagement, education assistance, and local policy interventions to protect the rights of all immigrants. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's growing team and we'd also like to thank you guys for your continued support. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. Disclaimers, there are brief mentions of DV self-exit in today's case, so please watch with caution. Today's case also takes place in Germany, so we had help from our translators to navigate the language barrier as we were researching. We do our absolute best to ensure everything is represented accurately, but do keep in mind that all statements in quotes have been translated and then may even be condensed for brevity. So with that being said, let's get started.
4:34 Speaker 00 Before the dead woman even has a name, they already have a suspect. Everyone in town has pointed the finger at who they think they did it. They're tagging him in Facebook posts about the news. The dead woman found in the car? He's the one that did it. And his name is Rowan. They want Rowan to know that they think it's him before he goes down for it. I knew it before the cops did. Those are a lot of Facebook comments. Which is exactly how Rowan ends up in this all gray room, sitting on a small square table. I mean, the squareness is really inconvenient for him because he has one officer sitting on the left, one officer on his right. It's very suffocating. I mean, they couldn't get a bigger table? I'm sure the size is likely the intention, though.
5:15 Speaker 00 Usually, when the local town starts tagging "this is the killer" in Facebook comment sections, I mean, the police have a picture of who it's going to be. And Rowan does not fit that picture. He's young, like, very young. Early, mid twenties. He looks fit, he's well groomed, he kinda has this soft energy to him. He kinda looks like an Instagram model. I mean, not that that measures someone's morality. If anything, it probably decreases the morality. But like, it's just not what detectives are expecting. Especially because he came in here voluntarily.
5:48 Speaker 00 The detectives were looking for him, and he said, "I will come to you." And that is how for the next four and a half hours, they're sitting in this gray room together on a square table, and the female detectives are sitting on either side of him. And the first question they ask Rowan is, "How are you?" He looks at them. "You know what? I feel an absolute emptiness and utter chaos inside." That's a direct quote.
6:10 Speaker 00 For the past 24 hours, Rowan says he was scared to go outside. Everyone in his phone is texting him, sending him social media posts, writing things like, "You're a wanted man. They're gonna want your head for this, you're gonna go down for this. So did you do it? Did you kill her?" So yeah, I mean, he's seen better days, okay? But why would everyone accuse him of killing the girl that was stabbed 56 times to death in the back of her car?
6:37 Speaker 00 The car was parked on a residential street. It's like one of those tree-lined residential streets. I mean, was the car parked in front of his house? Did he leave fingerprints? Why does everyone think it's Rowan? It's because the woman that was found dead is Sheri. Sherabyn Kay, but they call her Sheri. And it's his ex-wife. They met in 2015. It's kind of like one of those meet cute dramas. He's explaining to the officers. It was at a subway station. Rowan is going up the escalator and Sheri is walking down the stairs right next to it. And he says, quote, "It's a very special moment for me. I mean, I saw this girl, beautiful. Her hair was so beautiful. They make eye contact. The rest is history." But now Sheri's parents are adamant that Rowan had something to do with their daughter's death.
7:22 Speaker 00 They just know it. The detectives ask him, "Why do you think that they think you're the one who did it?" It's a really, really long story. This all starts unfolding less than 24 hours ago. 23-year-old Sheri tells her parents that she's gonna go see her ex-husband, Rowan, at Rowan's house. But by 10:00 PM, she's still not home. And everyone in the family, probably everybody in the town, knows that Sheri and Rowan's relationship, ex-relationship, not good. Not good at all. So whatever they're meeting for could not have gone well if she's still not home. She's also not picking up her phone. Sheri's parents start getting anxious. They're thinking, you know, but it's still Rowan. Like, there's no way that he could do any...
8:02 Speaker 00 I mean, they jump into their car and they start driving the road that Sheri would have taken to get to Rowan's house. And in the middle of a residential tree-lined street, they stop the car. Because they're like, "Isn't that her car? Isn't that not Sheri's Mercedes?" They park the car in the middle of the road. They jump out and they start looking in the car. This is not where Rowan lives. It's like on the way to Rowan's house. So it's very weird. Like, it looks like Sheri's car. It has the same tinted windows, but like, maybe it's not her car. So they stop, they get out, and the front is empty. It's an E-Class coupe, E300. It's kind of relevant because the back windows are much smaller and they're tinted extra dark. So nobody's in the front, but now they're trying to peer through the back. They're cupping their eyes. They're like sticking their face as close to the window as they can.
8:48 Speaker 00 And they're like, "It's Sheri. Sheri's in the back." They see in the backseat, there's a woman with long brown hair. She's laying just like splayed out on the backseat, on her back. She has a jacket covering her, but you can see her hair. You can see that she's just laying there and she's not moving. It's not like she's taking a nap. Sheri's parents start pounding on the window. One of them starts with all their strength, just trying to brute force, open the door. It's locked. The car key isn't inside the car, which is weird. Because if this is Sheri's car and Sheri's inside the car, taking a nap or something, would the car not unlock? By this point, you know, it's a small residential street. Neighbors have started coming outside. They're wondering, who the hell is screaming? A lot of them are angry until they see Sheri's parents and they're like, oh, okay, we have no right to be angry.
9:32 Speaker 00 Something bad is happening. We gotta help. Some of them are coming up, trying to smash the windows with Sheri's parents. Someone tries to break in through the passenger seat. Someone's trying to crawl under the car, like someone's calling 911. It's chaos. And then the police arrive. They smash open the car window, unlock the car, and they create this like human barricade as they carry Sheri out of the car and immediately place her on the ground. Neighbors, the quick thinking ones, they're also creating a wall in between the police and Sheri's parents. Because Sheri is gone. She's drenched in blood. Her entire body is covered in punctures, stab wounds, all around her chest, neck, face. Her face looks like she's just been completely torn apart.
10:15 Speaker 00 It would make more sense had she been mauled by an animal, but it's clearly much more sinister than that. Like there are clear knife puncture wounds. From neighbors' accounts, Sheri's mom is uncontrollably screaming, trying to fling her own body through the neighbors, through the police, so that she can get to Sheri. Other neighbors, new neighbors, they start running out of their house because they see some sort of commotion. And they said that it was a really difficult sight. When they run towards the crowd, you just see some of the neighbors are standing there with a very somber look.
10:47 Speaker 00 One person at the scene says, "The paramedic who was on site, the one who had actually attempted resuscitation, struggled, for, you know, instance, to place the breathing mask over her mouth. Because her face was so utterly destroyed by stab wounds, that the device simply could not create a proper seal. It was clear that this is no longer a living body." At the scene, Sheri's dad is announcing, while his daughter is on the ground, "Rowan did this, I just know that he has something to do with this." And now, Rowan is sitting inside this police interview room, why would Sheri's parents think that he's involved? Rowan tells them everything about their relationship, Sheri getting pregnant, her parents, the soap incident, you know, everything in between, and then he tells them, "You
11:31 Speaker 00 have to understand, I was with Sheri for seven years. I went through a phase where I was so desperate for revenge, was driven by vengeance, I was really scared that either she would hurt me, I would hurt myself, or that she would force me to hurt her." After four and a half hours, everyone in the interrogation room decides it's time for a break. Rowan is not formally under arrest, so he asks to go outside to smoke a cigarette. And as he's lighting up his cigarette, taking his first quote, "I took a deep drag," the officer, female officer, walks out, and she's got like a weird look on her face. And she just says, "She's alive."
12:11 Speaker 01 "She's alive?"
12:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, like, what do you, what do you mean, "She's alive"? He just got grilled for the past four and a half hours because they thought he killed her? What do you mean, "She's alive"? They confirm that Sheri was just now found, alive, caught on CCTV camera, a dead woman walking, or at least she was supposed to be dead. Rowan says, in a very confused state, like, "Sheri's alive, but then another girl is dead." Yes, but then who is the other girl? And why was she found dead in Sheri's car? It seems like a modern book trope. You meet your doppelganger and they slowly come into your life and they decide, I think this is my life now. And they do whatever it takes to slowly drive you crazy, isolate you from your loved ones. And then one day you go missing, you come back, you knock on the door and a woman who looks
12:57 Speaker 00 just like you opens the door and she claims that she's you. She's married to your husband, your kids call her mom. All your friends think that she's you, but not only that, they like her better than they ever liked you. What the hell is going on? Okay, that seems like a new and fresh trope, but it's actually a trope that's been around for hundreds of years. Because there is terror in the idea of being replaced. I think the fear that identity makes someone unique is not unique at all, is a big fear that your identity and your life can be studied and then someone can rehearse it and then they can just take over your life by pretending to be you. As if like it's just a jacket that you can put on. Even the classics love this trope. Dostoevsky wrote Double, where the main character is like this meek government clerk and he
13:41 Speaker 00 meets a man who looks exactly like him. Same face, same name, same everything, same job, but everything, everyone loves him. Nobody likes the main character, but everybody loves him. So his double doesn't just steal the main character's life, he lives the main character's life better. Sometimes the doppelganger and the main character, like Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson, the main character is being stalked by a double who shares his name, face, they even have the same birthday. The doppelganger just keeps ruining the main character's life and reputation, sleeping with married women, pretending to be him, you know, conning people. Eventually, he has enough and he stabs the doppelganger, only to find out it's just himself.
14:21 Speaker 00 Sometimes the doppelganger is you, sometimes the doppelganger is very real and you have to run for them. And sometimes it's a hostile takeover. Sometimes you see someone who looks just like you and you think, what if I took over their life? Imagine you meet someone who looks identical to you, nobody would ever be able to tell you apart, but they're an Oscar winning actress living in a mansion with an infinity pool and a husband who chases her around just to get her affection because he's a dog on a leash for her. Her friends are super supportive, they all have a book club where they read nonfiction books about how to better themselves. Not in the annoying way, in the way that they just want to show up as better friends for one another. All of her bills are on auto pay. She doesn't even need to know how much the electricity bill is every month. She takes spontaneous trips to Tokyo for cherry blossom season.
15:06 Speaker 00 And all you have to do is kill her to take her life. Do you do it? Most people are gonna say no, but I think maybe like most people should have a few glasses of wine and think about it at night in a way that's non judgmental. It's just part of human nature. Some people will be a little bit more honest with themselves of, I might at least think about it. Which is why the new secondary feeling around doppelgangers is it's a death omen when you meet yours. Cause you're not supposed to meet them. It's like a glitch in the universe. When you meet someone who looks just like you, exactly like you. Something really bad is going to happen to you. Because one of you has to die. I mean, both of you can't be alive, right?
15:51 Speaker 00 That's the omen. But what are the odds that you run into someone who looks exactly like you? I mean, it's likely very, very low. Even with social media, you have people who look similar, but I've never seen two people where I'm like, no, they could literally take over the other person's life. They're they're identical in every sense of the word. Their loved ones would never know. So what are the odds that you come across your doppelgamer? But then what do you do when someone who looks just like you messages you on Instagram? And wants to meet up? A total of 26 messages are sent out to 26 people who could all pass somewhat as doppelgangers. Not really, but kind of. They're all in their early twenties. They've got dark, long hair, specific facial features. They're between five two, five four in height.
16:36 Speaker 00 Brown eyes, dark hair, olive undertone skin. To say they look identical would be a lie. But if you take off your contacts and you take three shots of tequila and you sit on a vibration plate on the highest setting while everything is shaky and blurry. And you see a photo lineup of the 24 people, you could potentially mistake a few of them as being each other. They all have similar features, but so do like half of the world. If you actually study their faces, they don't actually look alike. But that's okay, because perfection is not what Sheri is looking for. Khadijah is one of the 26 girls who receives a message. A lot of people online have been calling her a beauty blogger, and she certainly is beautiful, and she certainly is, has a high interest in makeup. She also posts on TikTok and Instagram, but a lot of her friends don't love that title,
17:21 Speaker 00 because it almost, um, just the negative connotation, it almost dumbs her down. Khadijah worked at a cafe, she worked at a restaurant. Her best friend that she grew up with says that she was always someone who had a knack for languages. She just learns languages so quickly, so she wanted to become an interpreter, get married, have kids of her own. That was her dream. And then 23-year-old Khadijah gets a message, and it's going to lead to a series of events that is now called the Doppelganger Case in Germany. Sheri Bin Kay, Sheri, she is not living the life that she's always wanted. I mean, who is, but like Sheri isn't someone who likes to just sit there and accept her fate. Is it her fault that her family immigrated to Germany when she was seven? Because they were being hunted down and killed for their religion?
18:05 Speaker 00 Obviously not, but Sheri is trying to adapt. Everyone said that during school Sheri was like the center of attention, and she very much liked male-centered attention. And like objectively speaking, she just liked to be around guys. Most of her energy was placed into which guys she could talk to after school. And then even later in life, it was just, it was all about guys, okay? And people start stating, this is very inappropriate, but people started stating that she had a very seductive behavior about her. Which, I mean, is inappropriate to say the least, but she starts dating this guy named Rowan near the end of high school, and she's at this subway station kissing him. When she hears this familiar voice behind her, "Get your hands off my niece." It's her uncle.
18:49 Speaker 00 Which now would be a pertinent time to let you know that Sheri's parents incredibly strict. They do not want her dating anybody and she's just making out with this guy named Rowan at a subway station. She is 18, but this is still very young for her family. And Sheri's uncle is pissed and allegedly instead of informing Sheri's parents about what he saw, he starts blackmailing Sheri. He's like, I'm just gonna blackmail you. I don't know what he's getting from Sheri, whether it's money or something else. I have no clue.
19:16 Speaker 01 How do we know he blackmailing her?
19:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, a lot of inner sources close to Sheri were saying she was getting blackmailed by her uncle.
19:22 Speaker 01 Wow.
19:23 Speaker 00 But he starts blackmailing her about her relationship. Eventually Sheri's parents, they find out regardless and they urge Sheri and Rowan. Then you guys just need to get married. If you're gonna date, you're gonna fucking get married. All of this only works out because Rowan is Yazidi. Yazidiism is one of the oldest continuously practiced religions in the world. It's an ethno-religious faith. It's like a closed door religion. So you have to either be born into it, you cannot convert into it. And once you leave it, you leave it permanently. In 2014, ISIS launched a coordinated attack against Yazidis. The incident has been recognized by the UN as a genocide. Thousands of Yazidis were beheaded, burned alive, killed.
20:04 Speaker 00 More than that was they were kidnapped and enslaved and trafficked. Young boys were forced into ISIS training camps. Young girls, some as young as nine years old, were either trafficked or sold or gifted to ISIS soldiers. So in 2014, a lot of Yazidi believers, they fled to neighboring countries. And Germany ends up being like a huge one for the diaspora. A lot of the Yazidi community had already been steadily growing in Germany. So people are like, we gotta go to Germany. Now, two important things to note. One, there is a lot of tension between older Yazidi family members in Germany and younger generations of Yazidi in Germany. I mean, a lot of these elders, they're like, we fled for our lives because of our religion. Like, these are our traditions. We need to stand by this.
20:49 Speaker 00 We almost lost our lives for what we believe in. And then the younger ones that are born in Germany or have been raised in Germany, they're like, I just wanna scroll on TikTok and date people. And a huge problem is in the Yazidi religion, you can only marry another Yazidi. And they have to be in your caste. Yazidi has a caste system. So the top are religious and community leaders. Then you have the priests and then you have the majority. So you have three castes and you have to marry someone in your same caste. Now, a lot of people in Germany, the younger Yazidis are like, well, I don't even know if I want to marry someone who's also Yazidi because most of the people that I grew up with are not. But Rowan happens to be Yazidi and so is Sherry. And not only that, they're the same caste.
21:35 Speaker 00 So despite the fact that the two families, Rowan's parents and Sherry's parents do not get along. They actually really, really don't like each other. They end up getting married and they open up a hair salon together. It's mainly Rowan's. He has his own barber shop. Sherry starts doing like facials there. And sometimes she does updos for brides and these like women's hairstyles.
21:59 Speaker 02 A perfect crime film, says The Daily Beast. John Turturro gives a career best performance. Sony Pictures Classics proudly presents the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Turturro stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. Also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price and Steve Buscemi. See the film that the L.A. Times calls instantly classic. Opens October 23rd in New York and Los Angeles. Nationwide, October 30th.
22:30 Speaker 00 Twenty years after Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, Natalie's mother, Beth, is ready to tell the complete story. Taken: Natalie Holloway is a three-part series that follows Beth's relentless pursuit of answers and justice for her daughter and gives a fuller picture of who Natalie was as a person. It's the definitive account of a case that gripped multiple nations and never let go. Watch Taken: Natalie Holloway, November 4th, only on Netflix. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like showing up for movie night, ready for a heart pounding thriller, but getting a three-hour documentary on lawn care. That's kind of like insurance. Insurance may all seem the same on the surface, but when it comes to getting the help you need,
23:15 Speaker 00 State Farm is the real deal. You wouldn't settle for a snooze fest when you came for a thrill ride. So don't settle for just any insurance when there's State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
23:32 Speaker 00 But aside from that and a few strange incidents like Sherry breaking into Rowan's brother's house and then taking a taser to his neck and tasing him in the back of the neck and then immediately apologizing and begging for forgiveness, other than some strange incidents like that, the couple seems normal.
23:50 Speaker 01 What do you mean? What does that mean? Like that she's just, they got into a fight and she just decided to physically assault him and attacked him?
23:58 Speaker 00 She felt like Rowan's brother did not like her. So she broke into his house and tased him in the back of the neck with a taser. And then he turned around and she started apologizing profusely.
24:11 Speaker 01 Huh, fascinating. So you think she tried to attack him thinking that he wouldn't find out, but turned out he saw her?
24:18 Speaker 00 Perhaps, because she does try to kill him later, but we'll get more into that in a second. Yeah. So from the outside, aside from some of the weird incidents that people have kind of heard about, the couple seems normal enough. And then in 2020, Sherry is barely 20 years old and she gets pregnant, but not with Rowan's baby. He says their entire relationship, he could practically smell the other men on Sherry. Rowan calls Sherry's dad very emotional. He's like, I can't do it anymore. He won't even let Sherry's very domineering dad talk. He's like, let me talk. It's my chance to talk. I'm speaking now. These are direct quotes. I have nothing to lose. I'm going to talk and you will listen. Rowan tells Sherry's dad everything and at the end he tells him, I'm not going to do this anymore. I don't want to be with Sherry anymore. And then there's just silence. And
25:03 Speaker 00 then on the other end, Sherry's dad tells Rowan, if you abandon my daughter, it will cost three human lives. What does that even mean to this? Rowan just responds, then I would rather die by a bullet from you than die a little every day with your daughter.
25:20 Speaker 01 Who are the three lies did he say?
25:22 Speaker 00 It's gonna work out in a weird way. He never said. Now, maybe Sherry is so done with her life, she decides she doesn't wanna live it anymore. Maybe she can take someone else's life, like all of those thriller books. Find someone that looks like her, that's living a better life than her, and then get rid of them and resume their identity. That's the plot of thriller books. But that's not what Sherry wants to do. Sherry has a completely different plan. Instead of taking someone else's fate, she wants someone to take her fate. She wants someone to die for her. And that is how Khadijah, a woman who knows nothing about Sherry, who has nothing to do with Sherry, the only connection between the two of them is that Sherry thinks that they look alike. I will say Khadijah is much more beautiful.
26:05 Speaker 00 But that's why Khadijah is found, with her face bashed in with brass knuckles, stabbed in the face, neck, and chest, dead in the back of Sherry's Mercedes.
26:15 Speaker 00 Within days, Sherry is brought in and she's treated as the prime suspect of what the police originally thought was her murder. So she goes from being the presumed victim to the potential suspect. And by this point, a few things have occurred. When a body was found in the back of Sherry's car with dark brown hair, just like Sherry, her face is disfigured from stab wounds, but she's about the same height, the same weight. Everybody assumed it was Sherry. Sherry's parents went onto Facebook to post about her death, her murder, begging locals to help identify who they think that did this to their daughter, even though they think it's Rowan. Sherry's parents are telling the police that if they had to put their money on anybody, it would be Rowan. The whole town is ready to form a mob and go burn down Rowan, the ex-husband's house. Meanwhile, the authorities are quietly doing a DNA test because
26:58 Speaker 00 while they still, I mean, they still have to make sure that this is Sherry. And there's something curious. The body in the car has a small tattoo on their arm, and Sherry's parents are adamant that she does not have any tattoos. So either Sherry lied about getting a tattoo, or something weird is happening. And people keep calling into the police dispatch, trying to frantically explain that they saw a dead woman. There's a guy who's like, "I saw a dead woman at a pizza real, I swear." So the police decide to bring her, the town ghost, in. The victim, the suspect, we don't know, okay? All we know is that Sherry is not that hard to find. She's not deep in hiding. She's just like there all the time. And she tells the police, "It's the Albanians."
27:39 Speaker 00 And the police are like, what? The Albanians are after me. The Albanian mafia want to kill me. What? Okay, so the first person that Sheri points them to is a man named Shakir. He's the one that did this. He's after Sheri. So the police go after him and they also arrest Shakir. The investigators, they start putting the pieces together. They quickly arrest Sheri and Shakir, but they still need to figure out who the body in the car is. They cross-reference with missing persons alerts in the neighboring areas, not just this town, but all the surrounding towns. And they identify the body to belong to Kadija. And I'm only saying first names because German privacy laws identify each person as just their first name and first, last name's first initial. So it's like Sherbin K.
28:23 Speaker 00 Once authorities figure out that the woman in the car is Kadija, they can actually start getting somewhere. They go through Kadija's phone, they go through Sheri's phone, and they find a series of odd DMs on Instagram. The first one reads, hey, love, would you like to take part in a music video? You have very good charisma and you will be paid very well. You don't have to do much. I would be happy if you would get in touch. Best wishes. And it's like a random account that has no followers. That account belongs to Sherbin K, Sheri. I mean, just reaching out to Kadija for a job to be part of a music video? Kadija is like, hey, I'd be up for it, but I guess it depends on the genre of music and where it is. It's a well-known artist and you probably know them too. Okay, what's her name? Maybe I know her. And where would the shoot be located?
29:06 Speaker 00 The shoot would be in Offenburg. You definitely know her. But this would all have to be kept secret until the song is released. They tell Kadija the name of the singer and it's a pretty big artist named Loon. So Loon has over a million fans on Spotify, almost 400,000 followers on TikTok. And Kadija thinks, I mean, it's a secret project, so I can't tweet about it. But like I could DM Loon and ask Loon directly. And the police find all of this on Kadija's phone and she's like, I hope you can give me an answer because I'm very, very unsure. A woman messaged me saying, I'm filming a video, a music video supposedly for you. And now, I don't know, I'm sure, you know, I don't know, I'm not sure if it's fake or not. I don't want to go there and then something happens. Loon responds to her, fake sister, don't go.
29:49 Speaker 01 Wow.
29:50 Speaker 00 And she responds, oh, okay, thank you. So Khadijah ignores the video, music video request DM, but then another one comes in from another account. This DM means, hey, good evening. We are looking for girls to test our new lasers. Would you like to collaborate? We offer permanent hair removal with the world's fastest and most effective laser. A hundred percent pain free. If you're interested in permanent hair removal, you can contact me at any time. We work with a state of the art medical grade laser that costs twenty five hundred dollars per session. So they're saying, if you come to the salon and you get this laser treatment done and you just post about it, it's a free laser treatment. The only problem is Khadijah lives a hundred miles away from the salon. Cause they give her the address to the salon.
30:30 Speaker 01 What is it their home salon or?
30:32 Speaker 00 It's Rowan's Barber Shop.
30:34 Speaker 01 Oh, wow.
30:36 Speaker 00 And it's a three hour trip. So the salon manager is like, well, you know, I can pick you up from your house and then drop you off at the salon. Do the salon laser for you and then drop you back off at your house. All the DMs lead straight back to Sheri. August seventeenth, twenty twenty two, Sheri and Shakir get into the car together. They drive and they pick up Khadijah and on the way to the salon, it's getting dark, the sun is setting. It in between Khadijah's house and the salon, there's like this very long stretch of woods. It's like a forest. Sheri pulls over pretending to be lost and she asks Khadijah to get out of the car to read the road sign. And that's when Sheri and Shakir both jump out. Shakir jumps on top of Khadijah and starts stabbing her.
31:19 Speaker 00 They put Khadijah back into the backseat of the car, drive all the way back into town, park Sheri's car on a residential road between Sheri's parents' house and her ex-husband Rowan's house. And then they leave. Sheri and Shakir leave, but they don't flee. They don't skip town. They just kind of linger around until they're both arrested. Why don't they leave town? What's their plan? Who the hell is Shakir? And what the hell does he have to do with any of this? And why does he partake in this murder? Weeks before Khadijah is killed, Sheri is going around being what? One can only assume is the world's most insufferable pick me. She's going to the bars in town, getting drunk, leaning in close to all the guys that she's friends with, acquaintances with, random dudes. Would you kill for me? She keeps asking them.
32:03 Speaker 00 Some of the guys think it's a great way to try and impress her and not go home alone. So they're like, of course I would. I would do anything for you. But they don't mean it. She knows they don't mean it. Other guys are put off. Some of them are straight up looking at Sherry and going, why would someone die for you? She says things like, I can be free forever and stay with you all the time. For most people, most normal sane people, Sherry's reasoning that she can be free, stay with them all the time. Intimate relation, it's not worth killing someone for. Except apparently Shakir, that's what the prosecutors are arguing.
32:37 Speaker 01 Arguing what?
32:37 Speaker 00 Shakir meets Sherry a few weeks before the murder. And she's like, would you kill for me?
32:43 Speaker 01 Oh.
32:43 Speaker 00 And we can be together. And he just does it.
32:47 Speaker 01 So that's why they're saying that's his motive?
32:50 Speaker 00 Yes.
32:50 Speaker 01 He killed for her?
32:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
32:52 Speaker 01 That's fucking insane.
32:53 Speaker 00 But none of these even makes sense. Nobody even has an answer for why Sherry and Shakir kill Khadijah. None of it makes sense. And Sherry and Shakir, they're not going to give honest answers. So naturally, people have to come up with their own theories, even the prosecutors with what they believe happened. The very first theory to come about is the doppelganger theory. Sherry doesn't like her life. She cannot escape her religious parents. And instead of walking away and starting over or just standing up to them, she decides she needs to fake her own death to get away from them. But she can't just disappear because they will never stop looking for her. The only way to get everyone to stop looking for her is if they know for certain, she's not coming back.
33:32 Speaker 00 There needs to be a body and that person needs to look like Sherry, which is why weeks leading up to Khadijah's murder prosecutors find in Sherry's phone. She's got multiple Instagram accounts. She's DMing everyone that looks similar, even remotely similar to her. Asking if they want a free laser treatment as long as they post an exchange on Instagram. Khadijah agrees. Sherry picks her up, has her killed, and places Khadijah's body in her own car on a street that her parents are likely going to go down looking for her. They're going to find her body. They're going to think it's Sherry because Khadijah's face was so violently disfigured. And everyone's just going to assume it's Sherry because like, who else would it be? And then Sherry would move on. What does Shakir get out of it? Probably intimate relations, love, who knows?
34:14 Speaker 00 The prosecutors are a little constantly wishy washy about what Shakir gets out of it, but more on that later. The problem with the doppelganger theory though. And there's a lot. The first one being Sheri has four criminal defense attorneys. Two of them are court appointed, the other two, her parents are paying for. And her attorneys argue that everyone is being racist. By stating that they two look alike and that Sheri sought out a doppelganger just by the fact that all of them have dark hair and are of Iraqi descent does not make them doppelgangers. So they're saying if they're not doppelgangers, then this whole prosecutor theory of the doppelganger murder falls apart if they're not doppelgangers.
34:55 Speaker 00 And so like this becomes a whole thing during the trial where everyone's like, are they doppelgangers or not? And the judges are like, it doesn't matter if they're not doppelgangers because everyone in the room can tell that Khadijah is exponentially more beautiful than Sheri will ever be, which also depicts a level of self-awareness in Sheri herself. Right? But they're saying it doesn't matter if they're doppelgangers as long as Sheri believed that they could be.
35:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
35:24 Speaker 00 The attorneys are arguing, but that means if they're not doppelgangers, Sheri is not faking her own death with Khadijah's body.
35:31 Speaker 01 That's what an argument.
35:33 Speaker 00 The prosecutors, though, still have to prove that Sheri has motive for this theory, that she desperately needs to get away from her family. And she thinks that like she's crazy enough that she thinks this will work. Sheri is evaluated by a psychiatrist and she spends four days with the psychiatrist. She comes out with no strong diagnosis, no sign of a disorder, not that that would absolve any guilt. However, she's mentally there. She's fit to stand trial. The psychiatrist testifies in court that she does have a tendency towards conflict. She's extremely impulsive, manipulative. She believes manipulation is the best way to get what she wants. And most importantly, a part that the defense latches on to. Right? The defense is like, the prosecutors say this is a doppelganger murder. Let me tell you why it's not.
36:17 Speaker 00 During Sheri's psychiatric evaluation, it is confirmed that her IQ stands at around eighty-six. Which they describe as quote, just shy of a learning disability in Germany. Anything below eighty-five is indicative of a learning disability in Germany. So the defense are like, she's too dumb.
36:34 Speaker 01 To be doing a double gang or murder?
36:36 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:37 Speaker 01 Um.
36:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, exactly. So by this point, okay, just to fill you in. Khadijah is found in Sherry's car. Very quickly, Sherry and Shakir are arrested. And everyone in the news becomes obsessed with this case. Everyone in Germany becomes obsessed with this case. It goes to trial and it's actually one of the longest criminal trials in recent German history, especially in this area because there's over a hundred witnesses brought in. And the confusing part is, it seems like the prosecutors kind of drift between theories of what they think happened. And everyone's just trying to figure out what the hell happened. And the two defendants, Sherry and Shakir? Sherry's always lying. Anytime she opens her mouth, you can assume she's lying. She does testify, but nobody believes her.
37:22 Speaker 00 Shakir, dead silent, won't say a single word. So everyone's like, why would you guys do this to a random girl that you don't even know? And the only connection is, you were looking for people who looked like you, and you think that she looked like you. That's really the only connection.
37:39 Speaker 01 Right.
37:40 Speaker 00 Other than all the physical evidence, right?
37:42 Speaker 01 There's no clear motive.
37:43 Speaker 00 Exactly.
37:44 Speaker 01 Why they committing the crime?
37:45 Speaker 00 And so every motive that the prosecutors bring about, the defense are just trying to poke holes of like, well, she's too dumb. She's too dumb to carry something like this out. So the defense are like, she barely has a brain, okay? That's what the defense is arguing, which the prosecutors, they start arguing back, we never said she was smart. If she was very, very smart, perhaps she would have realized how horrendous this plan is. But nevertheless, the prosecutors argue, the motive is there. Forget intelligence for a second. Sherry has motive. Her life is falling apart. She wants to get away. So she wants someone to take her place for her death. She wants to be dead to her family. The prosecutors bring in about a hundred witnesses that testify about Sherry and Shakir.
38:26 Speaker 00 And one of the most important witnesses on that list, he went into hiding before the trial because he was terrified of sitting up on the stand. He thought someone was gonna kill him to keep him quiet, is the ex-husband, Rowan.
38:37 Speaker 01 Who is he scared of to kill him?
38:39 Speaker 00 Cause remember Sherry's dad was like, three people are gonna-
38:41 Speaker 01 Oh, the dad, that's right.
38:43 Speaker 00 So he comes in, he sits on the stand and he starts testifying about his relationship, his marriage with Sherry and-
38:50 Speaker 00 It's not looking good. Multiple witnesses by this point have already testified that Sherry is known as a gas station groupie. It's like a thing when you live in the suburbs in a lot of places, including Germany. We have nowhere to hang out. People just like loiter in gas stations in the parking lots. They come in, rev their engine, they pump gas and then they park near the gas station. They get a slurpee and a beer and then they sit in their driver's seat, rev their engines some more and then hang out.
39:21 Speaker 01 So she likes to talk to guys.
39:23 Speaker 00 At the gas station. You can't even.
39:26 Speaker 01 Fascinating.
39:27 Speaker 00 Pay me to stay in a gas station for two seconds longer than I actually have to.
39:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:31 Speaker 00 All the guys with their loud cars, they like to sit there and Sherry will show up in her Mercedes. And one German reporter describes them like this, and I don't know what this means. They live in the suburbs, but they like to feel as if they're living in New York City in the Bronx.
39:45 Speaker 01 Ah, okay.
39:46 Speaker 00 Like they think they're cool.
39:48 Speaker 01 Right, right, right. Like, okay, yeah, I can, I can see the visual. Okay.
39:52 Speaker 00 Okay, it's almost as if this Mercedes also changed Sherry. Rowan is testifying like she has an obsession with this car. She loved this lifestyle, beautiful cars, fast driving, easy money. That's a quote. She's, you know, helping move drugs and it's very important for her, quote, "to drive up and down the famous roads in Munich, listening to loud music and attracting attention." It's like the people that drive circles on Rodeo Drive and you're like, well, I've seen you 20 times. And he says, "The beginning of their marriage started out pretty normal. Eventually Rowan starts noticing this very obvious pattern." Quote, "She was always looking for arguments with me, just so she could storm out in anger." She'd be like, "Fine, I'm done with you. I'm not doing this anymore."
40:36 Speaker 00 Run out the house and be gone for three days. And she would block his number. I mean, he can't even ask where she is, who she's with, and he can see right through it. It's not like a real fight. Like she's doing this so that she can go be a gas station groupie. And she'll go out with a bunch of guys each time. They're reportedly all in like a criminal world. If he tries to talk to her about it, it's just another way for her to start another fight that lasts three days. So she can go out and loiter at gas stations. And that's how she ends up pregnant with some other man's child at 20 and she ends up terminating the pregnancy. Rowan tells her he's fed up with her and he tells her, you know, I'm gonna talk to your parents. I've already called your dad. She turns around and this is
41:17 Speaker 00 in their apartment. She hits him on the back of the head. She starts throwing things out of the cabinets. She grabs a bar of soap and is like whacking him with a bar of soap. He flees to the bathroom and quote, she slams my head onto the mirror. Everything goes black. I start feeling dizzy. So then when he wakes up, he's like, I can't do this anymore. I gotta pack my bags. I'm gonna go stay with my brother. He gets into the car and he starts having an epileptic seizure. The police get called out. There's footage of this, the police getting caught out, him having a seizure in the car. And he says that because of this marriage, because of Sheri's violence, he had his jaw dislocated. He lost 30% of his vision in the right eye. I mean, these are all documented violent altercations. February 2018, she's convicted of aggravated
42:01 Speaker 00 assault for tasing her brother-in-law in the neck, Rowan's brother. October 2021, she tried to run her husband over with her car. November 2021, she assaulted her husband with a bar of soap and smashed his face into a mirror. There's a protection order prohibiting her from even approaching her ex-husband. By this point, a few weeks leading up to Khadija's murder, Rowan says the families have facilitated at least three peace meetings. So in Yazidi religion, marital disputes are resolved through community mediation. I imagine like this is when the marital disputes become irreconcilable. But um, okay, side note, divorce and separation are a huge thing in Yazidi culture. Yazidiism is a closed religion, so you can only be born Yazidi and
42:43 Speaker 00 you must marry another Yazidi, or else if you marry someone that's not Yazidi, you get excommunicated. Some communities have loosened up the rules a little bit to say that you're no longer excommunicated by your loved ones, but it really depends. And from my research, it seems as if divorce is not unheard of. It's not encouraged, but more people are open to divorce. However, if after divorce you marry someone that is not Yazidi, that could lead to excommunication. So these peace meetings, it's like when you're about to have a divorce, all the male elders from both families will have meetings and try to talk to the couple to figure out how they can resolve their marital dispute.
43:29 Speaker 00 Twenty years after Natalie Holloway disappeared on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, Natalie's mother, Beth, is ready to tell the complete story. Taken: Natalie Holloway is a three-part series that follows Beth's relentless pursuit of answers and justice for her daughter and gives a fuller picture of who Natalie was as a person. It's the definitive account of a case that gripped multiple nations and never let go. Watch Taken: Natalie Holloway, November 4th, only on Netflix.
44:00 Speaker 03 We know life is busy. That's why saving money should be effortless. With Atlantic Union Bank's Roundup Savings, every time you use your debit card, your purchase rounds up to the nearest dollar and automatically goes into savings. So whether you're grabbing coffee, filling the tank, or picking up groceries, you're saving without even thinking about it. It's just one of the ways Atlantic Union Bank makes managing your money easy. Learn more at atlanticunionbank.com or stop by a branch today. Atlantic Union Bank, any way you bank.
44:29 Speaker 04 Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.
44:52 Speaker 05 Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
45:06 Speaker 00 They have three mediation sessions. The first two, Rowan's like, "I'm not gonna do this, okay? Your daughter is practically certified insane." And they just keep telling him how much she loves him, how much he means to her, and all this nonsense. And Rowan is still trying to save Sheri's face, but he wants a divorce. And finally, at the third mediation, he's like, "I know what I need to say. I just need to tell the truth." He says, if a husband says, your daughter has been cheating on me, then typically the father of the wife will tell the husband, okay, like, you decide what you want to do now. And he's like, I want a divorce. And that's the last time he saw Sheri. She moved out, moved back in with her parents. And that was a huge problem for Sheri. A lot of Sheri's friends were called in to testify by
45:51 Speaker 00 the prosecutors because the prosecutors are like the doppelganger theory. Remember she needs to get away from her parents. Her friends are sitting on the stand and a lot of German reporters are like, this is the most insane trial that we've ever covered in our lives. These little gas station groupies are cursing at the defense attorneys, are cursing at the prosecutors.
46:08 Speaker 01 Oh, you mean all her friends are also gas station groupies?
46:11 Speaker 00 Yeah, and all of them are sitting, like, some German reporter was like, I've never seen someone sit with their legs as wide open. You know, like, guys like to pretend like their ding dong is so massive that they can't even.
46:24 Speaker 01 Oh, you're saying that some of the guys are sitting with their legs are like reaching as far as they can.
46:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, in a court setting is just inappropriate. But also, I think it's like.
46:34 Speaker 01 Interesting.
46:35 Speaker 00 At that point, they're like doing splits.
46:38 Speaker 01 So these people are out here supporting Sheri?
46:41 Speaker 00 No, they're just being called in to testify and they just like snap at everyone.
46:45 Speaker 01 Interesting, alright.
46:46 Speaker 00 So Sheri is complaining to her friends. Her friends are testifying like, yeah, I saw her after the divorce and she's complaining that her dad would only let her leave the house for 20 minutes every single day. So she goes from living with Rowan, being able to go out for three days at a time, be a gas station groupie. And what's Rowan gonna do about it? Nothing. But now that she's back with her very strict religious parents, after a divorce, they're in full control, they're not letting her out of the house, they're not letting her be a gas station groupie, they're controlling everything that she does, and she's sick of it. One witness said, I saw her in the middle of the road. She was like parked on the side of the road. All of her car doors were open, the trunk was open. So I was like, is she looking for something? I thought maybe her car broke down. So I pulled over and I'm
47:30 Speaker 00 like, do you need help, Sheri? Like, did something happen to your car? And she dramatically pulled something out. And there's a little tracker in her fingers. And she just tells me, my father, that son of a bitch.
47:43 Speaker 00 I guess she found a tracker in her car and her dad is tracking her. So the prosecutors are like, look, look, she has every reason to want to get away from her family and she can't. Then the prosecutors bring in Rowan's brother. Yeah, where you know the the bizarre incident where she uses a taser to get him in the neck. The brother in law testifies, she showed up to my house. I didn't even know her really at the time. I didn't even know who she was. She introduced herself to me as a friend of my brother. She was completely distraught. She was crying, claimed that Rowan was stealing and using drugs. And then she suddenly tased me in the back of the neck with a taser.
48:21 Speaker 01 That's their first time meeting? What in the world?
48:25 Speaker 00 And then she ran down the stairs. Then she comes back up the stairs. He doesn't even chase after her because he's like on the ground tased. She comes back up the stairs and said, I don't know why I did that. I'm so sorry. Please don't tell anybody and starts profusely apologizing.
48:40 Speaker 01 And he called the
48:42 Speaker 00 He said, I naturally went to the hospital and filed a police report. And he says, and then they got married and then I met her uncles. The entire family is weird. They're weird. They also hated me, the brother. They just hated me. You know, one of Sherry's uncles said about Rowan's brother, we have a plan for him. Whatever that means. Yeah, they just keep saying weird things. And Sherry blames the brother in law stating, he made my life a living hell for Rowan and me. He was the one who persuaded my husband to force me to terminate my pregnancy. So Sherry is claiming that she was pregnant with Rowan's baby and Rowan was like, that was definitely not my baby. Trust me. And Sherry is like, well, your brother was the one that convinced you to convince me to terminate the pregnancy.
49:23 Speaker 00 I mean, both Rowan and his brother are like, that's definitely not true. Okay. Now Rowan's brother testifies and then they bring in, the prosecutors then bring in another guy. His name is Vulcan. He gets up on the stand and he tells the judges, I'm the guy that Sherry paid to kill her brother in law, Rowan's brother. And I was like, what the hell is happening? He's like, that wasn't the original money making plan. First of all. Okay. So when I met Sherry, originally we were going to go into business together to open up a COVID testing center. Because like, remember back then you just have to go to a testing center. They shoot, they shove like a three foot long Q tip up your brain. Like you're getting lobotomized and then they wanted to do that. But instead Sherry starts talking about perhaps before they do that.
50:07 Speaker 00 Maybe you could kill someone first. And Vulcan is like, I should start going along with it. And the prosecutors are like, why are you going along with it? And they said, I don't know, she just seemed kind of dumb. And she had money, so. So he's like, I was going along with them. Sherry offers him $10,000. Kill Rowan's brother. I'll give you 5,000 euros in advance. Sherry thinks that her brother-in-law is the reason that Rowan even wants to get a divorce right now. So, you know, once he's gone, Rowan's gonna be obsessed with her again. He's the one that supports this separation, so it must be his problem. The two of them, Vulcan and Sherry, they put together their approximately seven brain cells. They come up with this masterful plan. The plan is, he's gonna kidnap Rowan's brother, administer date rape pills to him, change him into swim trunks,
50:52 Speaker 00 throw him into Lake Starnberg, so that his death would appear to be a drowning. She tells Vulcan, all I need is photos to prove that you did murder him, and you'll get 10,000 euros, 5,000 euros in advance right now. And if successful, quote, "This day will be more beautiful than any other day on earth." She also sends him an 18-minute voice message where she's enthusiastically screaming, "No mercy, no mercy! Make sure you shove the pills deep in his throat!"
51:22 Speaker 01 They, they played all that?
51:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, in the trial. Obviously, the testimony from Vulcan and the corresponding evidence is damning to say the least. But her attorney tries to spin it. Her attorney says, "According to my client's understatement, this specific allegation of wrongdoing presents itself in a completely different light. The claim is that a man proactively approached her, not the other way around, and allegedly offered to kill her brother-in-law. That raises a distinct set of questions, entirely independent of whether she genuinely desired the act or took the offer seriously, or whether she might have subsequently withdrawn from the plan." They said a whole lot of nothing, but they're basically trying to be like, maybe she was testing him.
52:07 Speaker 00 To see if he would do it. She did give him the five thousand euros. She did and uh Volkan argues in court that he just did it to get some easy money. You know, she has money and she's also a bit stupid. That's a direct quote. He testifies that at the trial. But the interesting thing is like the prosecutor is like, thank you so much for testifying. Um, so you're actually arrested for fraud. Because regardless, you took money and did not deliver a service.
52:30 Speaker 01 You took money and you didn't kill someone? That's a fraud?
52:33 Speaker 00 Yes, so they arrest him for fraud.
52:34 Speaker 01 You're kidding me?
52:35 Speaker 00 They also charge him with tax evasion, which is a very, apparently a very German thing. Like they take tax evasion more seriously than the Americans.
52:43 Speaker 01 That's crazy. That that's considered a fraud?
52:46 Speaker 00 Yeah. I, maybe he tried to get a lower deal. Eventually, but he was, yeah.
52:52 Speaker 01 I can't believe this.
52:53 Speaker 00 Got sentenced to, he had his own separate trial. The fake hitman had his own little separate trial and he was found guilty and imprisoned for a year.
53:00 Speaker 01 Wait, how is that? I don't understand. Wow.
53:02 Speaker 00 Probably something in their code, like their legislation.
53:05 Speaker 01 Okay. You think it will happen in America too? I cannot imagine this being fraud though.
53:11 Speaker 00 We have very specific laws for conspiracy to commit murder. Maybe they don't have like specific laws, so this is the one that fits the best.
53:23 Speaker 01 But what I'm saying is, let's say he never intended to kill and he still took the money. He's like, I'm just here to scam someone.
53:29 Speaker 00 That's fraud.
53:30 Speaker 01 That's fraud?
53:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think that's why they maybe they charged him with fraud. Cause he's not like trying to kill. So he's just a con man.
53:39 Speaker 01 Okay, this is weird. Okay.
53:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, it's all very strange, but they get him for fraud and tax evasion because he didn't pay taxes on the five thousand euros he got in cash. And as if this case can't get even more confusing, the main prosecutor theory is that this is a doppelganger murder. And that's actually what it's known for, just when it goes viral on a global scale. But that also kind of has its plot holes because it's an escape where nobody flees. If she got someone to be a doppelganger, killed them so that she could flee.
54:09 Speaker 01 Right, right, right.
54:09 Speaker 00 She doesn't flee. Sherry is literally arrested, driving around leisurely through town. That's how the arresting officer describes her demeanor. If she killed Khadija to take her place as a dead body, would she not skip town and start a new life? She doesn't do that. So then some people argue it's because she was waiting for Rowan to get arrested. She's not trying to die and disappear and start a new life. She wanted the police to arrest Rowan for her murder and then she would leave. She was gone girling him, but that also necessarily doesn't make sense because there's no indication that she was tracking Rowan, tracking the investigation. She was genuinely just hanging out. By the way, she also went back to her gas station groupies after she was dead.
54:51 Speaker 00 And they're like, aren't you supposed to be dead? And she's like, I'm in some shit. Some people are after me. They're trying to frame me anyway.
54:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, this is wow.
55:01 Speaker 00 It just doesn't make any sense, which then leads to a black magic theory. And this was a theory that was heavily debated in court. Eventually, the court denies it. A lot of the black magic theory comes from humans doing what they do best and kind of just being idiots. So in Sherry's car, when police search it, they find two things, two small pieces of paper folded together. One into a triangle and then another one into a square and then taped together with scotch tape and then wrapped in foil. When they're unfolded, people discover writing on them that nobody can decipher. And one of them has a picture of Sherry and her ex-husband Rowan taped to the back, but the words, no one can decipher the words.
55:42 Speaker 00 So this theory comes about that Sherry killed Khadija as a human sacrifice so that Rowan would come back to her. That's why she doesn't flee or escape town. She stays. When they ask about this paper, Sherry's like, I've never seen that before ever in my life, which is refuted by the fact that her fingerprints are found inside. Like after you unfold the scotch tape and the foil, it's like inside. Then there were news reports that Sherry had been online searching specifically for a magician. So all of this is coming together. Until they're able to find out who wrote this undecipherable words on the paper. It's a religious leader in the Yazidi faith. They're called sheiks. She's looking online for a religious leader. But the way that they translate it is like she's looking online for a magician.
56:24 Speaker 00 Because the word they use to describe their religious leaders in Yazidi sounds like magician. So they're like, she was looking for a magician, dark magic. So then she finds one and the prosecutors find him. They bring him to court. They're like, tell us about this black magic that you're doing. And they're just basically talismans. So you know in religion, eh, when you wanna be blessed, or you are looking for specific things in your life, religious leaders in certain religions will write talismans for you, you know, on pieces of paper. But the whole questioning gets weird because he's illiterate. So he wrote it, but he can't tell anyone what it means.
57:02 Speaker 01 There's no meaning, it's just a bunch, bunch of scribbles.
57:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, and like the prosecutors don't believe that. So they're like, no, it's black magic. Just tell us it's black magic. And then he's like, no, actually, I'm genuinely illiterate. And they're like, no, we don't believe you. And then they make him try to read it. It was just like a whole thing. And then he was like, it was revealed to me in my dream. So that's why I wrote it.
57:22 Speaker 01 What is going on?
57:24 Speaker 00 The judges ultimately rejected the theory of human sacrifice, which means why the hell did Sheri and Shakir kill Khadija? Maybe instead of focusing on Sheri, the answer lies with Shakir. Because nobody can figure out what he has to do with any of this. Most people believe he is the one that physically carried out the killing and stabbed Khadija. Medical examiners say that it could have been a man, it could have been a woman, based off of the stab wounds. But it's really important. So in Germany, for murder, you get a life sentence, but you're eligible for parole after fifteen years. Unless, unless there's special circumstances. And stabbing someone fifty-six times is a special circumstance, which means that you would be eligible for parole after twenty-five years. So Sheri
58:06 Speaker 00 and Shakir's attorneys are like, no, she's the one that stabbed her. And then they're like, no, he's the one that stabbed her. And everyone's just trying to figure out. And it's just, I don't really think it matters. Throw both of them in for it. Khadija's dad says, in court, I faced my daughter's killers. I was only ten feet apart from them. What do you want to say to Shakir? I want to eat him alive. I want to devour him whole. There are text messages between Shakir and Sheri. And the day before Khadija is killed, Sheri is messaging Shakir things like, tomorrow is going to be wild. There's going to be a lot to do tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.
58:43 Speaker 00 This is the night before the murder. After killing Khadijah, they both, they both head back to Shakir's place. There's no evidence that either of them are romantically involved afterwards. But they part ways and both of them are kind of on the run, kind of not on the run. They both stop by the gas station. Shakir goes to the gas station too, to hang out with his friends. He's got scratch wounds on his arms. And he even tells a friend, "I killed an innocent girl for this whore." They're like, "Who's the whore? Who's the girl you killed some?" He doesn't clarify. The brass knuckles are found in Shakir's apartment. His DNA is found on Khadijah. The prosecutors, they just keep back and forth.
59:25 Speaker 00 They just keep going back and forth on what Shakir's motive to help Sheri was. I mean, this is a girl that he's only known for a few weeks. Why would he kill Khadijah for her? So sometimes the prosecutors think that it's sex. Sometimes it's money. There's no evidence that money was transferred, but maybe it could be the promise of money. Shakir is silent the entire trial. He does not testify. He never gives a defense. He never tells them, "No, this is what happened." Sheri, on the other hand, she gets up on the stand and she says, "Let me tell you the day of the murder. My original plan was to just meet with Shakir. But he requests that I bring a can of gasoline with me." So she does. She meets up with him. He takes her phone. And then he guides her to a strange address. She's the one driving. He tells her to park the car. She does. And then a girl walks up to the car, approaches the car, and just based off the energy,
1:00:10 Speaker 00 it seems like the girl and Shakir know each other. Girl gets into the seat. Shakir moves to the back and Sheri's in the driving seat. And Shakir is telling Sheri where to drive. They start driving into the forest, but out of nowhere Shakir's like, "Pull over. I need a smoke." She pulls over in the forest. He goes, takes a pee. Everybody gets out so they can smoke a cigarette. Once Sheri's done, she walks back to the car to get in, but then she hears a scream. "Hey!" She whips around and she sees Shakir just pummeling the girl Khadijah in the face with brass knuckles. Quote, "He had brass knuckles in his hand and was hitting her on the head, right on the right side. I think it was against her eyes and forehead. When I saw that, I was shocked. I fell to my knees. I screamed."
1:00:53 Speaker 00 I was paralyzed for a moment. I couldn't breathe. I saw him continue hitting her head. So I ran over to them and with all my strength, I pushed him away from her and I yelled at him to stop. She was gasping and whimpering. He grabbed my arm, dragged me to the side. And when I looked up at him, I saw his face, his anger and the way he yelled at me and I got scared. I thought, now it's my turn. He's gonna come after me. I took a few steps backward, turned around, covered my ears. He grabbed my arm, pulled me towards the car and threw me inside. And then I turned around and she's, she's in the driver's side now. She turns around and Khadijah is in the back somehow, lying there. He dragged her into the car.
1:01:37 Speaker 00 Shakir gets into the passenger seat and Sherry says, he threatened to kill my family if I didn't stay in the car. He wanted me to keep driving, but because my legs were shaking so bad, he had to hold my knee steady as I pressed on the accelerator. He's screaming at me, drive, drive now. Then they get to the road and at some point he tells her to pull over on a supermarket, like parking lot. He tells her to get out of the car. She gets out the car. And then she hears screaming inside the car and he's just stabbing Khadijah in the backseat, which the police are like, actually, the evidence shows that Khadijah was stabbed in the forest. But anyways, she says, I was frozen. I fell. I lay on the floor. I covered my ears. I didn't dare look.
1:02:16 Speaker 00 And then I looked toward the car and I could see the two of them. It was like they were fighting. She was screaming inside the car. Eventually, everything was covered in blood. He walked around the car, threw the knife across the street. He put on a fresh T-shirt. Pushed me back into the car, took Rowan's jacket out of my trunk, covered Khadijah with it. He gets in, orders me to keep driving. He had in his hand, a different, a new knife. I steered the car back onto the road. He pressed down on my leg again because I didn't have the strength. And then at the end of all of this, she looks at Khadijah's dad in court. I can't get the images of what he did out of my head.
1:02:52 Speaker 01 That's crazy.
1:02:54 Speaker 00 Yeah.
1:02:55 Speaker 01 She spoke with confidence?
1:02:56 Speaker 00 Yeah. A lot of people said it was terrifying because she was just emotionless the whole time in a very creepy way. And a lot of people testify about Shakir and they say that he's actually a harmless guy. Which, I mean, I don't know what people's perception of someone can even hold up in court. His ex-girlfriends testify like he's never had any rage or anger towards women. I don't know what any of that means, but something is definitely odd with Shakir. An inmate says that he was given a list of thirteen people from Shakir and he was told that he will get paid per witness that is killed.
1:03:31 Speaker 01 Who's paying who?
1:03:32 Speaker 00 Shakir is like, here's a list and he gives it to his cellmate. He's like, for each person that is killed before the trial, I'll give you money. That's what the inmate claims.
1:03:41 Speaker 01 Hmm, so he wants this inmate to pull some strings to kill some witnesses outside?
1:03:45 Speaker 00 Yes, now Shakir's attorney is like, that's not true at all. The prison guards, they search the cell and they find a list of witnesses and their addresses with plus or minus signs next to them. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a hit list, but it is there.
1:04:00 Speaker 01 What does plus or minus mean?
1:04:02 Speaker 00 No one knows whether it could be they're gonna say something positive or negative about me, or I want them dead or I want them alive. Nobody knows. And just when everyone thinks that this trial is going to wrap up, most people can't even make sense of the theory. I mean, maybe the doppelganger theory is the most relevant and then they're just kind of dumb that they don't flee. I don't know, that's like the one that most people are going with. Everyone just thinks Sheri is dumb, but this is the theory that she thought, this is the motive that she originally had. Then they bring in, right as they're about to rap, a man walks in to testify and his name is Furcon. Some people call him Furfur. He's a local rapper. He says that he has a connection to all of them. He's like, I'm connected to Shakir and to Sheri and to the victim, Khadija.
1:04:47 Speaker 00 He knows Shakir through a mutual friend and he claims that he was dating Khadija and he went back to Sheri's hotel with her. Let me explain. Furcon is an interesting character, okay? So he mainly stakes a claim at the local club. He's not a gas station groupie, he's a club groupie. And he is described by people who know him as, quote, Furcon is trying to break into the rap scene. He's a big flashy guy with a ten-foot-long cloud of perfume trailing behind him. That's pretty much what he's like. He's like, I'm here now, look at me, so everyone, I gotta be the- Center of attention. Well, recently, Sheri asked Furkan to go back to her hotel with her. And there was this whole incident. This is what Furkan is testifying. He went back to the hotel with Sheri. She had a hotel room. And he, she's just like trying to unbuckle his pants. He's trying to kiss upon him and he flat out rejects her.
1:05:30 Speaker 00 He's like, she was trying to pull down my boxer shorts and I pushed her away and I said, piss off, you slut.
1:05:37 Speaker 00 Okay. Whether this is true or not, it's up for you to believe. He thinks that maybe she was upset that he was in love with Khadija.
1:05:46 Speaker 01 What?
1:05:47 Speaker 00 Yeah. So some people are like, either Sheri was rejected and was upset that he liked Khadija, so she killed Khadija. Or some people are like, well, maybe he told her to get rid of Khadija and then they could be together. And that's why she killed Khadija. Regardless, the day that the investigators went to go talk to Furkan, he had gotten rid of his phone. Which is very suspicious, but they state there is no evidence to link Furkan to this crime. There's no investigation into him being part of anything. But it just leads people to wonder if there's a bigger reason to why Sheri specifically went after Khadija. Was it because Khadija was one of the only 26 people that responded? And was willing to meet up? And is this a doppelganger murder? Or is this a murder out of jealousy? Like, what is it?
1:06:31 Speaker 00 And I think that's why this case goes so viral. I mean, I think obviously the whole doppelganger classification of this murder and what it's most commonly called. It has all the points that make people wonder what the real motive is. But also, it's just, everything about Sheri's demeanor in trial for Germans was so odd. She'll come in covering her face every time with like a packet of folders and papers. And then every break that they get, her mom is just like supplying her with snacks every day. She's laughing and giggling with her family. A lot of German reporters believe that she was actually acting quite flirtatious with her four attorneys as well. She kept twirling her hair. But ultimately, both of them are found guilty.
1:07:15 Speaker 00 Which again, for Sheri, that means 25 years before she's eligible for parole. And for Shakir, it's 15 years. Khadija's dad is very upset with Shakir only getting 15 years. He was really distraught. He says, in the courtroom, I saw things I never expected to see. Things that cannot be understood with the mind. But did I see the truth? No. Some netizens have taken to point out that Sheri was delusional, thinking Khadijah was a doppelganger because it's so obvious that they look nothing alike and that they don't even compare. But with that, that is the doppelganger murder. What are your thoughts on this case? Let me know in the comments and I will see you in the next one. Bye.
1:07:59 Speaker 00 The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Sunny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom. Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series Phony, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
Previous Young Woman Self Exits W/ Gun Longer Than Arms In Mayor's Home - 2 Yrs Later Another Girl Is Dead Next How A Cheating Site Exposed The Evil “Perfect Son” From TLC’s 19 Kids & Counting Duggar Family Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated