[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[man speaking]
-[operator speaking] -[man speaking]
My mom was always like the nicest person, like,
in the room.
RICHARD: My dad was really charismatic.
He could be very charming.
There was a lot of blood -- a very grotesque
and gruesome scene.
KNAUERHAZE: We weren't dealing with just a house robbery.
There was something obviously a lot more diabolical involved,
and we didn't know if we could put the puzzle together.
He was so careful and so calculated
in everything that he did.
That's tough -- as detectives,
it became almost personal.
[man speaking]
There's no doubt in my mind that
he thought he got away with this murder.
[theme music playing]
[mellow music playing]
[voices overlapping]
NARRATOR: Ariet Girgis
and her husband Magdi are celebrating
an engagement in traditional Egyptian style.
The engagement party was for my Aunt Evianne,
which is my mom's youngest sister,
and I was six years old.
She was getting married to Uncle Paul.
My dad's eating, and then my mom
is, like, in the back corner.
It's taking place at my grandma's house in
Sacramento, California.
RICHARD: A lot of family lived in San Jose
and Fremont and kind of different areas,
so they would all be able to come
together to my grandparents to do different celebrations.
RYAN: My parents met in January of 1981 in Egypt.
RICHARD: They both followed a Coptic Orthodox, which is
kind of like a strict Catholic type of thing.
My dad had like some family member that knew
my mom's family.
So it was actually an arranged marriage.
They literally were together for, like,
about two weeks before they got married,
so it was pretty fast.
They ended up living over in Santa Clara,
and I was born in October 16, 1981.
NARRATOR: Magdi and Ariet work hard to
build a life for themselves in California.
My dad was working at Boeing,
formerly McDonnell Douglas, doing electrical work on planes.
RICHARD: Mom was working for Magnavox
down in Southern California,
and she was doing, like, electric assembly.
Our dad, Magdi, took care of the bills.
He had grew up really poor, and so he was very frugal.
Anything money-related would create a lot of tension.
When I was roughly about two years old,
he got, like, really upset about my mom
throwing some of the rotten apples away.
He said some parts of them were still good.
He actually dragged her over to the trash can
to pull it out.
He was just straight, like, really, really cheap.
He literally hit my mom basically over rotten apples.
He could be really, like, chill and then just --
[clicks tongue] just snap and stuff, like, quite a bit.
But I don't think she realized it was gonna escalate.
And then later on, I was roughly about 3 to 4,
when they had gotten into an argument and a fight,
and my dad ended up grabbing her arm and, um,
ended up causing like a fracture in her arm.
She wouldn't leave because of cultural boundaries.
My mom was really religious.
So it's like for her, like, it was
really important to stay in a marriage -- eventually,
you know, they kind of, I think, buried the hatchet.
At these events,
he would be like very friendly, charismatic,
very charming.
NARRATOR: Magdi promises to keep his temper in check.
He and Ariet's relationship stabilizes.
And by the time of her sister's engagement
party in 1987, Ariet is expecting her second child.
I remember my mom, she was like about to pop.
He was like, you know, he was genuinely,
you know, like helpful.
When Ryan was born,
it was kind of happy period for a little bit.
Growing up, I do remember,
like, my dad, like, playing soccer with us.
He showed me, like, how to do a lot
of math stuff, like division and multiplication and all that.
Education was like a really high priority.
He also wanted us to be financially savvy.
NARRATOR: But the boys also see a darker side to Magdi.
My dad was a really strict father.
He could be, like, really fiery.
I remember when I was younger, I got in trouble at school,
and then when my dad found out about it,
he just, like, whooped me.
RYAN: I don't know if he was thinking maybe tough love
was like the answer to things,
but it was more so violence and intimidation.
[speaking in foreign language]
The family wedding in 1990 was Aunt Evianne's
wedding, and she was marrying my Uncle Paul.
This is a wedding in the Coptic Orthodox church.
My mother was in the blue dress.
It was a very joyous occasion.
[man singing]
This seems to be Aunt Evianne's wedding reception -- right now,
they are dancing dabke,
which is a Arabic dance.
It's the traditional money dance at a wedding.
The proceeds for the money dance are used to
establish a good foundation for the bride and groom.
So my dad will put, like, money in the pouch.
The image that he would want to put is not necessarily
that he's, like, that cheap.
My dad, when he was at those events, was a lot more charming,
but when he was home, he was
definitely about being as cheap as possible,
almost on everything I could think of.
[voices overlapping]
NARRATOR: A year after Evianne's wedding,
Ariet is busy in the kitchen,
preparing a meal for a family celebration.
This is at my grandma's house in Sacramento.
My earliest memory of my mom was always that she was working.
RICHARD: And she would do a lot of the cooking and cleaning.
She was very traditional in that matter,
uh, like traditional housewife that also works.
RYAN: But my dad was taking my mom's paychecks,
and he put it in the bank account,
which my mom didn't have access to the bank account at all.
He would brainwash my mom and make it seem
like they needed to save up,
like, everything that they have
and live, like, a very frugal life.
And he would siphon her, like, an allowance.
RICHARD: It was really, really tight budget,
like, for her.
She would use that basically to buy us clothes, to buy us
stuff, and she had to buy her own stuff with that, too.
But that was something that she'd be upset about,
you know, that he's taking all her money.
I think she really felt my dad loved
money more than he loved her or the family.
RYAN: Knowing my dad's dark side,
she didn't want to have any conflicts or arguments
with him.
RICHARD: My dad controlled everything
and controlled her, and she was, like, powerless.
This is a family party.
My mom was always so happy coming
up north and getting to see the family.
She looks so happy.
My dad didn't come to Sacramento.
She said, "He's working and stuff."
But actually, my parents had a really big domestic dispute.
RICHARD: I mean, I was probably like eight years old.
Me and Ryan were in the room, and I could hear them fighting.
Next thing you know, it turned into, like, my mom,
like, yelling, "Call 911! Call 911!"
And I was really scared.
I was just frozen in the room.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't see exactly what happened.
It sounded like my dad was putting his hand on her mouth.
She came over to the room, and she was like,
"Why didn't you call 911?"
And I was like, "I'm sorry." I was, like,
too young and scared myself to do anything.
RYAN: My grandparents' house was an escape from problems at home.
RICHARD: I think a lot of the family knew that my dad was
so repressive, and they didn't like the way
that he treated her.
But it was almost like, well, it's too late now.
She's married. What can you do about it?
It was like taboo to get a divorce.
She wanted him to be more affectionate towards her.
She wanted him to be more caring towards her.
But he just wasn't.
NARRATOR: Seven years later, Ariet continues
to attend family celebrations without Magdi.
So this is my grandfather's 80th birthday party.
I was 16 years old, and my little brother
was about 10 years old.
[applause]
I think my dad got to the point where he didn't
even try to come down to visit anymore.
It was like whatever.
Everybody was just kind of okay with him not coming like ever.
During that time, my dad would be studying a lot.
He ended up getting his degree and being
a respiratory therapist.
He got hired at Torrance Memorial Hospital, and it
definitely stepped up the family with his finances.
My parents were able to save up more money and eventually
move to Westminster, where they were able
to purchase a larger home.
It was a brand-new gated community home in a nice
area in Westminster, which is in Orange County.
We basically -- it felt like we moved
from the hood to like a nice neighborhood.
[laughs]
I believe right when I finished high school.
Ryan was going through like middle school.
So my dad, he started to kind of loosen up a little bit.
He wasn't being as harsh, and it just felt
like things were getting better for the whole family.
NARRATOR: It's Magdi and Ariet's wedding anniversary.
That evening, 22-year-old Richard
picks up a message from his mom.
I had gotten this like voice message,
and she was like, "Richard, call me up."
I called her right back.
RYAN: My dad had like hit my mom with
a closed fist, and it fractured her eye socket.
RICHARD: So I sped home real quick.
So I went upstairs, and my dad was lying down on the bed.
I was like, "What were you thinking?
What happened? Why did you hit her?"
He told me, "Just stay out of it."
My brother, shortly after coming home,
took my mom to the hospital.
RICHARD: As soon as they asked, like, "Hey, what happened?"
She told them that, you know, he punched her in the face.
After everything was done,
we went back to the house, and then she was shocked that
the cops were there.
They ended up putting him in handcuffs and, like,
taking him out, you know.
And my dad looked pretty pissed.
As he was coming down the stairs,
he looked at me, and he was like, "You know what?
This is all because of you."
After my dad posted bail,
he moved into an apartment complex
that he had owned with his brother.
RICHARD: There was a restraining order put on
where he couldn't come back to the house.
My mom was like, "You know what?
No, I can't be with him no more."
My dad was going to lose his respiratory therapist
license if he got convicted for a domestic
violence incident.
So he was being extremely persuasive on trying to get
her to drop everything, saying that he's a changed man.
My mom was really torn on what to do.
He had controlled all the finances in
the relationship.
She didn't have any sense of being
like an independent woman.
She was thinking that she couldn't
do anything on her own without him.
It was about a couple months after my father was arrested.
I was 16 years old.
I remember being home with my mom.
My brother was there, too,
and the lights had just cut out, out of nowhere.
I thought my dad was behind
the lights turning off for sure.
Felt like it was just kind of like a scarce tactic.
"You need me more than you think" type of thing.
RICHARD: And she was really fearful that he was gonna try
doing something to her, that my dad was gonna retaliate.
My biggest concern at that moment was
financial retaliation.
I was really concerned that he was gonna take everything
from her, and she was gonna be like,
have nothing, and she doesn't know where any of the money is.
She didn't know anything about their accounts.
I went up to their bedroom, and I went underneath the bed.
There was a bunch of bank statements that showed
a lot of different, like, accounts
and various banks and different things
that had a lot of money in it.
And he had accounts with like $100,000 plus in them.
RYAN: It caught my mom by surprise to know that my dad was
hiding money that they had all along for their whole marriage.
RICHARD: From February to September,
there was a lot of preliminary court hearings
for the domestic violence case that was going on.
RYAN: When she came on the stand,
she laid out everything that had happened
in her whole marriage as far as like all the domestic abuse,
all the verbal abuse.
She really dug in, not just on that one
domestic violence case,
but she talked a lot about other times that he's abused
her, and even the financial
abuse, and just a lot of different things.
RYAN: My dad's reaction was definitely a surprise.
I don't think he ever saw this coming at all.
But he seemed like very calm and calculated.
Something just strange
kind of formulated in the air around him.
I just didn't have a good feeling about everything.
[phone ringing]
[operator speaking]
[Ryan speaking]
[operator speaking]
[Ryan speaking]
[operator speaking]
[Ryan speaking]
[operator speaking]
[Ryan speaking]
-[operator speaking] -[Ryan speaking]
KNAUERHAZE: On September 29th, 2004,
in the early morning hours,
our 911 center received a call
from a frantic young man that
said that there was some type
of home invasion that occurred at his home.
The call came from a Ryan Girgis.
He had fled the location and run to a neighbor's home
and that his mom potentially
was still inside the home and that she was harmed.
[siren wailing]
That call was dispatched immediately,
and Westminster patrol
officers got on scene in less than five minutes.
[indistinct radio chatter]
WILSON: When the officers reached Ryan,
he still had duct tape and shoe strings around his arms.
He was pretty frantic as to what he had just
been through and not knowing if his mom was okay.
[indistinct radio chatter]
KNAUERHAZE: So the officers on scene got a team
together and slowly made entry into the home.
WILSON: There was blood on the banister rail
leading upstairs.
When they went upstairs, one of the officers
located Ariet
laying in a large pool of blood.
She had multiple stab wounds on her body, and they
were quickly able to determine that this was a homicide.
WILSON: While officers were at the address,
Ryan's older brother, Richard, arrives on scene.
Obviously, the officers wouldn't let him in the house.
And at that point, they did not
tell him about his mom being deceased.
Ryan and Richard were brought back to the police department.
Ryan, since he had the shoelace strings and duct tape still
around him, they tried to preserve that evidence.
And so they put bags over his hands.
Ryan was put into one interview room,
and Richard was put into a different interview room.
RYAN: When the police let me know that my mom was murdered,
I don't know -- I was in, like, disbelief.
I just -- I couldn't believe what was going on.
It was just too much.
Why would someone take our mom from us?
NARRATOR: Detectives interview Richard separately.
-I -- I deserve... -[detective speaking]
[Richard speaking]
RICHARD: It was just, like -- it was a really --
it was like a horrible day.
It was just a horrible time, like -- like all together.
KNAUERHAZE: In interviewing Ryan very delicately,
we started to
really put the puzzle together as to
what may have occurred there during the robbery.
I hung out with my friends, smoked,
came back, and I remember pretty much turning on
my music and everything,
and then I fell asleep.
RYAN: The guy was already starting to duct tape
my hands and my legs.
He had took off his glove and was taking off
a piece of shoestring from
a shoe to kind of like reinforce the tape
that was already on my hands.
RYAN: They threw me in the closet.
It was a sliding closet door.
It was cracked enough for me to -- to see.
RYAN: Kind of heard, like -- someone, like, exit the room.
I heard a car kind of just like leave.
I called 911 as I got my phone and then exited the house.
KNAUERHAZE: Ryan was able to piece together
a description of the suspects.
They sort of spoke in a -- in a street jargon,
that they sounded kind of like, you know,
gangsters of some type.
KNAUERHAZE: Typically, what we see in home invasion
robberies is suspects will enter, and they're looking for
valuables and leave the scene quickly.
In this case, the house was not ransacked.
It did not appear that there was any obvious
loss at the time.
WILSON: Based on the crime scene itself, Ariet's injuries,
and the way that Ryan was treated,
it appeared to us at that point that Ariet was definitely
the motive of the attack.
Ryan had described the intruders like
they were from the streets, like maybe potentially a gang.
It really didn't fit as to,
you know, why they would want to kill Ariet.
KNAUERHAZE: There was really obvious factors involved here
that we weren't dealing with just a house robbery.
There was something obviously a lot more diabolical involved.
So during the process of Ryan's interview, you know,
we're asking him who would want to do this to your mom,
who would hurt your mom?
WILSON: You know, after talking to the boys,
the investigators want to talk to Magdi to see where was he
during this timeframe, to ask him what he knew about it.
KNAUERHAZE: Magdi was a suspect in a domestic violence case
involving Ariet, and her two sons were starting to
provide information that dad was the only
one that really had it out for her.
KNAUERHAZE: During the course of the investigation,
we knew we had to interview
recently estranged husband, Magdi.
KNAUERHAZE: During the course of the investigation,
we learned that divorce was imminent.
And, in fact, Magdi was a suspect
in a domestic violence case involving Ariet.
[detective speaking]
-[detective speaking] -[Magdi speaking]
He kind of acted like he was sad about it.
But if you really pay attention to that interview,
there was no tears.
He really wasn't that sad about the loss of his wife.
KNAUERHAZE: During the course of the interview,
detectives really start to ramp up the questioning
and ultimately asked him, "Hey,
did you have anything to do with Ariet's death?"
[detective speaking]
-[Magdi speaking] -[detective speaking]
He acted like he was offended
about the question and basically denied it.
KNAUERHAZE: Ryan knew enough about the suspect that we felt
that bringing in a sketch artist to
get as many details as we could
could help the investigation.
RYAN: So I do remember seeing, like, African-American male
with the beanie on,
they brung out like various different faces to come up
with a sketch, and once the sketch was created,
I was pretty confident that -- that was it.
NARRATOR: Westminster Police Department
releases the sketch to the media.
Ryan was able to give a sketch artist
a pretty good description of the person who tied him up
and spoke to him the most,
but they got back nothing by way of anybody saying
that they had seen or heard anything at
all that would develop into a credible criminal case.
So at that point, we had no leads.
We started to really zero in on motive,
and we were really focused on Magdi.
Detectives started piecing together enough information to
get search warrants
for the home and for banking information from Magdi Girgis.
We discovered that he had up to
a half million dollars in assets just in
investment accounts alone.
Among all of that financial evidence,
we find that he has a life insurance policy also on
Ariet, where he stood to be the beneficiary
if anything ever happened to her.
Magdi came across as somebody that was very money-centric.
And when we started to hear about his love of money
and what he stood to lose in this domestic violence case,
it started to all come together.
We noticed months leading up to the homicide,
Magdi had shifted money around and started to move money
around accounts
at a pace that was a little unusual,
almost like he was pre-planning,
what can I do with these assets
to either hide them or protect them?
WILSON: The motive of Magdi wanting to protect his money,
it could be a piece of the puzzle to show that he was
involved in the murder,
but that by itself, no way -- you would need a lot more.
We know that the case is cold at that moment,
and that's tough.
It becomes almost personal at that point.
We want closure for the family.
NARRATOR: Eight years pass with no new leads
for the investigators to follow.
RYAN: We understood that it was a cold case,
but I was convinced that my dad was the mastermind
behind my mom's murder.
He was living in the same home,
sleeping in the same bedroom
that his wife was murdered in.
I felt that very alarming.
RICHARD: He didn't even change the carpet
in the bedroom where she, like, was killed.
He literally just patched it up.
RYAN: As the years went by,
I just became more suspicious and everything that he was
the one that had something to do with it.
RICHARD: So the years are going by,
but it's like nothing's really going on with the case.
And I keep, like, bugging
the detectives, constantly calling and checking.
And then one day, I went down to visit my little brother
in Long Beach, and I was like,
"Let's go to the police station, try talking to them."
RYAN: We were informed that there was someone by the name of
a Detective Wilson working there,
and he said that he would take a look at it
and see what -- see what he could do.
WILSON: I talked to the crime lab about an interview
that I reviewed where Ryan had told
investigators that he remembered
the suspect taking off his gloves,
because he was having a hard time getting the shoelaces
out of his tennis shoe.
You know, in my mind, I'm thinking, well,
that shoelace has potential of having that suspect's DNA.
I was basically hoping that they missed the DNA
the first time they processed it,
and they were able to find it the second time.
RYAN: The shoestring that was used to tie my hands,
it came up with a match, and it
actually came up to someone that was incarcerated.
It was a Pomona Crip member,
a gang member by the name of Anthony Bridget.
This guy was actually locked up for another crime.
The guy had like a big history of violent crimes,
and he was intertwined with this
Pomona Crip gang that actually does murder-for-hire.
WILSON: Myself and the D.A. went
up to prison and interviewed Anthony Bridget.
BALLESTE: We explained to him the circumstances of
the DNA, meaning it was a crime scene and a murder,
and his response was, "Where?
What city?" It was chilling.
It was like he was really asking which one.
WILSON: It was very obvious this wasn't his first rodeo
and that he didn't want to play ball.
He didn't want to talk about the case at all,
and he denied all involvement.
I felt even stronger that Magdi
probably hired Bridget to kill his wife.
So in hopes of getting some incriminating evidence of
Magdi's involvement,
I kind of come up with a plan.
Anthony Bridget was a gang member.
So I reached out to a coworker and asked him if he knew
any officers that could pose undercover
as members of a black gang.
And they said they'd give it a shot.
We determined we're gonna send undercovers in to meet
Magdi in front of Magdi's house in
hopes of maybe getting Magdi to say something that would
incriminate himself in being involved in this case.
So we had a surveillance team set
up around the house with a video camera.
NARRATOR: The undercover officers wear
the colors of Bridget's gang.
One of them introduces himself to Magdi as "D-Money."
They were instructed to basically tell Magdi that
the police were asking about
the case and that they needed some hush money
to get out of town.
It was very clear, he knew what they were talking about
and gave him a piece of paper
with their name and a phone number and told him to call
them tomorrow at 10 a.m.
The following day, Magdi is in Long Beach,
and he stops at a pay phone,
he gets out of his car, and he calls the number.
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
WILSON: Magdi told the undercover officer
that he had already paid.
To me, that's basically him confessing
to hiring someone to kill his wife.
[undercover officer speaking]
Typical to Magdi, he actually negotiated
the $5,000 with the undercover officer.
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
WILSON: They made arrangements to meet at Home Depot
the following day in Long Beach.
I provided that information to our D.A.,
and we were both in agreement.
We were gonna let this operation play out.
-[radio chirps] -[officer speaking]
WILSON: I was watching it live from across the street,
because I was kind of coordinating on
how everything was gonna go down.
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[Magdi speaking]
[undercover officer speaking]
[officer speaking]
NARRATOR: Magdi is arrested and charged with
the first-degree murder of his wife, Ariet.
BALLESTE: It was very important that the jury understood
this unnatural obsession with money that Magdi had.
So my strategy was very much
based on exposing those character traits.
During the trial, we put on witnesses
and evidence to show that
Magdi didn't want to give Ariet half of his money.
If they would have got a divorce,
he would have had to do,
so that was his motive for having Ariet killed.
KNAUERHAZE: Magdi orchestrated the murder of Ariet.
He hired one or more people to be involved in her murder.
They tied up and brutalized his son and tried
to make it look like some type of home invasion.
I think Magdi thought he was smarter than everybody else.
There's no doubt in my mind that
Magdi thought he got away with this murder.
My mom was always the nicest person in the room.
Her standing up for what's right,
standing up for our family,
standing up for her values, standing up for women
in general,
I think that's what keeps me and Richard going.
You know, I wish that she was here right now
just to see how close me and my little brother were.
I feel like spiritually she's there with us.
You know, she's a saint in my eyes.
I'm thankful that she was my mom.