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Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder and go darker than ever before.
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This is Crime House. In one of the safest places on earth, billionaire banker died behind a locked door. The fire was ruled suspicious, but what lurked beneath only deepened the mystery. Welcome to Night Watch on crime house 24 7. I'm your host Katie Ring and together we'll be following the cases making headlines now where justice is still unfolding. Follow us wherever you are listening and if you want ad free episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts plus subscribe to our YouTube channelightwatchpod. This episode discusses an active criminal case. The information we share is based on what's publicly available at the time of recording and may change as new evidence comes to light. We aim to inform, not to decide guilt or innocence. So everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. For tonight's case, I want to tell you all about what happened in a lavish Monaco apartment in 1999. This story is circling back into headlines because a Netflix documentary called Murder in Monaco has recently shed a light on the entire thing. But to really understand what happened, we have to step back into the broader picture, beginning with a man named Edmund Safra. Edmund J. Safra was born in 1932 in Beirut, Lebanon, into a Sephardic Jewish family whose history in banking stretched back generations. His upbringing was steeped in tradition, discipline and a deep sense of responsibility. Those who knew Edmund as a child described him as serious, observant and intensely focused. He wasn't flamboyant, he didn't seek attention. And even early on, he carried himself with restraint, preferring structure and privacy over display. Faith played a central role in his life, shaping not only his personal values, but his approach to business. He built his professional reputation on trust, discretion and long term thinking. As a young man, andman entered the family banking business and quickly distinguished himself. By his early 20s, he had already demonstrated an uncommon talent for international finance, particularly in navigating complex global markets, a niche he owned and excelled in. In 1955, he helped his family launch Banco Safra in Brazil, laying the foundation for what would Become one of the most powerful private banking empires in the world. From there, his rise was steady and deliberate. Edmund expanded his operations across Europe, the Middle east and the United States. He eventually built the Republic national bank of New York into a major global institution serving wealthy clients who valued confidentiality above all else. Heads of state, corporations and high net worth individuals entrusted him with their fortunes. Which makes it all the more puzzling how Edmund Safra would eventually find himself in a smoke filled, sealed apartment surrounded by flames. And when the fire was put out, one of the richest, most powerful bankers in the world would be dead. I want to note something about Edmund Safra. He was incredibly generous. He didn't just hold onto the money he made. He was a well known philanthropist. And people often said that his nephew was employed to simply write checks to donate. Edmund was never known as a flashy billionaire. He avoided publicity. He rarely gave interviews. He did not cultivate celebrity. He believed in superstition and the evil eye and once famously said, I try to remain unknown as much as possible. Yet those who did know Edmund described him as warm and witty. He expected excellence and rewarded it with generosity. Edmund believed that discretion was not just good business practice, but a moral obligation to his clients. And that same philosophy extended into his personal life. In 1976, when he was 44, Edmond married Lily Monteverde, A Brazilian socialite who would later become one of the world's most prominent philanthropists. Together, they lived a life that from the outside appeared impossibly insulated across insanely decadent homes in Geneva, London, Paris, New York, Monaco and the French Riviera. Era. Multiple residences, private security, carefully controlled access to their inner circle. Even among the ultra wealthy, the Safras were known for their security measures and their insistence on Privacy. By the 1990s, Edmund Safra was one of the richest bankers on the planet. Forbes estimated his Fortune to be $2.5 billion. Yet he continued to live with the same habits he always had. Structured days, trusted staff, a tight, carefully vetted personal environment. Those habits weren't paranoia. They were precautionary. Edmund understood risk. He had seen markets collapse, money moved, trust betrayed. And he believed that control and caution were the only defense against chaos. That belief would eventually shape one of the most consequential decisions of his life. In the late 1990s, Edmund was in his late 60s and his health began to decline. He suffered from Parkinson's disease, which gradually limited his mobility. As his condition progressed, his reliance on caregivers increased. But true to form, Edmund didn't open his life to Just anyone. He believed deeply in loyalty. And once he placed his trust in someone, he kept it. This is where Ted Mehera enters a story. At the time, Edmund was spending more of his life inside his Monaco residence. A luxurious 20 room penthouse apartment at the lavish La Belle Epoque, where at the bottom of the building was a bank, while the top is apartment floors. Monaco is considered one of the safest jurisdictions in the world, known for its low crime rate, heavy security presence and reputation as a haven for the ultra wealthy. For someone like Edmond, it represented control, order and protection. Within that controlled environment, Edmund needed someone close, someone reliable, someone who could assist him physically while respecting his privacy. Ted was hired to work closely with Edmund, assisting him day to day. And over time, he became part of his 12 person medical staff, a man with direct access to one of the most powerful and private figures in global finance. But within months, Edmund would be dead and all eyes would turn to Ted Meher. Foreign Ted Meher did not grow up in the same world as Edmund Safra. He was born in 1958 in Maine and spent his early years moving between states as his family searched for stability. His dad was a telephone repairman and his mother was a school bus driver. So money was always tight, it was always a problem, it was always thought about. His early life was marked by movement, disruption and the sense of constantly being in transition. As a young adult, Ted continued searching for structure. He served briefly in the US army in the mid-1970s and was even a Green Beret. The experience gave him discipline and a credential that would later shape how others perceived him. But it did not anchor him for long. After leaving the military, Ted turned to odd jobs all over the country. He went from being a policeman in Las Vegas to a casino surveillance man to a pizza delivery worker in Alaska, of all places. But then he decided to chase stability once again and he turned towards healthcare, earning a nursing degree from Dutchess County Community College. Nursing offered him something he seemed to crave, a role where he mattered and where people depended on him. He eventually got a job as a registered nurse in the neonatal unit at Columbia Medical Center. And it was there, through what seemed like a small act of diligence, that his life completely changed course. In 1999, Ted developed film from an expensive camera that was left behind in a discharged patient's room. The camera belonged to Laura and Harry Slatkin, who were desperate to recover the first photographs of their newborn twins. When Ted gave them the images, Harry offered him what he described as the job of a lifetime. And his referral would open doors Ted had never been near before. Ted was interviewed by Edmund's personal assistant. He was told that Edmund was a billionaire banker based in Monaco and that he required private nursing care for Parkinson's disease and other medical needs. The offer was unlike anything Ted had ever known, paying $600 a day. But it came with conditions. He would need to leave immediately, leaving his family behind, to relocate to Monaco and step into one of the most tightly controlled environments in the world. It seemed like an offer he couldn't turn down. So in early August of 1999, Ted accepted the job and moved to Monaco. Remember, Monaco was one of the most controlled environments in Edmund's life. Entry into that space was rare permanence. Inside, it was even rarer. Ted spent extended hours inside the penthouse, sometimes even overnight. Over the months, his presence became normalized, and with time, he learned details about Edmund that most people never would. He knew when Edmund preferred to retreat into the reinforced bathroom that doubled as a safe room. He knew how long Edmund could remain standing without help. He knew the rhythms of the apartment late at night, when movement slowed and staff thinned. He also knew security procedures. Lebel Apoque was designed to keep threats out. The walls were thick, the doors were heavy, locks were deliberate, and access points were very, very controlled. Importantly, those systems were meant to protect Edmond from outsiders, not from someone already inside. And that brings us to the night that changed everything. On December 3, 1999, Edmund was 67 years old. Ted, still relatively new to Edmund's care team, was assigned to work overnight alongside Vivian Tarent, an experienced nurse who knew Edmund well. They went about their usual routines until just before 5am when their sense of control, the one Edmund worked so hard to cultivate, began breaking down. At 4.49am, a monitoring station detected a fire alarm coming from Edmund's apartment. Smoke had already begun moving through the upper levels of the penthouse, but no one inside the building could see it yet. But inside, chaos was setting in. Shortly after 5am, Vivian used the cell phone Ted had given her to call the head nurse, Sonia Cassiano. She was calling from the bathroom, a bulletproof reinforced space that Edmund had often used as a secure refuge. Vivian told Sonja that Ted was injured by attackers and asked her to call the police. But at that moment, the situation was not being treated as a fire, because at 5:12am, police arrived in the lobby of the building. Responding to reports of intruders, officers began a floor by floor search, operating under the assumption that the attackers might still be inside. They didn't engage firefighters yet. But while police searched for the alleged intruders, smoke continued to spread above them. At about 5:20am Police found Ted and took him from the building. They transported him to Princess Grace Hospital because he had multiple stab wounds, just like Vivian had said. He told authorities that two men had broken into Edmund's apartment and stabbed him in the process. But back at the scene, inside the penthouse, Vivian stayed with her boss, afraid the intruders were still in the apartment. Four minutes after Ted was taken to the hospital, reality began to set in. Neighbors began calling emergency lines because they finally saw smoke coming from the building outside. They thought the robbers were going to burn the building down. But inside, the danger was growing faster than anyone realized. At 5:30am Vivian made another call to Sonja. She said Edmund wanted the police to hurry up. Little did he know about the serious fire engulfing his safe haven. By 6:15am firefighters finally began actively battling the blaze. By then, smoke had filled enclosed areas of the apartment. That was about an hour after monitors had first detected it. Fifteen minutes later, a call rang back to Sonia. It was Vivian, and it would be the last time anyone heard from her. Her voice was weakening, she was losing consciousness, and Edmund was coughing. Edmund's wife even called him to tell him to leave the room, but he didn't listen. Firefighters struggled to reach the top floor, and when they finally got there, the steel enforced bathroom door was locked. The smoke was thick, and visibility was poor. When they finally forced entry at 7:15am they found Vivian Torrent and Edmund Safran dead inside. On December 3, 1999, a fire broke out in Edmund Safra's luxurious Monaco penthouse. His nurse, Ted Meher, was in the hospital with stab wounds, and his other nurse, Vivian Torent, had taken safety precautions to prevent anyone else from getting hurt. She and Edmund locked themselves in Edmund's bathroom, a room that doubled as his panic space, which had heavy doors, thick walls and a hefty lock. The room that Edmund had carefully designed to protect himself from the outside was the place that contributed to his death, because roughly three hours after the fire started, firefighters finally broke into Edmund's safe room. Inside, Edmund was dead alongside Vivian. They had both inhaled too much smoke. In the hours that followed, Ted told authorities what had happened. He claimed two men had broken into the apartment and attacked him with a knife. He said he warned Vivian and instructed her to take Edmund into the secure bathroom. At first, investigators documented his account and moved on. But then they began checking it. Despite Ted saying people broke in, there were no signs of Forced entry. Plus no witnesses reported seeing intruders, and security systems showed no breach. By the time the smoke cleared from Edmund's penthouse, the investigation in Monaco was already moving in two directions at once. One path focused on the fire itself, how it started, how it spread, and why it took so long for rescuers to reach the top floor. The other focused on the only person who survived the night inside the apartment, Ted Meher. Three days after the fire on December 6, 1999, Edmund laid to rest in Geneva and 700 people attended his funeral. I don't want to leave Vivian out of the picture, but I couldn't find her obituary. And even though much of the murder in Monaco was about Edmund, let's not forget that Vivian lost her life that night too. Edmund's wife, Lily became a widow and she inherited his estate. She was distraught over her husband's death, but was even more worried that the intruders who started the entire thing were still at large. Luckily, the next day, on December 7, 1999, Monaco's Chief Prosecutor stepped in front of the cameras and announced a major development in the case. But he made an announcement no one in the public had anticipated. Ted Meher, he said, had admitted to starting the fire that killed his boss and colleague. Prosecutors alleged that Ted's wounds were self inflicted and that he had set the fire himself by sparking a blaze in a wastebasket. With that announcement, the investigation became a prosecution and Ted was formally charged in connection with the deaths of Edmund Safra and Vivian Turrent. He pleaded not guilty. Throughout 2000 and into 2001, investigators continue to refine their case. As the case gained international attention, Ted's defense team took shape. One of the most notable figures to join his defense was American attorney Michael Griffith. Griffith was already known in legal circles because years earlier he had represented Billy Hayes, an American whose prison escape inspired the film Midnight Express. His approach was clear from the start. In line with Ted's argument. Griffith didn't dispute that Ted started the fire. Instead, he framed Ted's actions as irrational, desperate, and rooted in emotional instability rather than malice. Ted didn't want Edmund's money. Instead, he just wanted to prove himself. Ted claimed that he had gotten on Edmund's head nurse Sonia Casiano's bad side. He said he feared losing his job just weeks after arriving in Monaco. So he tried to stand out. He wanted to create a problem and be the solution. Start a fire, get help, save Edmund and Vivian. Instead, he took his boss and co workers lives. In his lawyer's words, what happened inside the penthouse Was not murder, but a catastrophic miscalculation. Ted's trial began in Monaco In November of 2002, roughly three years after the fire. The proceedings drew intense local and international attention. Because Monaco was a tiny principality, it was more accustomed to covering royal appearances and luxury events than criminal trials. Prosecutors opened by walking the court through the layout of Edmond's residence at La Belle Poke. They explained how the apartment's design affected movement, smoke flow, and escape routes. Meanwhile, fire experts testified about how quickly smoke could fill enclosed spaces and how the placement of the fire ensured it would spread unchecked. Medical experts followed. Describing Parkinson's disease would have limited Edmond's ability to react once smoke began to build. I also want to emphasize that throughout the trial, One detail remained certain. The bathroom. Ted told Vivian and Edmund to go inside of it. Prosecutors argued that by doing so, and then allowing the fire to spread, Ted effectively trapped them. They even rejected the defense's argument that Ted expected immediate rescue, Pointing to delays caused by Ted's intruder narrative. On the other hand, the defense returned repeatedly to intent. Griffith told the court that Ted loved his employer, that he saw the job as the best opportunity of his life, that his actions were insane but not murderous. He also argued that the deaths wouldn't have happened if emergency response had hadn't been delayed, While also insisting that Ted didn't think the fire would rage out of control. At the same time, lawyers representing Edmund's widow, Lily, pushed back, and they pushed back hard. They urged the court to judge Ted by what he did, not by what he claimed to feel. Whatever his motivation was, his actions had fatal consequences. And after months of testimony, the court decided the same. In December of 2002, Ted Meher was convicted in the arson deaths of Edmund Safra and Vivian Turin. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. And on the final day of proceedings, Ted made a surprise move. He addressed the court, calling Edmund the best employer he had ever had. He insisted once again that the deaths were a terrible accident and that he was innocent. But the court didn't agree. In the eyes of the law, Ted lied and directly caused their deaths by setting the fire and trapping the victims. By all accounts, the trial was over, but the story was not. He remained incarcerated, largely out of public view, until 2003, when he made headlines again for escaping the 17th century Monaco Prison where he'd been kept, which he eventually said he had been planning even before his conviction. And this part is pretty insane. He allegedly convinced his sister's husband, who was a welder, to create tiny hacksaw blades and hide them in a book binding. His sister gave the book to a priest named Father Peter, who conveniently had a pacemaker, allowing him to bypass the traditional prison security X rays. Father Peter frequently visited Ted, and unknowingly, he gave Ted the book that had the hacksaws. The escape was incredibly elaborate, and honestly, it's a separate episode in and of itself. So let us know if you want a part two on this story. But basically, Ted got another inmate to help him make a rope out of trash bags and escape. And when he did, he thought he was home free. But luckily, with help from Father Peter, police tracked him down to a hotel in New York niece and ted was given nine more months in prison. In 2007, Ted was released, and almost immediately, he began rewriting the story of what happened in Monaco, Completely abandoning admissions he had made during the investigation and trial. He returned to his original claim, now saying that he had been attacked that night Edmund Safra died. Even so, the courts didn't revisit the case. Ted's conviction stood, and his attempts to clear his name went nowhere. After his release, Ted attempted to rebuild his life by changing his name to John Green. He even tried to return to nursing. But that effort didn't last. In 2013, the Texas Board of Nursing revoked his license after determining that Ted had failed to disclose his prior convictions to employers. The ruling effectively ended any chance of him legally working as a nurse again. But what followed was not a corporate, quiet retreat from public life. In April 2022, Ted broke into the office of his fourth ex wife, Kim Lark. He stole $600 in cash, a firearm, and her checkbook. And he attempted unsuccessfully to cash a check for $44,000. After leaving, Ted also kidnapped Kim's three search and rescue dogs. He was arrested two months later in June of 2022. And in 2023, Ted was found guilty on two counts of forgery. It was another conviction tied not to impulse, but to access and familiarity. He knew where to go. He knew what to take. He knew how to exploit trust. But even incarceration did not end his reach. While behind bars, investigators uncovered a plot that escalated the situation dramatically. Prosecutors said Ted had paid another inmate to kill Kim and steal her money. Thankfully, they uncovered the plan before it could be carried out. And Ted was found guilty in March of 2025 and sentenced for solicitation to commit first degree murder. In July of 2025, he got an additional nine years in prison from it. And that brings us to the present day. As of this recording, Ted Meher is incarcerated at a medical correctional facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's also been discovered that he was a heavy sedative user even when he was Edmund's nurse. More than two decades after Edmund Safra's death, Ted remains behind bars and in the news. His life after Monaco has been marked by the same patterns seen before. Reinvention, denial, and repeated violations of trust. And with each new conviction, public attention has returned to the fire in Monaco. Questions have never fully gone away. Some still ask whether the response that night could have been faster. Others revisit Ted's shifting stories, searching for some overlooked truth. They even bring in the Russian mafia to the story, wondering if Edmund's wealth put a target over his head, one that led to his death. But after years of scrutiny, there's no hard evidence to suggest an alternative explanation. No financial motive, no hidden accomplices, no proof that anyone else was responsible besides the man in prison, Ted Meher. What remains is a smaller, more disturbing conclusion. Edmund's threats didn't come from outside the walls. It came from someone already inside them. The law answered the question of responsibility. What it could not answer is one that lingers. How someone trusted to protect can become the greatest danger of all. And whether any system, no matter how secure, can fully guard against that kind of human failure. What did you think of tonight's case? Drop your thoughts and theories in the comments. See you next time. If you haven't already, make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channelightwatchpod. Your support means everything.
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Looking for your next listen? Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.