← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Fan Favorite - "The Monaco Matriarch"
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Today's story is a completely NEW retelling of a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 382. The audio has been newly recorded and edited. On the morning of May 17th, 2014, a detective wrote furiously as she sat next to the hospital bed of a mortally-injured 77-year-old woman. The woman had been in a coma for the last ten days, and the detective had been desperately working to figure out who had tried to kill her. Now that the woman had woken up, the detective was finally getting the chance she’d been waiting for – to ask her victim directly. But the woman was afraid. She told the detective she had a lot to say, but she couldn’t say it here, at the hospital – because she was still in danger.
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Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode. On a morning In May of 2014, a detective sat next to the hospital bed of a mortally injured 77 year old woman. This woman had been in a coma for the last 10 days following a vicious attack on her, and in that time the detective had been desperately working to try to figure out who had attacked her. But now, somewhat amazingly, the woman had woken up from her coma. And now this detective was finally getting the chance to ask the victim directly, who did this to you? However, when the woman began to speak, this conversation would not go as planned. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place. Because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please take the follow button out for a beach day, but secretly replace their sunscreen with cooking oil. Okay, let's get into today's story.
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Adobe Firefly the Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, dark and Mysterious Stories is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. Late in the afternoon on May 6, 2014, 77 year old Helene Pastore sat at her office desk in Monaco with a phone pressed to her ear. And on the other end was one of Helene's many tenants doing what they did best, which was to complain. This time there was a problem with their water heater and apparently the plumber was late. And Helene, like she always did, listened patiently because she was a landlord and this was her job. But when this tenant was finished, Helene told them in a soft but firm voice that the plumber would be there eventually and that they, the tenant were certainly not too important to wait. Then she hung up. Helene knew her tenant wouldn't like this, but she Also just didn't have patience for entitled wealthy snobs. Unfortunately for her, though, she spent a lot of time with people like that because Helene was actually the single richest woman in all of Monaco. So Monaco is a country located on the Mediterranean coast and it's surrounded on three sides by France. And so Monaco and France share a lot of cultural similarities. But unlike France, Monaco is very, very small, just under a mile wide, and has only about 39,000 citizens. And many of those 39,000 citizens are incredibly wealthy. It's essentially a country of millionaires and billionaires living in ultra luxury condos and high rises all along its coastline. And Helene and her family, the pastors, owned most of those condos, which meant they were among the wealthiest landlords, not just in Monaco, but on the whole planet. The pastor's multi billion dollar real estate empire had started three generations ago, and Helene was now in charge of it. It was a lot of work, and Helene could have passed it off to somebody else, but she was a pastor and pastors worked for what they had. Which was why, you know, despite her wealth, Helene was a very hands on landlord and spent long days in her office with her staff, you know, dealing with accounting and handling t tenant's requests and complaints, like about the plumber not being on time. Now, Helene picked up the phone once more to make one more call before she left for the day. And this call was to her daughter, Sylvia. Sylvia was 53 and had been diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier. So Helene, you know, naturally worried about her a lot and checked in with her daily. And on this day, when she heard her daughter pick up and say hello, Helene immediately asked her, like, how are you feeling? But Sylvia said she actually couldn't talk right now. Her massage therapist had just arrived and so she excused herself and hung up. Helene took the phone off her ear and just stared at the receiver as the dial tone blared through it, you know, doing her best not to feel hurt. Helene knew she was a very demanding parent and, you know, generally was not particularly warm. But she loved Sylvia, and lately it seemed like her daughter just didn't necessarily reciprocate that. And Helene knew exactly who to blame for this. And it was not Sylvia, and it wasn't even Helene. It was Silvia's boyfriend, Wojciech. Now, Silvia had been with woJciech for almost three decades, and it seemed like everyone in Monaco absolutely loved this guy. I mean, he was charming and gregarious and gave a ton of money to charity. But Helene had always felt like There was just something off about him and she worried that he was taking advantage of her daughter's very famous name. And so generally there had just been this sort of sitting, unspoken tension between Helene and Sylvia about Wojciech. You know, the fact that clearly Helene didn't really like him. Like that tension was there between the mother and daughter. But lately it seemed like that tension had finally gotten to the point where, you know, Helene and Silvia were just having all these little arguments that, you know, sometimes were actually about Wojciech and other times were about completely different things. It was like they were just quick to argue with each other. But for now, Helene looked at the time and saw, you know, it was time to go. And so she stood up and she smoothed out her beautiful Chanel suit. And she knew that if she wanted to see her son Gildo tonight, she really needed to get a move on here. So Gildo, Helene's son, had been in the hospital for the last few months after having a stroke. Helene visited with him daily, making the 45 minute drive from Monaco to where he was hospitalized in Nice, France. Now, the daily commute was definitely a lot, but poor Helene didn't care. She always worked it into her very busy schedule. Now Gilda was 47, but he was still very much Helene's child. And the whole ordeal had been just awful and very emotional for Helene, especially on top of, you know, her daughter's cancer diagnosis and the tension between her and her daughter, like right now, life was pretty tough. Seeing her children like this had reminded Helene that money just could not save you from everything, even in Monaco. Now, Helene grabbed her Hermes purse and she headed out the door. Minutes later, Helene was outside and was climbing into a black minivan that was waiting for her at the curb. And as Helene slid into the backseat, she was greeted by her 64 year old driver, Mohamed Darwich. So Mohamed had actually been working with helene now for 15 years. And so the two of them spent the entire 45 minute drive to Nice just chatting about their kids because in some ways they were, you know, longtime friends. Mohammed told Helene about how he really missed his daughter, who lived back in Egypt with her mom. And he also updated Helene on his son with Sam and how he liked living in France. Their conversation made the drive go fast, and before Helene knew it, they were at the hospital. Around 6pm that night, Helene was sitting at Gildo's bedside helping him drink a glass of water. Like his mother, Gildo had been both blessed and cursed with the pastor work ethic. Despite the family Money. He was constantly starting ventures and investing in businesses. So Helene knew the hospitalization had been really hard for him, not just physically, but just from a work perspective. You know, he was missing out on so many opportunities because he was stuck here. And even though now he was awake and alert, he was still partially paralyzed and just couldn't speak very well. Helene sat with Gildo for about an hour, talking to him and also checking in with his doctors and. And then at some point, she kissed her son's forehead and told him she would see him soon. Just after 7pm, Helene walked out of the hospital to where Mohammed was waiting in the minivan. And this time she got into the front passenger seat, and Mohammed, he started the car, and they began to make their way out of the lot toward the busy streets of Nice. And pretty much right away, they got stuck in absolutely standstill traffic. And so Helene just sat back in her seat and tried to relax. But as she was doing that, something caught her eye outside of the car, like out her window. It was this person who had a hat kind of pulled down low over their eyes, and they were jogging right towards the minivan. And Helene, she just stared at this person and, like, tried to see if they maybe knew them. Cause it did seem like they were coming right towards this car, like their car. But then she saw what this person was holding, and immediately she screamed at Mohammed to drive. But before Mohammed could react, Helene heard a loud bang and the sound of shattering glass. About 15 minutes later, the commissioner of the Nice police, Philippe Frison, pulled up to the hospital with the sirens on. He'd been in his office about to finish up for the day, when he got a call about shots being fired. But he really didn't know how serious it was. So he parked and jumped out of his car. And the first thing he saw was a crowd of people gathered on the street across from the hospital. And they were all staring at this parked black minivan with Monaco plates and also a shattered passenger side window. Frison jogged over, and he was technically the first officer on the scene. But a firefighter standing by the minivan told him a few details based on what he'd seen and what the onlookers had been saying. Apparently, a man dressed in black had come out of nowhere on foot and fired two shots into the minivan, striking both the man and the woman who were in there in the head. The shooter had then disappeared back into the crowd, and witnesses saw a second man dressed in black follow after him. The firefighter said that both victims had been Taken to the hospital in critical condition, but he didn't know, you know, if they were still alive now. And he also didn't have any information on their identities, just that it was a man and a woman. Immediately, Frison's mind went to carjacking. Now, nice. Did not have a huge amount of crime, but one of its more common issues was something called the car door grab, which was when criminals would target cars who were stuck in traffic, and they would. They would rob these cars. And so he wondered if maybe carjackers had approached this vehicle and attempted to rob it. Something happened. They drew a weapon, and then, obviously, the victims inside were shot, and then the carjackers took off. And so Frison radioed back to the station for backup. A crime like this, you know, whether it was carjacking or not, you know, obviously what he's dealing with here is murder. A crime like this needed more officers than just him. And so he gets in touch with the dispatcher, and he fills her in on the need for backup. And then during this discussion, she actually passes one more piece of information to Frison that she had recently learned, and that was the identities of the victims. And the reason that they already knew who these people were is, is because one of the victims was incredibly famous. The woman who had been shot was Helene Pastor. The other victim was her driver, Mohammad Darwich. When Frison heard this, he couldn't believe it. I mean, of course he knew who she was. Everyone in Monaco knew who Helene Pastor was, or at least had heard the Pasteur name. And so now that Frison knew the identities of his victims, I mean, his theory of this case immediately changed. He felt like there was no way the richest woman in Monaco just happened to be targeted by random carjackers. I mean, this had to be a hit. And so Frison, after getting off the radio, went back to the minivan and just looked inside. And right away, he saw there was a purse that was sitting untouched on the dashboard, which made him even more certain that this was no robbery. I mean, very likely that would have been grabbed. But then he noticed something else. The. The front seats and the floor of the minivan were covered in all these rounded metallic pellets, which he recognized as being from shotgun ammunition, like buckshot, like the inside of, you know, what a shotgun fires or can fire. And this struck Frison as being very strange. I mean, a shotgun was a. Was an odd choice for a, you know, a professional hit, because it was big and bulky, and you really couldn't carry it in public without attracting a lot of attention. And so this, combined with the fact that this happened in broad daylight, told Frison that very likely whoever had shot Helene and her driver was not an experienced hitman, which was also just not what he would've expected. Just then, Frison heard the sound of sirens cut through the air, and he knew his backup had arrived. If you're spending a lot of time outside driving, traveling, or just chasing sunshine, you need shades that can actually keep up. Well. Shady Rays are basically the same exact quality as the more expensive brand name sunglasses. Their sunglasses come in clean, classic styles with polarized lenses that have super clear optics. They cut through that harsh spring glare, and they have durable frames with solid hinges. 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No minimum balance required. For more information on APY rates, go to Chime.com disclosures a few hours later, Frizon was back at the police station talking to his team, which now included one of the city's very best detectives, Investigator Catherine Massineo. Both of their victims, Mohammed and Helene, had survived, at least to this point. They were in Comus and their attack was already the leading news all around Europe. But Frison was not particularly worried about, you know, potentially not being able to solve this because he knew he would have some answers soon. Not only had their technicians processed the crime scene and gathered swabs and other evidence from the minivan, but also Frison's officers had found two security cameras near the scene that likely recorded recorded the entire shooting. So in France, it was common for cities and towns to have like a network of closed circuit surveillance cameras that law enforcement was able to access. And Nice had more of those cameras than any other city in the country. So Frison was optimistic about what the footage might show once it finally arrived. But in the meantime, he wanted to speak to Helene's immediate family and friends and see if she had any enemies. The way Frison saw it was, you know, Helene's daughter and son, who she was very close with. Sylvia and Gildo. They would certainly know if there was anyone who wanted their mother dead. But Frison also knew that her children were not just potential sources of critical information, they were also suspects. Frison didn't have access to the details of Helene's estate, but he knew enough about the family to guess that whatever inheritance Helene left behind was literally in the billions, which meant that her death would likely make both Sylvia and Gildo billionaires. Now, Frison didn't think that either of them had actually pulled the trigger here, but what Frison did think was that both of them definitely had the motive and the means to hire somebody else to do the shooting. But Frison had one big problem. Sylvia and Gildo, and really all of the people he really wanted to speak to lived in Monaco. And since Frison and his team were French and this crime had happened in France, they had no jurisdiction in Monaco. So in order to speak to Helene's children and her inner circle, they couldn't just walk up and demand an interview. Instead, they basically had to ask nicely. The next morning, Frison sat in a very expensive looking living room overlooking the beautiful Monaco harbor. Now, Frison had been up all night and was basically running on fumes at this point, but he hoped, you know, that was going to be worth it because sitting across from him was Helene's daughter, Silvia pastor, and her 64 year old boyfriend, Wojciech Janowski. When Frison had reached out to Silvia and Wojciech and asked them to speak with him, one, he had been sort of surprised at how quickly they had agreed to do it, but two, he sensed really not much emotion, like they were sort of cold and detached and sort of quick to be like, sure, you know, we'll meet up and chat with you about this as if it was just no big deal. But now that he was face to face with them, I mean, it was clear that they were absolutely devastated. I mean, especially Sylvia. Now, Frison knew as much as he wanted to ask some sort of pointed questions here, he needed to be very careful because Silvia and Wojciech did not have to be speaking to him at this point. Like they basically are just agreeing to do this interview and at any point they can say, enough, leave, and he would have to go. So Frison, when he began, he just started out with some very light background questions about Helene. And in a very shaky voice, Sylvia described her mother as being very tough but incredibly generous. You know, she said they did fight a lot, but it was just over silly things and they were actually, you know, pretty close. Sylvia said she'd been battling breast cancer and her mother had always called to check in, like she really cared. When Frison asked about enemies, Sylvia shook her head and she said, you know, obviously my mother is worth a ton of money and so by default she is a target. But she really didn't get out much. She didn't really engage with the Monaco social scene. She pretty much just worked all the time and looked after the family like, she just kept to herself. So I certainly can't think of anybody that would have wanted to harm her. When Frison turned to Wojciech, Wojciech seemed equally mystified by this whole thing. He told Frison that he and Sylvia had been together for 28 years and they had a daughter together. And so, you know, he knew Helene very, very well. And he said that, you know, his relationship with Helene had always been great and that Helene generally was like this incredibly generous person. I mean, especially really with him and with Sylvia. He said that even though he had his own businesses and his own income, you know, totally separate from the pastors, Helene still would give him and his family money. The mention of finances, though, made Frison perk up. And so he asked Woyczek to be more specific about the type of financial generosity he was describing. And when he asked that question, Frison noticed there was this look of uncertainty that crossed Wojciech's face. And for a second, Frison wondered if he had just touched on something that was kind of a sore spot. But Wojciech went from looking uncertain to sort of recovering very quickly. And then an easy smile came across his face, and he explained that Helene gave her daughter and son, so Sylvia, his girlfriend, and Gilda, though, a monthly allowance of about €500,000 each, which was around US$600,000. When Frison heard this, he had to force himself not to reflexively raise his eyebrows, because this was like a staggering amount of money to get every single month as just an allowance. It was so high, in fact, that it made Frison doubt whether either of Helene's children would feel a need to kill her. I mean, if she's already giving them this much money every month, what else do you need? But Wojciech wasn't done. He cleared his throat and sort of shifted in his seat like he was uncomfortable. And then he said that, you know, he and Silvia used this very generous amount of money that Helene gave them on household expenses. But, you know, Wojciech said, if he was being honest, he'd heard that Gildo spent it on other stuff. Wojciech said, you know, Silvia's brother, Helene's son, he owned some companies that were not doing well, and so he was in very deep debt, debt for Frison. You know, he couldn't tell if this was true or Not. But it certainly opened up a new investigatory door. So he jotted down this information on his notepad. He was actually meeting with Gildo next. And so if Wojciech was right, then this debt was definitely a huge red flag. 45 minutes later, when Frison walked into Gildo's hospital room, he was shocked by what he saw. Now, he had known that Gildo was sick, but he really hadn't been prepared for just how sick. Gildo could barely move or speak. The only way he could communicate was actually by blinking. But nonetheless, Fruzan sat down by his bedside and began with a few simple questions. It took a long time for Gildo to blink out his answers, and he really couldn't communicate really anything more than a few words at a time. And it was also just kind of obvious to Frison that even with these short answers, he just was not going to get much. And as time was going by, you know, Gildo was just getting more and more frustrated with basically his lack of being able to contribute much here. And so by the time Frison left the hospital, not that long after he had arrived, he was very doubtful that Gildo was really in any shape to be planning a hired hit. I mean, the guy really was just not doing well. But, you know, it was still possible, at least, Frison thought it could be, that Gildo had begun preparations before his stroke, which had only happened two months earlier in March. And Frison realized the amateurish quality of the hit itself could have actually been a product of Gildo's illness. Like, he had to rush the hit because he basically could barely communicate. So far, Frison thought this case was basically full of contradictions. One of the richest people on the planet had almost been assassinated by shockingly unprofessional hitmen. Both of the children, you know, both of Helene's kids, stood to inherit billions and billions of dollars and were therefore the most obvious suspects. But at the same time, both kids were receiving an ungodly amount of money already. Like, they didn't need the money. And I mean, even if Gilda was in debt, the idea that half a million dollars every month isn't enough to at least keep you afloat just seems sort of fishy. And so Frison began to wonder about Silvia's boyfriend, Wojciech. Could he have planned the hit because he, not Sylvia, wanted access to Helene's money? And so Frison pulled out his phone and he called Massenio, the very talented detective, you know, the best in the city. And he told her about, you Know what he saw as issues about having Sylvia and Gildo as suspects? Massenio completely agreed with Frison. And then she shared something that she had learned during her own interviews about Wojciech. She said that one of Helene's friends told her that Sylvia had been with Wojciech so long, 28 years without getting married because Sylvia wanted to make sure her inheritance went to her or her child or just stayed within her direct family bloodline and didn't go to an outsider to a husband. Frison considered what this meant. It told him that Sylvia didn't completely trust Wojciech. But it also tanked his theory that Wojciech might have planned the hit since he had zero claim to the pastor estate whether Helene was alive or not. But then Massenio said something else that made Frizon stop thinking about the pastors completely. She said she had found something out about Helene's driver, Mohammed. Mohammed was apparently involved in a love triangle and had been for years. He was from Egypt and he had a family there, but he also had a mistress here. And Massenio had gotten the number for Mohammed's adult son who lived with him in France, so they could just ask him about it. And so, as Frizon hung up the phone, his mind was spinning. I mean, this whole time he had thought it was so obvious who the target of the hit was. It had to be Helene. She's this billionaire. It's gotta be her. But now he was wondering if maybe the real target was Mohammed. That afternoon, Frison was back at the station with Mosinio. It had been 24 hours since the shooting and neither of them had slept. But Frison did not think they'd be able to do that anytime soon because the security camera footage had just arrived and Frison had put a lot of stock into this footage. Like he felt really hopeful that this was going to be what they needed because it felt like every other lead he had tried to follow so far in this case had already hit some kind of dead end. He'd just gotten off the phone with Muhammad's son, Wissam, who he had hoped, you know, might shed some light on the possibility that Mohammed was the intended target of the attack. But Wassam had been skeptical. He did not think the lead about his father's love triangle meant very much. He said the mistress had been a part of Muhammad's life for a long time, and to be honest, nobody was particularly upset about it now. Unlike Sylvia and Gildo, Wasam was a young and healthy man. So, theoretically, he could have been one of the shooters. But Frison hadn't heard anything in their call that made him think Wassam wanted to kill his father, or Helene, for that matter. So now Frison and Massinio began scrolling through the security footage, looking for clues that could maybe point them in the right direction. When they got to the point in the recording where the shooting actually happened, they were relieved to see they did have a clear view of the scene. And they watched it play out right in front of them. And just like the witnesses had said, Helene's car is seen turning out of the hospital parking lot and. And then a man with a shotgun approached a window and fired twice. Frison could see that the second man watched the whole thing from across the street at a snack bar, probably acting as a lookout. And then after the shooting, both men ran away on foot, and their faces were never visible in the footage. And so Frison rewound the tape to see when these men arrived. And he saw they showed up about 20 minutes before the shooting. But it was not when they showed up that was particularly significant. It was how they showed up. When Frison saw how they arrived, his jaw dropped because finally he'd found a lead he could follow. Both men were separately driven to the hospital in taxis, and one of the taxi's license plates was clearly visible on screen. You can predict the playoff action all the way to the finals with FanDuel predicts. 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Learn more@genesis.com and feel the GV70. That evening, Frison, Massenio and a group of officers burst into the lobby of Hotel Azur in Nice. In Frison's hand was a photo of both of the shooters. After calling the taxi company, everything had moved very quickly. The taxi dispatch had a record of these two men's rides and gave detectives the mobile numbers that were used to book each cap. And it didn't take long for Frison's team to connect those numbers to two burner phones that were purchased just hours before the shooting at a store about two hours away from the hospital in a French city called Marseille. And then by using closed circuit camera footage, the police have been able to track the shooter's movements prior to the shooting. First as they left that store with their burner phones and then as they boarded a train to Nice and then stopped at Hotel Azore before getting taxis to the hospital. So that's why Frison and his team were at the hotel now. In order to find out who planned this attack, they needed to ID the shooters. They were hoping somebody here could. So Frison approached the reception desk with the picture of the shooters and asked the person manning it if they had seen either of the men in the photo. And the receptionist said yes. Those men had rented two separate rooms just the day before, but they had already checked out. And so Frison wrote down the names the receptionist gave him for these two men, but the names were not familiar. Then Frison and Massenio split up to actually go search the rooms. Moments later, Frison and some officers hurried into a very clean hotel room. And the receptionist had told him that this was going to be the case because the Maids had already been in and out of that room. They had cleaned it. And so for Frison, even though he did expect, you know, a clean room, it was still disappointing to walk in there and see it because, you know, had there been any evidence still in here by now, it was very likely gone. However, just then, he heard one of his officers call out from the bathroom. And so Frison went in there and found one of his officers pointing to where a used bottle of shower gel sat on the side of the tube. Frison couldn't believe it. I mean, he knew no other guests had been in this room since the shooters had been, which meant that gel was almost certainly theirs. The maids must have missed it during their cleaning. And so Frison told the officer to bag it. I mean, it was a long shot, but he wanted to maybe get it sent off and tested for DNA. On May 16, 2014, investigators, Frison and Massinio paced around Frison's office. Every now and again, they glanced at a document that was sitting on the desk. It had only been 10 days since Helene Pastor and her driver Mohamed Darwitch were shot outside a hospital in Nice, France. Helene was still alive and in a coma, but Mohamed Darwitch had died, which meant Frison was now officially leading a murder investigation. Now, this was daunting for Frizon, but at the same time, he felt like they were close to breaking this case. Because that document on his desk told him that the shower gel they collected during a search of the shooter's hotel rooms actually did have DNA on it. And it had matched to someone in their system. A 24 year old man named Samin Saeed Ahmed. And through a series of phone taps, they'd also managed to figure out the name of Samin's accomplice, a 31 year old man named Al Hayer Hammadi. Now, these names were different from the ones that the hotel had given Frison. So clearly the men must have used pseudonyms when they checked into that hotel. Now, both of them did have prior criminal records, but like Frison had suspected, they were not like professional killers. They were just petty criminals and drug dealers from a neighborhood in Marseille that had the highest crime rate in the entire country. So it sort of did make sense that two men from that area might agree to carry out a hit for money. But. But what didn't make sense to Frison or Massenio was how Samin Saeed Ahmed or Al Hayer Hammadi could possibly be connected to anybody in Helene's life. The pastors in Their inner circle were some of the richest people in the world. If any of them were planning a hit, Frison would have expected them to hire more experienced and professional assassins. So now Frison wondered if maybe they needed to take a closer look into other areas of Helene's life, like maybe her tenants, to see if anyone had obvious connections to Marseille. He knew from speaking with Helene's friends that she often handled many of her tenants personally, and so it was possible that maybe there was a feud or dispute that they just didn't know about. However, thousands of people lived in Helene's buildings. Going through that list would be nearly impossible, which was why Frison and Masinio had decided to that the best way to approach this whole thing was with a method Frison called the fishing rod. Instead of arresting the shooters, Samin and Al Haier, they would watch them and keep their phones tapped and see if they led police to whoever hired them. However, while they were figuring all this out, Frizan's phone suddenly rang. And when he answered it, he got very unexpected news. It was the hospital. Helene had woken up from her coma. And so, first thing the next morning, Frison sent Massenio to the hospital to interview Helene. And then, after sending her out, Frisone waited anxiously at the station for her to return. He was hoping that Helene could simply tell Massinio who wanted her dead, and then they could just close the case, easy. But when Massinio came back that afternoon, she did not have good news. Helene had told Mosinio that she was terrified and she had lots of things that she wanted to tell the police. And at one point, she seemed like she was on the verge of actually, you know, giving Mosinio a name or just something really meaningful. But then she'd literally just struggled to breathe, and medical staff had rushed in to stabilize her and they hadn't been able to finish the interview. Frison was so disappointed. I mean, they'd been so close to maybe hearing the truth directly from the mouth of their victim, and now they might never know. It would turn out four days later, you know, before the police ever had a chance to have another interview with the Helene. She died. Two weeks after Helene's death. So in early June of that year, Frizan parked his car and began to walk into the station to start his day. And he was feeling incredibly anxious because Helene and Mohammed's case had really stagnated. And Helene's death really only made the public pressure on him and his team way more intense. Frison still had his team watching the shooters and tracing their phone calls, but so far they hadn't gotten any more leads from that. They were also slowly chipping their way down the list of Helene's tenants, but so far they hadn't found anyone with the kind of motive they were looking for. Frison had not totally eliminated his first suspects, which were Gildo, Silvia and Wojciech. But he just didn't feel like any of them stood out above the rest. Gildo potentially needed a windfall because of alleged money problem, although Frisone had not confirmed that with bank records. But Gildo's poor health made it extremely unlikely he could have planned this hit. Then there was Sylvia, who was entitled to an enormous inheritance from her mother's death, but she already had a massive monthly allowance when her mother was alive and really did not seem desperate for cash at all. And then, as for Wojciech, he wasn't even married to Silvia, so he literally had no legal claim to the Pastor estate. So Helene's death really didn't do him any good. So all this was sort of going through Frison's mind as he stepped inside the station. And as he did right away, he saw Massenio come running towards him carrying a piece of paper. And this paper was covered in lines of numbers that Frison immediately recognized as a call log. And Mousenio explained that they had traced one of Aljair's recent calls and finally found a link to Monaco. The guy he called was somebody named Pascal Doriac. And unlike the shooters, Pascal had direct ties to Monaco. He was a personal trainer, and some of his clients were elite families who lived in Monaco. And a few of those clients were also people that Frison and his team had examined in connection with the murders. Frison grabbed the piece of paper and read and re read its contents before he finally looked up at Mosinio and said, they needed Pascal's phone records right now. Later that same day, Frison was sitting at his desk, staring at a name written on a piece of paper. He had gotten access to Pascal's phone records, and he discovered that every time there had been a significant event in this entire case, like on the day of the actual shooting or the days of Mohammed or Helene's death, Pascal had texted the same number, and now that Frison knew who that number belonged to, he realized he had been at least half right the whole time. These murders were about money. Based on the police investigation, multiple confessions, video surveillance and bank records, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Helene Pastor and Mohamed Darwich on The evening of May 6, 2014, Around 7pm the hitman named Samin Saeed Ahmed strode toward Helene's black van. And as he did, he could see her terrified face through the passenger side window as she realized what he was carrying. A shotgun. And she looked at her driver and screamed at him to drive. But before Mohammed, the driver, could hit the gas, he had raised his shotgun and fired twice into the passenger side door. And then Samin just stood there and watched as Helene and Mohammed sort of slouched forward in their seats and began to convulse. Samin didn't know who the people were he just shot, but he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about the payday he was about to receive for doing this. After a moment, Samin was convinced that he had been successful, that Helene and Mohammed was. Were dead. And so he turned and sprinted away as fast as he could, knowing that his accomplice, Al Hayir, would follow shortly after, just like they had planned. And so Samin, as he ran away, he pulled his baseball hat down over his eyes, hoping that would be enough to avoid any cameras that might be in the area. And he ran and he ran through the streets of Nice, eventually slowing to a walk before going inside of his hotel, where once he was inside, he went to his room, sat on his bed, and he called the man who hired him. Across the city, Pascal Doriac, the personal trainer, heard his phone ring, and he politely told the client he was with that he'd be right back. He then grabbed his phone and hurried out of the personal gym he had just been in. And he stepped into this grand marble hallway to take the call. And what he heard on the other end of the line was Samin telling him the good news that the job was done. Pascal smiled. He hung up. And then he began typing out a text message. This text message was for the real killer, that is, the person who'd actually ordered the hit in the first place, to let them know that everything had gone off without a hitch. Seconds later, the real killer looked down and saw they had just gotten a text message, and it was from Pascal, their trainer. And as soon as they saw that, their heart began to race. They were very nervous about what this text was going to say. But eventually, they scooped up their phone and they opened the message. But when the real killer read what was on their phone, they felt this enormous sense of relief that they hadn't felt in years because their plan, sort of unbelievably had worked. Then the real killer just sank back down in their comfy, expensive couch and looked out their window at an amazing view of the Monaco harbor. It would turn out Sylvia's boyfriend of 28 years, Wojciech Janowski, was lying about everything. It was Wojciech, not Gildo, who was drowning in debt. Wojciech claimed to be this very successful businessman, but in reality, all the companies that he was involved with were failing and in deep financial trouble. This had been going on for years, and Wojciech had just been swindling his girlfriend Sylvia, out of her assets and monthly allowance to stay afloat. And when Sylvia was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, he panicked. They weren't married, so if she died, he'd lose everything. But he believed if Sylvia inherited the family fortune all at once, he could easily steal it from her and wipe out his debts. Wojciech had also been lying to investigators about his relationship with Helene. The reality was they hated each other. Helene was very suspicious, rightfully so, that Wojciech was after the Pastor family fortune. In 2018, Wojciech was found guilty of murdering both Helene and Mohammed and was sentenced to life in prison. The other accomplices, Pascal Doriac, Samin Saeed Ahmed and Al Hayer Hamadi, all received between 22 years and life in prison. As for Gildo, he would eventually recover from a stroke and he moved to the United States, while Sylvia, at least as of 2025, is still alive, and she would give Mohammed's son a job and let the Darwitch family live in one of our family's properties. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Locasio. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Research and fact checking by Shelley Shue, Samantha Vanhus Evan Beamer Abigail Shumway Camille Callahan Alex Paul Ben Faciano Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and and post produced by Whit Locascio and Jordan Stidham Production support by Antonio Minada and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner Theme song Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya.
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