'The Black Heart Man' [7]

Summary

Someone’s Hunting Us – Episode 7: "The Black Heart Man" (March 3, 2026)

Podcast by NJ.com | Hosted by Rebecca Everett, Daisy Calavia Robertson & Josh Zeman
Summary by AI | Covers timestamps 00:48–36:54 (main content only; ads and non-content omitted)

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Overview

In this gripping episode, the hosts delve into the long-neglected case of Mawa Dumbia, the youngest known victim of New Jersey serial killer Khalil Wheeler-Weaver. Through survivor testimonies, courtroom drama, investigative failures, and the killer’s own correspondence from prison, the episode examines why justice for Mawa lagged behind, and the painful consequences for her family and friends. The episode is both an exposé of systemic indifference toward marginalized victims and a meditation on what it really means for a community—and a legal system—to "move on."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The High-Stakes Trial of Khalil Wheeler-Weaver

Timestamps: 01:25–12:08

• Courtroom Testimonies:
  • Branisha Patterson bravely testifies, describing both her emotional turmoil and Khalil’s chilling lack of remorse.
    "She was like my sister." – Branisha (01:41)
    "He was just sitting there. Like he didn't have no type of expression on his face, like he didn't care." – Kiki (02:20)
• Survivors Take the Stand:
  • Tiffany, a survivor, gives a harrowing account of her escape and how the legal system failed her initially.
    "I feel like if Elizabeth police would have believed me, took me more serious, [Sarah Butler] might still be here." – Tiffany (13:50)
• Evidence & Defense:
  • Prosecutors secure damning digital evidence from Khalil’s phone, including location data and Google searches.
    "All those crazy Google searches ... how to knock someone out with home cleaning chemicals." – Rebecca Everett (09:03)
  • The defense attempts to discredit Tiffany by attacking her credibility and background.
• Verdict & Sentencing:
  • Khalil is found guilty on all counts after just two and a half hours of jury deliberation (11:36).
  • At sentencing, he reads a perfunctory note, refusing to admit guilt.
    "He said he felt sorry … but he insisted they had the wrong guy." – Daisy (12:37)
  • Families respond emotionally. Laverne Butler invokes the Jamaican folk figure “the Black heart man," likening Khalil to the childhood warning (15:15).

2. The Overlooked Victim: Mawa Dumbia

Timestamps: 18:39–33:04

• Delayed Discovery & Identification:
  • Mawa, missing for five years, is finally identified as “Orange Jane Doe.”
    "Mawa Dumbia was Orange Jane Doe." – Josh (20:14)
    "I had hope that she was still alive. ... Like, I cried and I cried and I cried." – Kiki (20:35)
  • The episode scrutinizes police failures, including delays in collecting Mawa’s DNA for national databases, a step that could have brought earlier closure.
    "If you didn't get that DNA sample ... you're behind the eight ball." – David C. Jones (22:21)
• Impact on Friends:
  • Janesha and Kiki grapple with guilt, grief, and anger upon learning the truth years later.
    "Whoever texted them from that strange number … it wasn't Mawa." – Daisy (21:03)
• Law Enforcement Oversight:
  • Investigators failed to connect digital records (messages on the app Tagged) and Mawa’s disappearing status, missing a clear link.
    "They'd had his Tagged messages for five years. Why didn't they check to see if any girl he had solicited for sex matched any local missing persons?" – Josh (28:20)

3. Family and Community Reactions

Timestamps: 29:16–33:14

• Aftermath for Mawa’s Family:
  • Mawa’s mother, now running a salon in Newark, is still grieving, with the loss described as a "painful knot" (31:10). Her father refuses interviews, unable to face the trauma.
    "The loss of Mawa felt like a painful knot inside her, keeping her up at night." – Mawa’s mother (31:10)
• Desire for Justice:
  • Despite media attention after Mawa is identified as a serial killer’s victim, progress toward her trial is slow, and officials seem to dismiss calls for further action.
    "Either they didn't know who Khalil Wheeler Weaver was, or they just said, why are you doing this? Now he's in prison. Isn't that enough?" – Daisy (32:35)
  • Kiki demands answers:
    "Did you know she was 15? What made you kill her? Did she cry to you? Did she fight back?" – Kiki (33:14)

4. Confronting the Killer—Direct Outreach

Timestamps: 33:20–36:54

• Journalists Reach Out:
  • The hosts decide to contact Khalil in prison via JPay, to hear his side and probe for any sign of remorse or explanation.
    "I just froze. There was an email that said, you have received a new message from your loved one, Khalil Wheeler Weaver." – Josh (34:15)
• Initial Response:
  • Khalil’s reply is flat and transactional:
    "Okay, can I help you with something?" – Khalil (35:34)
• Next Steps:
  • The episode ends with anticipation for the correspondence to continue, holding out hope for answers, if not accountability.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “She was Robyn's voice now. She had to speak for her friend, for all the girls who couldn't speak for themselves.” – Daisy (02:32)
• “I feel really bad about the other victims that didn’t make it … if Elizabeth police would have believed me, she might still be here.” – Tiffany (13:50)
• "What happened to my baby and what happened to those other girls? He's a Black heart man." – Laverne Butler (15:15)
• “Why? ... For why?” – Mawa’s father, through translator, asking the unanswerable questions (32:01)
• “Like, they don't remember Mawa at all? Or like, at best, she's just an afterthought, a footnote. The epilogue no one bothers to read.” – Josh (32:53)
• “Did you know that she was 15? What made you kill her? Did she cry to you? Did she fight back?” – Kiki (33:14)

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Structuring the Episode: Key Timestamps

• 01:25 – 06:53: Witness testimonies & the atmosphere of the trial
• 06:53 – 12:08: Survivor testimony, evidence, and verdict
• 18:39 – 22:05: Discovery and identification of Mawa Dumbia (Orange Jane Doe)
• 22:05 – 23:00: Forensic/Procedural missteps in Mawa’s identification
• 29:16 – 31:17: Visiting Mawa’s mother & cultural context of grief
• 33:20 – 36:54: Journalists contact Khalil; first email exchange

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Tone & Language

The episode is marked by urgency, empathy, and sorrow, balancing gritty detail with a reverence for the victims and their families. The hosts and interviewees speak plainly, emotionally, and at times, with justified outrage.

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Concluding Thoughts

"The Black Heart Man" is a powerful continuation of the “Someone’s Hunting Us” investigation and a searing indictment of how missing Black girls and women are too often overlooked—by law enforcement, the media, and society itself. The drive to contact Wheeler-Weaver directly is as much for the families as for the audience—the search for truth and for some measure of justice, however belated, continues.

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Next Episode: The team awaits further correspondence from Khalil and promises to share their ongoing attempt to confront him with his crimes, as they refuse to let Mawa Dumbia’s memory fade into a forgotten footnote.

Transcript

[Rebecca Everett]

Disney wants to know, are you ready? Yes. For Marvel Studios, the New Avengers, now streaming on Disney.

[Kiki]

Let's do this.

[Rebecca Everett]

One of the best Marvel movies of all time is now streaming on Disney.

[Kiki]

Hey, you weren't listening to me.

[Rebecca Everett]

I said Thunderbolts. The New Avengers is now streaming on Disney.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Meet the New Avengers.

[Josh Zeman]

That's cool, man.

[Rebecca Everett]

Marvel Studios Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, rated PG 13. Now streaming on. You guessed it, Disney.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

New episodes of Someone's Hunting Us will release Every Tuesday through March 10th. Be sure to follow the podcast to make sure you don't miss them. A quick warning. This podcast deals with violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

[Josh Zeman]

Previously on Someone's hunting us.

[Rebecca Everett]

After November 22nd. How many times you call Sarah? No, not why. Cause you knew she was dead, that's why.

[Kiki]

He said he never seen somebody like that before. He's like, the guy's living like a fucking double life. He said he's a normal kid.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

He's like, he's the same person.

[Kiki]

A switch. He's somebody else.

[Josh Zeman]

So that has to be the carriage house.

[Kiki]

Yeah, because.

[Josh Zeman]

Remember?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Because that one with the broken window.

[Josh Zeman]

Yeah.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Brynesha Patterson faced the court clerk, placed her hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth. The killer's eyes bored into her.

[Kiki]

I just didn't like sitting in the courtroom looking at him like I hated that part.

[Josh Zeman]

On the witness stand, her answers were barely audible. The assistant prosecutor showed her a photo of Robin west, the beautiful 19 year old she still thought of every single day. She was like my sister, bernisha said.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But Brunisha was struggling. She felt sick as tears streamed down her cheeks. It was all too much. This picture of Robyn, the strangers staring

[Josh Zeman]

at her, and she felt him there.

[Rebecca Everett]

I don't know.

[Kiki]

I just wanted to attack him. Sitting there like, how was he?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

What was his demeanor like?

[Kiki]

He just was sitting there. Like he didn't have no type of expression on his face, like he didn't care. All the family members were in tears and crying, and he was just sitting there like he didn't care at all.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But Bernisha wouldn't relent. Inside, her, rage was boiling over. She was Robyn's voice now. She had to speak for her friend, for all the girls who couldn't speak for themselves.

[Kiki]

It was scary, but I wanted to do it because I wanted to get justice for her. So I feel like I had to.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

And on the witness stand, she was describing Khalil pulling up in his silver car with a charming smile, describing how she joked with him about taking his license plate down, and she told him to please be good to her sister.

[Josh Zeman]

I wonder if the realization washed over the courtroom, over the jury, like it did for me. It means this young man drove off into the night to murder Robin west and burn her body, knowing that a witness had his license plate.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Was he so ready to kill that nothing could stop him? Or did he know police wouldn't take a sex worker seriously if she reported Robyn missing?

[Josh Zeman]

As the trial stretched on across nearly two months, it became very clear there were a number of women out there who knew something bad was happening. They just needed someone to listen.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But they're listening now in this courtroom. Bernisha is making sure of that.

[Josh Zeman]

I'm Rebecca Everett.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

And I'm Daisy Calavia Robertson. This is Someone's Hunting Us, a podcast by NJ.com and the Star Ledger about a serial killer you've never heard of and the women who took him down.

[Josh Zeman]

When his trial started on October 23, 2019, these women were finally heard. The system that had ignored them now needed them. They held his life in their hands.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Women like Branisha and Tiffany and Joanne Brown's friend Kyra, who testified about getting the calls from Khalil's phone. Even Sarah Butler's sister and friend who recounted catfishing him.

[Josh Zeman]

I'd like to say everyone was listening, but the trial wasn't national news. In fact, even local newsrooms like ours didn't cover it consistently. We were only there for a few days.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We wanted to hear about the trial from someone who was there. So I called Christopher Mogg. He's now with the New York Times, but back then he attended the trial as a [e-mail]. he felt his newsroom wasn't doing enough to cover what should have been a national story. Here was his initial take.

[Rebecca Everett]

I thought the prosecution was very impressive. Within my first two or three days of the trial, I thought, this guy's got no chance.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But for the victims families, nothing was certain. And the stakes were so high most of the outside world didn't care. But for them, everything was hanging on this jury.

[Josh Zeman]

Kahlil would stroll in and sit down at the defense table in a pressed shirt, buttoned up to the throat, slacks and his black rimmed glasses. A court officer would produce a key and the handcuffs would clink open. The jury wasn't allowed to enter until after this daily ritual.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Quiet in court.

[Josh Zeman]

All rise.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

All they saw was a clean cut young man who stood respectfully, hands folded by his waist. As they entered.

[Josh Zeman]

He'd chat quietly with his two attorneys, even crack a Smile. Sometimes. And every day, he'd glance into the gallery, locking eyes with his mom. But Khalil kept his face blank throughout the testimony.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Sarah Butler's mother, Laverne, spoke the first day. It was her chance to stand up for her child. But when a picture of Sarah appeared on the projected screen, it brought her to tears. That's my baby. She cried. My Sarah.

[Josh Zeman]

The most important day of testimony was when Tiffany took the stand three years after Elizabeth. Police had failed her, talked over her. When she tried to tell her story, she finally told it all, every horrible detail.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

When the assistant prosecutor asked her if she saw her attacker in court that day, she immediately pointed him out. That's him right there.

[Josh Zeman]

Sometimes she cried and trembled as she described the attack, detailing how his body was on hers in the backseat. But she is tough. That's why she was sitting there that day. She was the survivor.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Because usually with serial killers, you know,

[Rebecca Everett]

like, once they have you, it seems, you know, their. Their odds of killing you are pretty good. And Tiffany got out because she is very smart, and Khalil Wheeler Weaver is dumb. And she talked her way out of it. Absolutely incredible.

[Josh Zeman]

Still, Khalil had two defense attorneys who had been preparing for years to cross examine Tiffany. They were bulldogs.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

They knew for Khalil to have any chance with this jury, they'd have to paint Tiffany as a lying prostitute who couldn't be trusted.

[Josh Zeman]

One of Those attorneys, Deirdre McMahon, approached the witness stand. Her first question. You're a con artist, right?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But Tiffany wasn't going to be intimidated. No matter how many times Khalil's attorney called her a thief, brought up her criminal record, or quizzed her on her drinking and drug use.

[Josh Zeman]

But Tiffany's testimony was damning. He beat and raped her, wrapped her head in duct tape. He said he'd stuff her in the trunk and would have done God knows what to her body if she hadn't escaped.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

There wasn't much physical evidence other than DNA under Sarah's fingernails, but investigators had used cutting edge technology from NASA to crack Khalil's cell phone. They had everything they needed.

[Rebecca Everett]

And they got all of Khalil Wheeler Weaver's tests, all of those crazy Google searches that he did about how to kill, how to knock someone out with home cleaning chemicals. They got, like, down to the foot. His cell phone triangulation data saying that. Well, no, we. We know exactly where you were with these victims at exactly what time, because you had your phone on you, you dummy.

[Josh Zeman]

Still, every day, his defense attorney, Deirdre McMahon, tried to say that Kahlil was innocent, a scapegoat.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

And unbelievably, that every time he was with one of these victims, he left her alive in perfect health.

[Rebecca Everett]

I was kind of surprised that anyone, including Khalil Wheeler Weaver's family, could sit there and listen to this avalanche of evidence showing that he was guilty and still believe that he wasn't. I just don't understand that the jury

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

saw the real Khalil, including when prosecutors played that interrogation tape.

[Rebecca Everett]

Okay, you guys are either insinuating or you guys are saying that I murdered people. No, I have not. Well, we're saying you murdered her. We're saying you murdered her. You murdered her.

[Josh Zeman]

They watched Kahlil get caught in lie after lie, watched him shove the photos of Sarah's lifeless body away from him.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

And I can picture the jurors straining to hear the moment that Khalil mumbled to himself under his breath when he admitted he should have called Sarah's phone after he murdered her so he wouldn't look so damn guilty.

[Josh Zeman]

And how he cried into his hands after detectives came into the interrogation room and told him about the third dead girl. Khalil Wheeler Weaver didn't testify. Most defendants don't. But his defense didn't call a single witness. They didn't present any evidence at all.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

It wasn't until December 19, 2019, right before the jury foreman read the verdict, that Khalil betrayed any emotion. He looked like he might have been shaking as his defense attorneys on either side of him rubbed his back and arm to console him.

[Josh Zeman]

The jury had deliberated for only two and a half hours before convicting him on every single count.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

When he was let out of court that day, he didn't look back at his crying mother. He was supposed to be sentenced a few months later, but it didn't happen for two years because of COVID On

[Josh Zeman]

October 6, 2021, before any loved ones of the victims could speak in court, it was Khalil Wheeler Weaver's moment to be heard.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

The 25 year old would have a chance to address his brutality, to maybe even apologize. He could have shown some remorse, some humanity.

[Josh Zeman]

He stood and struggled to pull a sheet of yellow notebook paper out of the pocket of his khakis. The handcuffs made it difficult. Mr. Wheeler Weaver.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

He unfolded the note and read as if he'd practiced it without much feeling. He said he felt sorry for the victims and their families, but he insisted they had the wrong guy.

[Josh Zeman]

And then Kahlil glared at Judge Mark Ali and began to argue, almost indignantly about a motion the judge had denied, as if that still mattered.

[Kiki]

And with that being said, I have

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

clear and convincing evidence that I was

[Kiki]

set up, I was lied on, and

[Rebecca Everett]

I was franked by, yes, Kane Prosthesky's officer.

[Kiki]

And that which you denied.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Thank you. Then it was the victim's turn, the family's turn.

[Josh Zeman]

Tiffany walked to the front of the courtroom and sat at the prosecution table. She wore a gray long sleeved shirt and her mask pulled down under her chin. All that separated her from her rapist was a clear plastic divider and his two defense attorneys.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

She leaned forward in her chair toward the microphone next to a brightly colored box of tissues. Her voice shook a little at times. She spoke to the victims families and to Elizabeth police.

[Kiki]

I just want to say I feel really bad about the other victims that didn't make it especially. Well, I don't want to say especially, but Sarah Butler, you know, she was killed after I was attacked and got away. And I just feel like if Elizabeth police would have believed me, took me more serious, she might still be here.

[Josh Zeman]

Khalil didn't look at her. He kept his eyes trained, dead ahead.

[Kiki]

This has affected me a lot. My whole life is different. I don't wear makeup anymore. I don't do my hair. I don't have friends. I don't want friends. I don't trust no one. I'm always paranoid.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Tiffany seemed to decide right then to respond to what Khalil had said that day.

[Kiki]

I also want to say, as far as him saying that he still didn't do it makes me feel like he has no type of remorse about it at all. Like he hasn't even shed a tear about anything.

[Josh Zeman]

Relatives of the victims spoke next. Sarah's mother stood before the judge with her family, wiped away tears, and removed her mask. Laverne said, as a girl in Jamaica, children were always warned to look out for the Black heart man, a tale to keep them safe. But she never believed he could be real.

[Kiki]

What happened to my baby and what happened to those other girls? He's a Black heart man.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Then Sarah's father, Victor, moved to the front and told the judge he hopes Khalil will suffer in prison like he made these girls suffer.

[Josh Zeman]

Then he turned to his left and faced the killer, who was deliberately avoiding his gaze.

[Kiki]

I hope you suffer, boy.

[Rebecca Everett]

Every night

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

the judge listened. He gave Khalil Wheeler Weaver a consecutive

[Josh Zeman]

sentence for each victim, a total of 160 years.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

He'll die inside the barbed wiretopped walls

[Josh Zeman]

of a prison here's Judge Ali.

[Kiki]

With a final sentence, this defendant will never again walk among free society.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

But knowing what we know now, it wasn't a victory. Not a total victory at least there

[Josh Zeman]

was at least one crime he still hadn't answered for. A secret he was still carrying around with him.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Only he knew about the 15 year old he'd left in the carriage house behind the funeral home five years earlier. A girl police knew only as Orange Jane Doe.

[Josh Zeman]

Shocked today after an arrest in the infamous Gilgo beach murders. The morning of July 14, 2023, is when I'll never forget the day they finally caught him. Lisk, the Long island serial killer. 59 year old Rex Heuerman from Long island is now charged in the murders of three women. Ten years earlier, we had gone on our own hunt for Lisk. And even though we didn't find him, I had no idea how close we came.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We're learning that Rex Heuermann may have called a documentary filmmaker.

[Rebecca Everett]

Were you in my house tonight?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Yes, we're looking for you.

[Rebecca Everett]

It's not a good thing to do.

[Josh Zeman]

But as we dug deeper, we discovered the hunt for a serial killer was only half the story. There is no other way to describe this except explosive. Former Suffolk County Chief of Police James Burke was put in handcuffs.

[Kiki]

Chief, he's still denying the accusations.

[Josh Zeman]

I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster

[Kiki]

Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer.

[Josh Zeman]

Available now listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, Rebecca Everett here and I want to tell you about a podcast I binged that I think you're gonna like too. It's season four of the Unforgotten Kill site. Now, you know I'm a journalist and my favorite podcasts are made by other journalists because they just know how to tell a great story and they always uncover whatever the people in power are trying to cover up. This season of the Unforgotten is just like that. It's about the death of Christopher Whiteley in Texas five years ago. After discovering a gruesome scene, authorities tried to say this guy got killed by a mountain lion. Case closed. But experts say there's no way that's true. So what really happened to Christopher Whiteley? And did police bias get in the way? The journalists on this case, Wes Ferguson and Charlie Scudder, aren't going to stop looking for the truth. So check out season four of the Kill site and then you can binge all the other past seasons just like I did.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

By the time Khalil was sentenced in October 2021. Janesha, Deanna, and Kiki were in their early 20s and had moved on with their lives. They don't even remember hearing about the case at all.

[Josh Zeman]

Janesha finally had her own place. She still called Mawa on Facebook messenger once in a while. It had become almost a ritual at this point, seeing the call go unanswered.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Deanna and Kiki were both raising baby girls. Kiki was working in fast food when she got a call from Janesha she never expected.

[Kiki]

Whenesha hit me up out of the blue when I just got off of

[Josh Zeman]

work at McDonald's, Janesha told Kiki the cops wanted to talk to them about Mawa. They couldn't believe after all this time, five years now.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Police wanted their help, but they went to the county detectives offices downtown. The investigator talked to Janesha and Kiki separately.

[Kiki]

It was this big room. He had, like, a little black recorder. He was sitting where you're sitting at Daisy, and I'm sitting, and we were just talking. He asked me questions about, like, who was I to her, what she do or who she be with. And then he just broke it out to me, like, oh, I'm sorry to say this, but we found her skeletal remains. She had a rope around her neck.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Kiki couldn't process what she was hearing. This detective had been questioning her, but then at the very end, told her that her friend was dead and had been for years.

[Josh Zeman]

Mawa Dumbia was orange Jane Doe.

[Kiki]

It's still shocking because it's like every time I blink, I'm thinking about orange Jane Doe, Orange Jane Doe. I keep thinking about it, if you get what I mean.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

The detective told Janesha Mawa's remains had recently been identified after police got a DNA sample from her mom to compare.

[Kiki]

I had hope that she was still alive. So when I found out what really happened to her, it broke me down into pieces. Like, I cried and I cried and I cried. She didn't even get to graduate. Didn't even get to go to prom. Didn't even get to see Deanna have her baby, see Kiki have her baby.

[Josh Zeman]

She didn't even get to everything they thought they knew, like that maybe Mawa had been trafficked to Pennsylvania and held captive. It wasn't real.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Whoever texted them from that strange number in 2017, it wasn't Mawa.

[Josh Zeman]

It was probably just someone playing a cruel joke.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Janisha had always thought she'd just run into Mawa on the street someday, or that maybe she already had and just hadn't recognized her the whole time she'd been lying dead, brutally killed and discarded just a few miles away.

[Josh Zeman]

When we sat there with Janesha, we talked a lot about why it took five years to even get to that point. Remember for the first two and a half years, police didn't even have a body. When she was discovered, it took another two and a half years for them to identify her with DNA.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

You're supposed to collect DNA for a child once they've been missing for 30 days and put it into a national database. If anyone had done that, she could have been identified within days of the funeral home worker discovering her.

[Josh Zeman]

I called up the guy who wrote the rules on this. David C. Jones, formerly of the State Police Missing Persons Unit. I asked him, why would a detective not do this? Because it seems like as long as the family cooperates, it's such a simple step.

[Rebecca Everett]

If you didn't get that hairbrush or that toothbrush and you didn't get that DNA sample and put it into the DNA database, well, you're behind the eight ball. That's how important it is, especially with the child.

[Josh Zeman]

He was just talking generally. Then I explained Mawa's case that it took another two and a half years for the body to be identified for her family to learn the truth. And he seemed as curious as we were.

[Rebecca Everett]

You'll initially want to go back and ask why a DNA sample wasn't taken to begin with. That's your first question.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We did ask Newark police several times. We never got an answer.

[Josh Zeman]

Mawa deserved better. Her friends and family deserved better.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

And even when Janesha and Kiki learned she had been dead all that time, they still didn't know who was responsible. Either the police wouldn't say or they still didn't know.

[Josh Zeman]

And Janesha and Kiki had no idea how to break the news to Deanna. She was Mawa's oldest friend. Four months went by and then the friends all learned what really happened to Mawa.

[Rebecca Everett]

You're listening on WNYC In New York.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

A serial killer sentenced to 160 years

[Rebecca Everett]

in prison in New Jersey for killing

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

three women is now also accused of

[Rebecca Everett]

killing a 15 year old girl he met online in 2016. Authorities yesterday charged Khalil Wheeler Weaver with murder in the death of Mawa Dumbia of Newark. 911. Where is the emergency?

[Josh Zeman]

It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

A search gets underway for the missing

[Josh Zeman]

driver, 19 year old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person. Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies. Wherever you get your podcasts. More than five years earlier, Mawa Dumbia walked toward the street from Georgia King Village. It was almost 2am on October 8, 2016. As soon as she left the glow of the parking lot's floodlights, it was pitch black.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

She was on the move, determined to meet up with the young man she'd been texting with for hours.

[Josh Zeman]

Mawa first saw his message that morning when she was at school, swiping open her tagged profile, Babygirl Wawa. Then her inbox. Lil Yatrok told her he'd give her $70 if she had sex with him.

[Kiki]

Like she was just a young girl doing whatever the hell she can to fend for herself because her parents wasn't doing it. If you want your hair done, your nails done, your shoes done so nobody won't bully you, what are you gonna do?

[Josh Zeman]

She waited alone in the warm night. She wore a thin black jacket, a shirt, green jeans, and her black Nike sneakers.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Then the silver BMW came to a stop. Mawa slid into the passenger seat next to Lil Yacht Rock.

[Josh Zeman]

Khalil Wheeler Weaver drove the three miles into Orange, his stomping grounds. He knew there were abandoned buildings there that no one ever checked.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Did he convince Mawa to go into the decrepit carriage house behind the funeral home? Or did he threaten her? Force her inside?

[Kiki]

I know she fought a good fight. I know she screamed. I know she know how to run. She's fast, yes, she's small and she's slim, but she's a fighter.

[Josh Zeman]

We don't know what happened to Mawa there, but Khalil's phone was in the area of the carriage house for one hour.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Mawa's friends are desperate to know the details of what happened in that hour. Like learning those awful details will somehow feel better than the ache of not knowing. Here's Kiki.

[Kiki]

I just don't understand. Why would it take an innocent little girl? Because the way that that please excuse my language, asshole took my best friend, my sister, my love like that. Just some wild crap. Like she didn't even get a chance to go to see her mom.

[Josh Zeman]

Like Kiki and her friends didn't recognize his face or his name when the news came out. But now they finally had a place to put their anger, a villain to blame.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Mawa was Actually, his second victim. He killed her five weeks after Robin west and only two weeks before he murdered Joanne Brown.

[Josh Zeman]

Most of what we know about the evidence against Khalil is from court documents from when he was first charged. Authorities won't talk to us since he hasn't been tried yet. But we can piece together how they connected this known serial killer to Mawa.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Her body was identified by DNA. In November 2021, the county detective wrote in an affidavit that a few days later, he talked to a friend of Mawa's, probably Janisha or Kiki.

[Josh Zeman]

That's when he learned Mawa used the app tagged and that her nickname, Wawa, was in some of her profile names.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Once they had that info, it was simple to connect the case with Khalil. They could just look in his tagged records for messages to baby girl Wawa, and there they were.

[Josh Zeman]

But they'd had his tagged messages for five years. Why didn't they check to see if any girl he had solicited for sex matched any local missing persons reports?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

It's worse than that, though. Newark police had known Ma Wa's tagged since shortly after she went missing. How could no one have made the connection?

[Josh Zeman]

Police work solved the case. They identified Mawa and charged her killer. But this could have been done years earlier.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

If it had, Mawa's murder could have been part of his trial. Her loved ones could have spoken in court and gotten some closure. Whether Mawa was in the carriage house or the morgue, life went on outside. The mother she'd missed so much had gotten her visa and moved to Newark. She reunited with the rest of her family and opened a braiding salon named after her missing eldest daughter.

[Josh Zeman]

Janesha told us she eventually worked up the courage to go and meet Mawa's mom. She wanted to give her a hug and tell her how much Mawa had loved her mother and missed her.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Janesha had kept in touch with Mawa's little sister, and at the salon, she's who introduced them.

[Kiki]

And then on Mother's Day, I brought her flowers and a teddy bear, a pink teddy bear, because that was my wah's favorite color. And I cried. So I feel like I was crying my wah's emotions because my Wah didn't get the chance to do that. She didn't get the chance to hug her mom. She didn't get that he stole her life from her. He snatched it.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We really wanted to speak with Mawa's

[Josh Zeman]

family, but we weren't even sure what their names were. They'd never Spoken to the media.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

So like Janisha, we knew we needed to go to the salon. We brought a French translator with us since that's the official language in the Ivory Coast, Mohamed Saleh, the director of a nonprofit that supports African immigrants.

[Rebecca Everett]

Nice to meet you.

[Kiki]

Nice meeting you, Mohamed. Nice to meet you. Nice meeting you.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

On a freezing morning, we all met in the parking lot of the salon. It's right smack in the middle of a busy shopping center in Newark.

[Josh Zeman]

We were nervous about what they'd say, but we quickly made our way inside.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

All heads turned to look at us. The stylist mid braiding and the clients in their chairs. I mean, it's not every day that two light skinned reporters with press badges around their necks walk into an African hair salon, right?

[Josh Zeman]

But Mohamed started talking to a woman in French and soon we all stepped outside. It was Mawa's mom.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We told her about our work and I explained why we wanted so badly to interview her and the rest of the family, that we wanted people to know how loved Mawa was. I held her hands tightly and a single tear rolled down her right cheek.

[Josh Zeman]

In French, she told us that the loss of Mawa felt like a painful knot inside her, keeping her up at night.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

She gave us her husband's phone number and told us he'd be the one to decide about an interview. Mohammad told us later, it's a cultural thing. The father's the head of the household.

[Josh Zeman]

When we called him days later, he talked with us for more than 20 minutes. But he didn't want to meet for an interview. He told us he didn't see the point. It won't bring Mawa back.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

He said he avoids talking to people about her death. He tries his best not to think about it. It's just too painful.

[Rebecca Everett]

That day, I tried to forget.

[Kiki]

I don't want to remember.

[Josh Zeman]

When I asked him about Mawa's killer, he said he wishes he could talk to Khalil, but the authorities told him no.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Still, he has a question he wants answered.

[Kiki]

Why? We want $3 million for nothing. For why?

[Josh Zeman]

For why?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

No one wrote any articles when Mawa disappeared. But when it was announced that she was the youngest victim of a known serial killer, her face was suddenly everywhere.

[Josh Zeman]

But since then, it feels like the world has largely moved on. It's been nearly four years since Kahlil was charged, and he still hasn't gone to trial to face justice for his youngest victim. His case has barely progressed.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Meanwhile, everywhere we went while reporting this project, whichever officials or locals we mentioned it to, we Got one of two responses. Either they didn't know who Khalil Wheeler Weaver was, or they just said, why are you doing this? Now he's in prison. Isn't that enough?

[Josh Zeman]

Like, they don't remember Mawa at all? Or like, at best, she's just an afterthought, a footnote. The epilogue no one bothers to read.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Obviously, not everyone feels that way. Some people have been waiting years for justice for Mawa. They want her killer to answer for what he did.

[Kiki]

Did you know that she was 15? What made you kill her? Did she cry to you? Did she fight back?

[Josh Zeman]

But we weren't waiting around for Khalil's trial to see if he'll ever answer these questions.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We wanted to see if he'd talk to us, even though he's never done an interview before.

[Josh Zeman]

I wasn't looking forward to reaching out to Khalil, even if he is locked up.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We assumed he wouldn't be honest with us about what he'd done.

[Josh Zeman]

And so. And trust me, we're abundantly aware of the irony here. We created a profile on an app, an app called Jpay that lets you email with inmates. I had no idea that as soon as I made an account to contact Khalil, it would alert him. Then, over the weekend, I casually checked my phone, and I just froze. There was an email in my inbox that said, you have received a new message from your loved one, Khalil Wheeler Weaver. Here's me telling Daisy that Monday.

[Rebecca Everett]

So I just, like, signed up for an account.

[Josh Zeman]

When you do that, you have to, like, put in who the inmate is you're trying to contact.

[Rebecca Everett]

And so I did that Friday, and

[Josh Zeman]

he messaged me over the weekend.

[Rebecca Everett]

He, like, emailed me through Jpay. Okay, what did he say? He just said, hey, who is this?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

We were not prepared for how unnerving it would be to have him in Rebecca's inbox making first contact.

[Rebecca Everett]

But, like, the. The, like, feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw that message was like, oh, my God, I can just imagine.

[Josh Zeman]

I know. We wanted to interview him, but now I was like, what do I say? So I relied on the advice of our serial killer expert, Dr. John White. I asked him if he had any tips.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Dr. White said, Keep it light at first. Get him comfortable. Maybe over multiple meetings, maybe there's a small chance he'll open up and talk about his relationships with women.

[Rebecca Everett]

More of trying to get an idea of what can make this guy so angry that he would strangle women. There has to be something in his past.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

So to start, we decided to just answer Khalil's question. Who is this? Rebecca said she was a journalist with

[Josh Zeman]

NJ.com his reply to that message wasn't exactly warm, but at least he was replying. He said, okay, can I help you with something?

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

So we told him that we were doing this project, that we wanted to hear his side of things, and we

[Josh Zeman]

told him if he let us, we'd even like to come visit him.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

The rest of our conversation is coming up next time on Someone's Hunting Us.

[Kiki]

So you oh my God.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

I know, it's crazy.

[Kiki]

Oh my God. So he responded back.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Yeah, he was like, oh. He responded back with a video.

[Kiki]

What did he say?

[Josh Zeman]

Someone's Hunting Us is a production of NJ Advanced Media.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

The podcast is reported and produced by me, Daisy, Calavia Robertson, and Rebecca Everett. Our executive producers are Christopher Kelly, Jessica Bean, Jeff Roberts, and Jess Mazzola.

[Josh Zeman]

This podcast is recorded and mixed by Alex Graves at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey. Our composer is Blake Maples. James Shapiro is our Associate audio engineer. Our website is designed by Alaa Saleem.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Special thanks to each and every person who shared their story with us.

[Josh Zeman]

If you want to see photos, videos, timelines and other extras from this story, check out our website someoneshuntingus.com youm can contact us at inboxomeoneshuntingus.com Follow someone's hunting

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Us and if you're enjoying it, please rate and review it. Word of mouth is huge, so please help spread the word.

[Kiki]

Stitch Fix Shopping is hard. Let's talk about it.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

I don't have time to shop for clothes. I have to buy everything in three

[Josh Zeman]

sizes to find one that fits.

[Kiki]

They know me at the post office.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Workout wear is my only wear. Stitch Fix makes shopping easy. Just show your size, style and budget

[Kiki]

and your stylist sends.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Personalized looks are right to your door. No subscription required, plus free shipping and returns.

[Josh Zeman]

Oh wow, that was easy.

[Daisy Calavia Robertson]

Stitch Fix Online Personal Styling for Everyone.

[Kiki]

Take your style quiz [e-mail].