December 17, 2024 • 43 mins
Born Nur Maznah Binti Ismail in Kangar, Perlis, the musician Mona Fandey achieved national success with her song Ku Nyanyikan Lagu Ini in 1987 -- yet her career seemed destined to slowly fade away, with Mona and her husband living out their lives in comfortable obscurity. Until, that is, in 1993, when Mona Fandey became the prime suspect in a gruesome murder that led many people to believe she'd secretly been an evil bomoh, practicing the art of dark sorcery for decades before finally being brought to justice. So what's the truth? Was Fandey mentally ill? Was she framed? Or was there something more sinister and sorcerous afoot?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to tonight's classic episode, Fellow conspiracy realist. This is
a deep cut. We called this as you could see
if you saw the title Pop Music, black Magic and
Murder The Case of Moda Fan Day.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I gotta be honest, guys, I don't remember a whole
heck of a lot about this one.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Oh dude, this is a wild one. Yes, I don't
even want to spoil stuff with this. It just it
unfolds in a way where you're like, wait, how it
matches up with some of the rumors that you hear
about super popular singers specifically, but people in Hollywood. You're like, oh, yeah,
(00:43):
they're definitely doing like rituals and stuff and they got
power somehow through that stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, how did they get famous? It's a question a
lot of people ask, especially in a society that worships celebrity,
Why not me? What did this person do? Differently, and
often the public looks toward darker or more sinister explanations
behind that success.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
When right off the bat, it seems to have a
lot in common with some of the conspiracies and actual
real occurrences surrounding some Swedish black metal bands that actually
got into satanic rituals and murdering each other. But this
is in the realm of pop music, which I think
is something that people don't often consider.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This is the story of Nur Masna binti Ismael, who
was a four time a quite successful musician under the
name Mona Fandy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
(01:47):
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Noel is not here today.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But will be returning in the future. They call me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission control Decan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
So we're traveling abroad today, Matt, Yes, through the power
of imagination, podcast and the mind.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Really it's the only traveling outside of the United States
that I've gotten to do in a long time.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, Now you have been to other countries.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have, but not in a very very long time. So,
through the magic of research and podcasting, we're going to
take a trip today.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yes, a very strange trip, as we are wont to
do on this show. Let's check in real quick with
Mission Control. How we doing man thumbs up, thumbs down,
Pretty good thumb that was. That was a solid thumb, Yeah,
it was. It was a solid thumb. We are taking
a trip together, the three of us. That is a
weird thing. Maybe we'll reveal more about that in the future.
(03:07):
Right by the time this podcast comes out, we may
have completed our trip.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I'm almost certain. Yeah, I'm almost certain we'll be arriving
back here from New York.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh wow, time is getting weird. What is the present now?
It's the moment for those of us listening to this
for the first time anyway, time space, it's a whole
bag of badgers and a messy calendar of spaghetti. But
today we're not dealing with time and space. We have
(03:39):
been covering quite a few tech science or social related
topics and conspiracies in recent episodes, So this time we're
planning to explore something a little different, a bit grizzly,
magic Mania, murder, and I want to apologize in advance, yes,
(04:00):
any mispronunciations, because Matt, neither you nor I speak the
languages that will occur in today's.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Show, very very true, the languages that are spoken as
we travel to Malaysia.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now, it is true that some of our fellow listeners
actually live in Malaysia or have spent time there. We
found that out when we did an earlier episode on
the Oily Manes No of that, we.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Had several people write in with.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Specifics, specific anecdotes of similar events, also some helpful handy
pronunciation guides. So if you are listening, feel free to
help us out. We always prefer a bit of illumination
to the darkness that surrounds us in this chaotic universe.
If you are familiar with Malaysian pop music, if you
(05:02):
have a deep, deep knowledge of it, then you may
notice the song that we played is Malaysian in origin.
If you were a very ardent, knowledgeable fan of Malay music,
you might have said, hey, that's Mona Fandy.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Also known as or born as nurmaz Na binti ismail And.
She was born in Kangar Perlis or Perlee pe r Lis.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
As a child, she was she was engaged in regular
extracurricular events, you know, school dances. She was a water
ballet performer, and she became a mildly successful singer under
the stage name Mona Fandy with an album called Diana One.
It was released in nineteen eighty seven, and.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
It should be noted that that was a self produced
album and it was also distributed by herself and her husband.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That's right, right, her husband who during courtship actually met
her because he said he was her biggest fan, yeah,
which is beautiful, and he said, I want to help
you attain the fame that you deserve. They had some
limited success. Mona Fandi was for a long time best
known for the song Ku Nan Yikan Lagueni and that's
(06:25):
that's what we played a snippet of earlier, and it
feels very late eighties, it feels very in the moment, right.
She continued working toward that dream of fame. She had
a few TV appearances, but her career wasn't taking off.
And this is something that happens to many many people,
right Hollywood and the music industry, entertainment in general is
(06:50):
paved with broken dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, she clearly had the drive and you know, quite
a bit of talent there, as you heard in that song.
But there's so much luck that comes into a lot
of the performance based careers, just with who you end
up meeting, who ends up hearing your thing or seeing
your thing, right, who talks about you at what party?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And no small amount of corruption. Oh yeah, I just
when I see this very cynical and sad. But when
I see people become big stars quote unquote out of nowhere,
I just assume that they are the product of music
industry campaign and that's not a ding on their talent.
(07:32):
That's just how this broken system functions exactly. So it's
through no fault of her own, really that Mona Fandi
does not become an international Malaysian superstar in the world
of pop music. It just didn't work out, and she
found a different calling. She and her husband switched careers.
They pivoted their focus. They began studying traditional medicinal practice,
(07:56):
you know, healing through herbs, meditation, seasonal rituals, that sort
of stuff. And she seems set to gently, quietly fade
from the public consciousness and live out the remainder of
her life quietly with her husband always to mention his
name mode of Fondi Abdul Rahman.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But all of this changed in nineteen ninety three, when
this relatively unknown obscurer former pop star was implicated in
something much much more serious. See the whole time she'd
been claiming to, you know, practice traditional medicine with her husband,
she was actually engaging in a more sinister and dangerous
(08:38):
form of magic.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's correct, Matt mona Fandi. She was a bomo, a sorcerer.
She had just committed murder. We'll be back after a
word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. For
(09:01):
a time, Fandy and her husband had a fairly successful traditional,
let's call it magical consulting business.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, you know this kind of profession, it
really makes you have to search for, you know, clients.
I mean, in any profession, you're looking for someone else
to use your service or buy your goods or anything
like that. But in this case, because it is a
little more I don't know what you'd call it, of
a boutique kind of thing, or that's not the right word.
(09:30):
High end, it could, yeah, it could be high end,
especially if you're paying for services of a bomo a
sorcerer to you know, give you either fame or fortune
or power or something like that. That's generally the reason
that people seek out these types of sorcerers, and they
(09:51):
were always looking for clients, you know, who are in
the upper echelons of things, sure VIPs, and they found
a few, at least according to the two of them,
they found several high end clients within the government and
a few other places.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Who wish to remain anonymous. That was a big thing
with their service too. People weren't openly identified as clients because,
you know, magic has always been a divisive thing in
the modern day. Some people very much believe in traditional
shamanistic practices. Other people eschew it entirely and prefer to
(10:30):
live a more secular life. So, especially in the world
of politics, depending upon your constituency, it might be really
cool that you engage in these practices, or it may
make you seem less credible to some voters.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But either way, if you're using them for a darker purpose,
you probably want to keep that hidden.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Right and Fandy and co. Found a big fish in
the form of a state assemblyman from Batu Talan named
Datuk Moslin. Idris Moslin was educated in the US and
he was thirsty. He was an ambitious politician from the
ruling party Unite in malays National Organization or um NO.
(11:14):
He wanted the BOMO to provide services that would boost
his political career. He wanted to be the chief Minister,
and thought, you know, if we keep this quiet through
the use of magic, we can you know, we can
make my career more auspicious. We can tilt the scales
a bit, the scales of luck and corruption that are
(11:36):
so common in the entertainment industry and in the world
of politics. A little finger finger on a scale, just
swing the needle a bit, just enough. So Muna Fandi
did not work alone her husband, of course we had
mentioned Afondi worked with her and they had an assistant
named Jerami Hassan. So there are three people involved, and.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
The assistant was a little bit younger than them.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yes, very important. You'll hear some reports that he was
thirty one. You'll hear some reports that he was in
his late twenties.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And you'll also hear reports that he was maybe I
don't know the correct term, but a little learning disabled
or something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Right, that he had lower intelligence. That's a very important
point too for this story. So Mona and her husband
promised to help this politician Moslaan by giving him a
talisman consisting of a cane and spot me headgear. The headgear,
they said, was supposedly owned once upon a time by
(12:38):
former Indonesian President Sukarno, who is tremendously important in the
history of Indonesia, is involved with the struggle for independence,
and he was the actual first president of Indonesia as
an independent country. So a very powerful person, kind of
a George Washington figure.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, and they're saying that these talismans were owned by
this powerful person, and if we give them to you,
it's also going to imbue you with some powers exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So they convinced him, they said, not only will you
be a more powerful and favored politician, you will be invincible. Yes,
when you physically hold this.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Objects invincible and you know, to get that kind of
power if you truly believe it could be incredible. And
in return for this power, they demanded that Moslin pay
them two point five million ring itt or RM. That's
just the currency there in Malaysia at the time, and
(13:44):
that is equal to at least in two thousand and
one dollars, because that's the last time we saw it
actually switched over. It was around six hundred and fifty
eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So that might vary a little bit because this is
back in the early nineties, but that's a good ballpark, right,
So more than half a million dollars US. He paid
them five hundred thousand ring as a deposit, and then
he wanted to give them a guarantee so that they
knew he wouldn't just vanish. Well, they probably demanded it,
(14:14):
so he gave them ten land titles to hold on
to and that would cover the remaining two million.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
That's an incredible amount of money and land to give
to something that may or may not be true. You
have to believe that this politician believes so deeply in
this that he was willing to give up all of that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And here's what happened next. They made an appointment for
these cleansing rituals to be performed at the Fandy household.
Maslam visited the couple's house in uludung Rob for what
was called a Mandibunga ceremony, a ritual flower bath. Maslim
was told to lie on the ground face up. Mona
placed flower hours around him and on him. Ritualistically, she
(15:03):
told Moslan to close his eyes and wait for the
money to fall from the sky. He did close his eyes.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But flowers weren't the only thing that fell down upon him.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, let's stay in this moment for a second. What
do you think he's expecting to happen.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
He's given them riches, he's given them land. All he's
asking for in return is this ritual and this talisman.
And you know he will be invincible, he'll be ready
to go. But that's not what happens. Instead, an axe
falls down upon his neck and he is killed.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
He is decapitated, and decapitation is a gruesome, strange way
to die. Studies show that the brain and the attached
sensory organs are still functioning for some time. So decapitation
is one of those few one of those few forms
(16:10):
of death where you can be physically removed from the
rest of your body and see your headless corpse on
your way out. Yeah, but of course you'll probably be
in such shock and so panicked that you won't really
calmly observe that the assistant is the one. Drami Hassan
is the one who is believed to have played the
(16:30):
headsman and separated Maslim from his body.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
At least that's according to reports we've read, and it
came out in part of the trial that will learn
about here in a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
They didn't stop there, though, did they met no.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
It then proceeded to dismember Maslin fully. They cut him
up into eighteen different parts. They also skinned part of
Maslin's body, and later on they discovered those eighteen parts
buried in a storeroom underneath the ground your Mona's house
(17:04):
in Penang. It was underneath this concrete slab, essentially right.
And another big thing here is that they didn't find
all of him. There were parts of him missing.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And no one knows what happened to those parts.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
But the rumors, of course you could imagine, are that
those parts were.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Consumed by the three people, or at the very least
used in ritual. It's a bit strange for the neighborhood
hippie to engage in such behavior. But you see, Mona Fandy,
her husband and their assistant were not your friendly neighborhood herbalist.
(17:45):
They were a different kind of Bomo will examine this
after a word from our sponsor return Bomo b Omoh.
This term often gets mistranslated in the West. It's something
(18:07):
that you and I have run into before and people
will say, oh, bomo means you know, medicine man or
the more offensive witch doctor. Right yeah. However, at its heart,
the term bomo describes a shaman. Indonesian speakers often describe
this profession with the term ducan d u k u n.
(18:29):
Bomo are mainly herbalist and healers, but the practice of
magic is inseparable from these medicinal pursuits. Thus a bomo
is also a geomancer, or times a sorcerer. In Malaysian culture,
most bomo are what we would call bomo pute p
u tih white bomo. This is the equivalent of the
(18:52):
right hand path in Western magic systems, someone who helps
other people while also obeying the dictates of shamanic tradition
and at the same time straddling the tenets of Islam
because this is a heavily Muslim population.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But that is not the path that will continue to
call her mona fandy just for the ease of pronunciation
on our end, It was not the path that she
chose as well as her husband and the assistant. She
was instead a bomo hitam or hitam or black bomo.
(19:32):
Now that's a different, a different path here, the other path,
the forbidden path. Right, who are going to be working
with things like spirits that are not necessarily supposed to
be interacted with. They will look at the laws that
are put forth in whatever religion is current or popular
(19:53):
wherever this magic is being done, in this case, Islam,
and they will see those laws as something that are
not meant to be followed or are meant to be flouted.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right. The idea being that working around these laws, these
moral and magical and social laws, will allow you influence
and power that would ordinarily be out of your reach.
Bomo hittam and that's hi tam are supposed to be
the sorts of monsters you would see in horror movies,
(20:27):
you know what I mean? Not in real life. To
call someone bomo hitam would be very, very offensive because
it's essentially the same thing as calling a doctor or
a life saving surgeon, a butcher or a serial killer.
It's the opposite of what bomo are supposed to be doing. However,
(20:50):
that's what the Mona Fandi group appeared to be, at
least in the media when this story it hit big.
So they did this ritual realistically, killed dimember probably used
to some degree the body of Maslin and other rituals,
and they might have gotten away with it. Maslim was
(21:11):
not reported missing until July second, nineteen ninety three, after
withdrawing three hundred thousand ring it from a bank and
directly after the murder, Mona Fandi was reported to have
gone on a shopping spree. She didn't just buy, you know,
colorful clothing or jewelry or so, she went big. She
bought a Mercedes Benz. She bought a facelift. I didn't
(21:33):
know you could just do that, You could just buy
a facelift.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange and one of the most
odd things here is the timeline, because it is reported
that he went missing on July second, and it was
immediately after he withdrew a large amount of money. He
did not withdraw five hundred thousand ring it right like
it was originally reported early on, or at least that
(21:57):
was the deal. I guess, so he at least could
withdraw three hundred thousand, assuming it was him that withdrew
it on that day before he went missing, and then
paid them. So he paid them money.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sure, yeah, just not all of it. Not long after
Moslan's murder, the assistant Jami Hassan was picked up for
a drug offense. He was under the influence of these drugs,
and this this country with harsh drug laws. While he
was under the influence of these drugs and speaking with
(22:30):
the police, he confessed to them that he had been
involved in the murder of a politician, an up and
coming politician.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Now that you know, that's one of those things where
you're dealing with somebody who may not be you know,
of the highest intelligence, who was also perhaps high on
a substance, who was being pressed, you know, by by
an interrogators. Then he admits to you know, these police
officers that he had something to do with it, and
(22:57):
it may not have held much sand, but if he
hadn't had led them. He is the person that actually
led the police to where the body was.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Buried under that concrete slab. Not long after, the couple
was arrested fanding her husband because Hassan it was on
her property. And then also Hassan openly said that they
did this, they committed this murder together, and then the
circus began. It was in a way, it was reminiscent
(23:32):
of how American culture treats the infamous murderers and the
depraved right, they get a lot of attention. There are celebrities.
For a time, Mona Fandi, as a murder suspect, gained
far more fame and celebrity and public recognition than she
(23:52):
ever did as a pop singer. And if all she
wanted to do was to be famous, this strikes me
as one of those one of those infernal deals you
hear about in folklore. Yeah, right, where the wording is
very important. Make a sacrifice to me, says some powerful
entity or spirit, and I shall give you that which
(24:12):
you desire. And then they said, we will make these sacrifices.
We will obey the rules of this ritual. Make me famous, Yeah,
make me famous.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Carry it should they carry it out, and they sure
as heck do get famous.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
It's strange. It's interesting when you think about it. Right now,
we don't have we don't have any primary source for
that kind of conversation, just like we don't have any
source for what happened to the rest of Malaslan's body parts,
Nor do we have a source for what Mona and
her husband and their assistant talked about her personally believed and.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
We also don't know exactly the circumstances, at least Moslin's
side of giving them all of this money for these things,
as well as giving them the land titles, because there
we'll talk about it towards the end there. But it
may have been something else going on entirely that didn't
even occur in the trial, and that would this It
would just be me speculating. But I think I have
(25:11):
I have a hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I would love to hear this. I'm very curious. Let's
let's explore the trial so in a way, in a
very dark way, Mona Fandy finally gets her wish, and
she seems to be enjoying this new uh social position,
somewhere between fascinating and shunned and vilified. Rightly so, throughout
(25:36):
the trial, Mona Fandy exhibits strange, incongruous behaviors. She is
always cheerful, she's constantly smiling, mugging for the camera, posing
for the press. She's dressing extravagantly with bright, colorful designs,
and she's got a new banging outfit every day. Why then,
(25:57):
did they murder this politicis we have a we have
one guess from another Bomo, a self styled king of
the Bomo, Ibrahim matt Zin, and he said that Fandy
and her associates used their shamanistic knowledge for evil, because
(26:17):
Fandy was consumed by the idea of gain, of getting vengeance,
because Fandy was consumed by the idea of revenge that
the politician Maslin had made and broken multiple promises, and
she said, we will, we will have vengeance. We should
also point out that Ibrahim matt Zen is not the
most ironclad source. He gained the most notoriety in his
(26:44):
home country and in the Western news for a series
of rituals he conducted in an effort to help locate
the missing Malaysian Airlines plane MG three seventy, which we
had talked about before. He was not successful with this,
but later he recanted on what he was saying because
(27:06):
he he apologized. He said, I'm no longer king of
the Bomo. These rituals I was doing. I was just
doing what they told me to do. And he said
that some of the things he had done, like using
bamboo binoculars in a fish trap hook to help locate
the aircraft, said, you know, I was peering through these
band and really see anything geez. So he may not
(27:30):
be the best source, but he was also a bomo
and he so he'd be one of the most famous,
you know, he remarked on this trial. So here's what
they found, and it's very strange. The dates are confusing.
The court found that the murder occurred sometime between ten
pm and midnight on July eighteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
That's weird, yeah, because they you know, he was reported
miss on the second of that month, so what happened
sixteen days later? They think that's when he was killed. Now,
I'm just gonna go ahead and bring it up. This
is where my hypothesis comes in. I think if he
truly was missing from at least the second, we can
(28:17):
maybe assume even the first or the last of the
previous month, because it, you know, generally takes that long
to declare someone missing, and he took money out on
the second. I think he must have been held captive
there because in my mind, you don't, you know, have
someone go missing the day that they pay you three
(28:40):
hundred ring it, then hang around your house for several days,
let's say sixteen days in this case, then do a ritual.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Was a multi day ritual maybe sixteen days though, and
if it's a multi day ritual, and then the way
it's discribed in every report that I've seen of this,
it's that it was a very fast thing.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
He was having the flower pedal ritual occurred, and then
he got his head chopped off. To me, this seems
like they were holding him captive.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I see. They were tried in court by a seven
person jury, this was before trial by jury was abolished
in the country, and the High Court found all three
of them guilty, sentenced them to death by hanging, and
the legal representatives for Hassan the assistant, argued that he
(29:39):
couldn't essentially be tried as an adult due to his
limited mental capacity and that our source for these ideas
about his cognitive difficulties do all come from that lawyer.
So the trial goes on until nineteen ninety five, at
which point the High Court finds all three defendants guilty
and sentences to death. The method of death is hanging,
(30:04):
hanging by the neck until dead.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, and it feels old school like it's a British
knot tied to basically a pole that's running above a
floor that drops down.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And mona Fandi, as well as her husband and their assistant,
seemed to take the news in stride. This was bizarre.
She did not stop smiling. She's a brave public face.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
She thanked the court and the Malaysian people immediately after
the guilty verdicts.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yep, that is true, and we know that they did
exercise some emotion in the intervening time because they filed appeals.
There was an appeal system here, so the sentence was
not actually carried out for a number of years.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Oh yeah, for quite a while. They continued through all
of the possible appeals processes.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Which of course you would do if your life was
on the line.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
In nineteen ninety nine, the court dismissed all their appeals
upheld the previous death sentence, and so it came to
pass that November two thousand and one, all three were hanged.
A prison official said the three people expressed zero remorse
at the execution that took place in the early hours
of the day.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, it says. You know, you'll see reports that say
they met up with their families. They were allowed eight
hours or so to meet up with their families prior
to being killed. The you'll also find it reported that
they ate KFC as a last meal, and then simultaneously
you'll see it reported that they chose not to eat
a last meal.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Right. And part of this, part of the divergent reporting
here comes about from muckraking journalism, you know, or sensationalism,
I guess, sure well.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
And there's also the problem of translation, and it occurring
so long ago, right before the Internet was so available,
with so many sources.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
This leads us to one thing that has been reported
in multiple sources and is chilling. So Mona Fandy seems calm.
Perhaps she has resigned herself to this grizzly end, or
perhaps she knows something. I think she knows something that
other people do not. During her execution, while she was
(32:25):
calm and smiling under her hood, she uttered her final
words aku ta khan mati in English. That means I
will never die.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Spooky stuff, certainly, And in a way, she's right. We
played you that music of her voice. It's still around.
She didn't fully die. Her corporeal body is gone, but
she lives on.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Let's play another clip from that's song and see if
your experience of this music changes. Knowing what you will
know now.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Well, There's one thing for certain. As we mentioned before,
parts of this politician Maslin's body were never found. We
will never know exactly what was done with those because
the only people who do know are now in their graves.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
True. This case also led for national calls to outlaw witchcraft.
That's a difficult thing to enforce. What is how do
we define witchcraft? Right? How do we separate that from
traditional religious beliefs?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
It was? Yeah, I mean that's a strange thing. It's
always going to be a strange thing.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I think, very blurry line.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
We also know that this was one of the last
jury trials in Malaysia because they stopped using trials by jury.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yep. It also led to a controversial film loosely based
on these events, film called Ducan, which, as you recall,
is the earlier sided Indonesian word described in Bomo. The
film was completed I think around two thousand and six,
and it was banned from release for eleven years because
(34:49):
of the controversy surrounding it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And then Facebook leaked it. Somebody on Facebook leaked the
entire movie.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
In twenty eighteen. That's how I got out. Yeah, ah,
and then it after it got out, after the demons
were out of Pandora's jar. The film went on to
be quite successful.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, they decided, well, I guess we can release this.
And you know it is base it's you said, loosely based,
like so loosely based, but it is about a bomo
hiton of sorts doing some pretty intense things, including you know,
a murder. But this time it's spoiler alert with a sword.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Right. Ducan is probably best described as a a legal
thriller slash horror.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Right, Oh yeah, sure very The trailer looks cool.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The trailer does look cool. So at this point we
run into a couple of a couple of questions, and
these are questions that we would like to give to you.
We want to hear your take on this. First, what
do you think about the practice? This goes back to
our idea of the serial killer merchandise people. What do
you think about the practice making films based on these
(36:02):
events and profiting from them? Is it ethical? Is it
a big deal? Not a big deal? And what do
you think about this, this strange, sordid, grizzly tale. Was
their actual magic involved or was this all just window dressing?
(36:22):
So much ornamentation for a human all too real, all
to mundane con job and murder?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah? And also why why do you think even after
they got paid, that they decided to kill this person?
That is perplexing to me. It seems to me that
if what they are saying is true and their story
checks out, they could have builked him for so much
more money if he was willing to pay that much
(36:50):
to them.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And what if it was a case of accident. What
if Hassan was meant to like ritualistically to send the
acts and in some way avoid harming the guy so
that he believes he's invulnerable. I mean, that's what you
would do in a con job, right ooh?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Or yeah, dude, you're so right? And maybe he just
actually did it, or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Whoa?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So what do you think? One of the fascinating things
about this sort of story is that there are multiple
stories or in recent years, concerning this sort of interaction
between magic and true crime. You know, we've heard of
I don't know if we ever did a full episode
under this. Who heard of the practice in some countries
(37:42):
of abducting and dismembering people suffering from albutism, right, so
we want to hear your stories. Is there anything like
this that's occurred in your country or your part of
the world. The US is not immune to this. By
the way, True Detective Season one HBO series is based
on a very real, very real Satanic conspiracy that occurred
(38:07):
in a church in the South. It's a true story,
and Nick Pisolado did base a lot of True Detective
on it, no matter what he said at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, and you know, except for that whole part with
the I don't know, multi dimensional monster guy like whatever
he was, who knows about that? The King and Yellow Yeah,
that dude, I still want him to explain to me.
The shot in the last episode of season one, Well,
(38:37):
maybe I'll just talk to him about I don't want
to spoil it for anybody who may have not seen
the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Spoiler warning after this moment there are spoilers three two one.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
So the shot where they're trying to follow him down
this maze, do you remember at the very end the climax,
Essentially they're following the Yellow King through his essentially into
this other world that he's created and his underworld.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
To the old the old what seemed tostensibly be a
pirate for it or something.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. And then I believe one
of one or both of the detectives look up at
the ceiling. I'm just Gonnam looking at police if he
remembers this, and it becomes a shot of basically the
universe or the galaxies or something.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Or familiar night sky.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah. But they're inside, you know, a location somewhere, and
they're looking up and seeing this, and it gives you
this feeling of maybe this is a multi dimensional situation.
Maybe they went through some kind of portal to get
somewhere else. I don't understand what's happening. And then they
fight with this guy who seems to have superhuman powers,
(39:46):
and then it's over.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
This is okay, this is interesting. This may be a
bit of a tangent, but it is established during the
show the rust Coal, the one who sees glimpses of
this other universe, suffer from, or leverages at least hallucinations visions. Right, yeah,
so he's already prone to doing that kind of thing.
(40:09):
I read a very interesting theory that I do not
completely agree with, which is that the Yellow King is
the king in yellow is some sort of non corporeal entity,
and that by killing the scard Man, the spaghetti faced guy,
Russ Cole, when he sees this multi dimensional thing just
before he opens, he essentially becomes possessed by this entity.
(40:33):
And that's why at the very end, when Woody Harrelson's
character is talking to him and wants to tell him
more about you know what's gonna happen and you know
new leads the cauld follow that's why Cole immediately dismisses
it and is calm and serene as they get wheeled out.
I don't think that's true. I think it is really
(40:55):
cool and I love a dose of cosmic horror me too.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
I was so excited when it happened, and I thought
we were gonna get at or a little more something,
or at least an extra piece of it, like confirming,
well confirming at least that it was mystical in some way.
But then it was just like, well, all, all's good,
see see you later. Let's get out of this hospital.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Right right. And I have I have sort of my
own origin story about the cult that I would love
to talk talk with you guys with, maybe over a
beer or something. We can have an episode of Beers
where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, Beers where it gets crazy. And can we write
a prequel? Why not where it's it's you and me
and Paul and Nole and everybody else listening. We're all
just trying to find out who the Orange Duke is.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot,
and we can just send it to Nick Bisilano as
a as a fan piece. Let's do it, and that's
our class episode for this evening. We can't wait to
hear your thoughts. It's right, let us know what you think.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You can reach to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook X and YouTube on.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Instagram and TikTok ork Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three STDWYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
We are the entities to read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
Void rides back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to tonight's classic episode, Fellow conspiracy realist. This is
a deep cut. We called this as you could see
if you saw the title Pop Music, black Magic and
Murder The Case of Moda Fan Day.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I gotta be honest, guys, I don't remember a whole
heck of a lot about this one.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Oh dude, this is a wild one. Yes, I don't
even want to spoil stuff with this. It just it
unfolds in a way where you're like, wait, how it
matches up with some of the rumors that you hear
about super popular singers specifically, but people in Hollywood. You're like, oh, yeah,
(00:43):
they're definitely doing like rituals and stuff and they got
power somehow through that stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, how did they get famous? It's a question a
lot of people ask, especially in a society that worships celebrity,
Why not me? What did this person do? Differently, and
often the public looks toward darker or more sinister explanations
behind that success.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
When right off the bat, it seems to have a
lot in common with some of the conspiracies and actual
real occurrences surrounding some Swedish black metal bands that actually
got into satanic rituals and murdering each other. But this
is in the realm of pop music, which I think
is something that people don't often consider.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This is the story of Nur Masna binti Ismael, who
was a four time a quite successful musician under the
name Mona Fandy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies,
history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
(01:47):
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Noel is not here today.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
But will be returning in the future. They call me Ben.
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission control Decan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
So we're traveling abroad today, Matt, Yes, through the power
of imagination, podcast and the mind.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Really it's the only traveling outside of the United States
that I've gotten to do in a long time.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, Now you have been to other countries.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I have, but not in a very very long time. So,
through the magic of research and podcasting, we're going to
take a trip today.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yes, a very strange trip, as we are wont to
do on this show. Let's check in real quick with
Mission Control. How we doing man thumbs up, thumbs down,
Pretty good thumb that was. That was a solid thumb, Yeah,
it was. It was a solid thumb. We are taking
a trip together, the three of us. That is a
weird thing. Maybe we'll reveal more about that in the future.
(03:07):
Right by the time this podcast comes out, we may
have completed our trip.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I'm almost certain. Yeah, I'm almost certain we'll be arriving
back here from New York.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh wow, time is getting weird. What is the present now?
It's the moment for those of us listening to this
for the first time anyway, time space, it's a whole
bag of badgers and a messy calendar of spaghetti. But
today we're not dealing with time and space. We have
(03:39):
been covering quite a few tech science or social related
topics and conspiracies in recent episodes, So this time we're
planning to explore something a little different, a bit grizzly,
magic Mania, murder, and I want to apologize in advance, yes,
(04:00):
any mispronunciations, because Matt, neither you nor I speak the
languages that will occur in today's.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Show, very very true, the languages that are spoken as
we travel to Malaysia.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now, it is true that some of our fellow listeners
actually live in Malaysia or have spent time there. We
found that out when we did an earlier episode on
the Oily Manes No of that, we.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Had several people write in with.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Specifics, specific anecdotes of similar events, also some helpful handy
pronunciation guides. So if you are listening, feel free to
help us out. We always prefer a bit of illumination
to the darkness that surrounds us in this chaotic universe.
If you are familiar with Malaysian pop music, if you
(05:02):
have a deep, deep knowledge of it, then you may
notice the song that we played is Malaysian in origin.
If you were a very ardent, knowledgeable fan of Malay music,
you might have said, hey, that's Mona Fandy.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Also known as or born as nurmaz Na binti ismail And.
She was born in Kangar Perlis or Perlee pe r Lis.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
As a child, she was she was engaged in regular
extracurricular events, you know, school dances. She was a water
ballet performer, and she became a mildly successful singer under
the stage name Mona Fandy with an album called Diana One.
It was released in nineteen eighty seven, and.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
It should be noted that that was a self produced
album and it was also distributed by herself and her husband.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That's right, right, her husband who during courtship actually met
her because he said he was her biggest fan, yeah,
which is beautiful, and he said, I want to help
you attain the fame that you deserve. They had some
limited success. Mona Fandi was for a long time best
known for the song Ku Nan Yikan Lagueni and that's
(06:25):
that's what we played a snippet of earlier, and it
feels very late eighties, it feels very in the moment, right.
She continued working toward that dream of fame. She had
a few TV appearances, but her career wasn't taking off.
And this is something that happens to many many people,
right Hollywood and the music industry, entertainment in general is
(06:50):
paved with broken dreams.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, she clearly had the drive and you know, quite
a bit of talent there, as you heard in that song.
But there's so much luck that comes into a lot
of the performance based careers, just with who you end
up meeting, who ends up hearing your thing or seeing
your thing, right, who talks about you at what party?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And no small amount of corruption. Oh yeah, I just
when I see this very cynical and sad. But when
I see people become big stars quote unquote out of nowhere,
I just assume that they are the product of music
industry campaign and that's not a ding on their talent.
(07:32):
That's just how this broken system functions exactly. So it's
through no fault of her own, really that Mona Fandi
does not become an international Malaysian superstar in the world
of pop music. It just didn't work out, and she
found a different calling. She and her husband switched careers.
They pivoted their focus. They began studying traditional medicinal practice,
(07:56):
you know, healing through herbs, meditation, seasonal rituals, that sort
of stuff. And she seems set to gently, quietly fade
from the public consciousness and live out the remainder of
her life quietly with her husband always to mention his
name mode of Fondi Abdul Rahman.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But all of this changed in nineteen ninety three, when
this relatively unknown obscurer former pop star was implicated in
something much much more serious. See the whole time she'd
been claiming to, you know, practice traditional medicine with her husband,
she was actually engaging in a more sinister and dangerous
(08:38):
form of magic.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's correct, Matt mona Fandi. She was a bomo, a sorcerer.
She had just committed murder. We'll be back after a
word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. For
(09:01):
a time, Fandy and her husband had a fairly successful traditional,
let's call it magical consulting business.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, you know this kind of profession, it
really makes you have to search for, you know, clients.
I mean, in any profession, you're looking for someone else
to use your service or buy your goods or anything
like that. But in this case, because it is a
little more I don't know what you'd call it, of
a boutique kind of thing, or that's not the right word.
(09:30):
High end, it could, yeah, it could be high end,
especially if you're paying for services of a bomo a
sorcerer to you know, give you either fame or fortune
or power or something like that. That's generally the reason
that people seek out these types of sorcerers, and they
(09:51):
were always looking for clients, you know, who are in
the upper echelons of things, sure VIPs, and they found
a few, at least according to the two of them,
they found several high end clients within the government and
a few other places.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Who wish to remain anonymous. That was a big thing
with their service too. People weren't openly identified as clients because,
you know, magic has always been a divisive thing in
the modern day. Some people very much believe in traditional
shamanistic practices. Other people eschew it entirely and prefer to
(10:30):
live a more secular life. So, especially in the world
of politics, depending upon your constituency, it might be really
cool that you engage in these practices, or it may
make you seem less credible to some voters.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
But either way, if you're using them for a darker purpose,
you probably want to keep that hidden.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Right and Fandy and co. Found a big fish in
the form of a state assemblyman from Batu Talan named
Datuk Moslin. Idris Moslin was educated in the US and
he was thirsty. He was an ambitious politician from the
ruling party Unite in malays National Organization or um NO.
(11:14):
He wanted the BOMO to provide services that would boost
his political career. He wanted to be the chief Minister,
and thought, you know, if we keep this quiet through
the use of magic, we can you know, we can
make my career more auspicious. We can tilt the scales
a bit, the scales of luck and corruption that are
(11:36):
so common in the entertainment industry and in the world
of politics. A little finger finger on a scale, just
swing the needle a bit, just enough. So Muna Fandi
did not work alone her husband, of course we had
mentioned Afondi worked with her and they had an assistant
named Jerami Hassan. So there are three people involved, and.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
The assistant was a little bit younger than them.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yes, very important. You'll hear some reports that he was
thirty one. You'll hear some reports that he was in
his late twenties.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And you'll also hear reports that he was maybe I
don't know the correct term, but a little learning disabled
or something to that effect.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Right, that he had lower intelligence. That's a very important
point too for this story. So Mona and her husband
promised to help this politician Moslaan by giving him a
talisman consisting of a cane and spot me headgear. The headgear,
they said, was supposedly owned once upon a time by
(12:38):
former Indonesian President Sukarno, who is tremendously important in the
history of Indonesia, is involved with the struggle for independence,
and he was the actual first president of Indonesia as
an independent country. So a very powerful person, kind of
a George Washington figure.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, and they're saying that these talismans were owned by
this powerful person, and if we give them to you,
it's also going to imbue you with some powers exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So they convinced him, they said, not only will you
be a more powerful and favored politician, you will be invincible. Yes,
when you physically hold this.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Objects invincible and you know, to get that kind of
power if you truly believe it could be incredible. And
in return for this power, they demanded that Moslin pay
them two point five million ring itt or RM. That's
just the currency there in Malaysia at the time, and
(13:44):
that is equal to at least in two thousand and
one dollars, because that's the last time we saw it
actually switched over. It was around six hundred and fifty
eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
So that might vary a little bit because this is
back in the early nineties, but that's a good ballpark, right,
So more than half a million dollars US. He paid
them five hundred thousand ring as a deposit, and then
he wanted to give them a guarantee so that they
knew he wouldn't just vanish. Well, they probably demanded it,
(14:14):
so he gave them ten land titles to hold on
to and that would cover the remaining two million.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
That's an incredible amount of money and land to give
to something that may or may not be true. You
have to believe that this politician believes so deeply in
this that he was willing to give up all of that.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And here's what happened next. They made an appointment for
these cleansing rituals to be performed at the Fandy household.
Maslam visited the couple's house in uludung Rob for what
was called a Mandibunga ceremony, a ritual flower bath. Maslim
was told to lie on the ground face up. Mona
placed flower hours around him and on him. Ritualistically, she
(15:03):
told Moslan to close his eyes and wait for the
money to fall from the sky. He did close his eyes.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But flowers weren't the only thing that fell down upon him.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, let's stay in this moment for a second. What
do you think he's expecting to happen.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
He's given them riches, he's given them land. All he's
asking for in return is this ritual and this talisman.
And you know he will be invincible, he'll be ready
to go. But that's not what happens. Instead, an axe
falls down upon his neck and he is killed.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
He is decapitated, and decapitation is a gruesome, strange way
to die. Studies show that the brain and the attached
sensory organs are still functioning for some time. So decapitation
is one of those few one of those few forms
(16:10):
of death where you can be physically removed from the
rest of your body and see your headless corpse on
your way out. Yeah, but of course you'll probably be
in such shock and so panicked that you won't really
calmly observe that the assistant is the one. Drami Hassan
is the one who is believed to have played the
(16:30):
headsman and separated Maslim from his body.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
At least that's according to reports we've read, and it
came out in part of the trial that will learn
about here in a moment.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
They didn't stop there, though, did they met no.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
It then proceeded to dismember Maslin fully. They cut him
up into eighteen different parts. They also skinned part of
Maslin's body, and later on they discovered those eighteen parts
buried in a storeroom underneath the ground your Mona's house
(17:04):
in Penang. It was underneath this concrete slab, essentially right.
And another big thing here is that they didn't find
all of him. There were parts of him missing.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And no one knows what happened to those parts.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
But the rumors, of course you could imagine, are that
those parts were.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Consumed by the three people, or at the very least
used in ritual. It's a bit strange for the neighborhood
hippie to engage in such behavior. But you see, Mona Fandy,
her husband and their assistant were not your friendly neighborhood herbalist.
(17:45):
They were a different kind of Bomo will examine this
after a word from our sponsor return Bomo b Omoh.
This term often gets mistranslated in the West. It's something
(18:07):
that you and I have run into before and people
will say, oh, bomo means you know, medicine man or
the more offensive witch doctor. Right yeah. However, at its heart,
the term bomo describes a shaman. Indonesian speakers often describe
this profession with the term ducan d u k u n.
(18:29):
Bomo are mainly herbalist and healers, but the practice of
magic is inseparable from these medicinal pursuits. Thus a bomo
is also a geomancer, or times a sorcerer. In Malaysian culture,
most bomo are what we would call bomo pute p
u tih white bomo. This is the equivalent of the
(18:52):
right hand path in Western magic systems, someone who helps
other people while also obeying the dictates of shamanic tradition
and at the same time straddling the tenets of Islam
because this is a heavily Muslim population.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But that is not the path that will continue to
call her mona fandy just for the ease of pronunciation
on our end, It was not the path that she
chose as well as her husband and the assistant. She
was instead a bomo hitam or hitam or black bomo.
(19:32):
Now that's a different, a different path here, the other path,
the forbidden path. Right, who are going to be working
with things like spirits that are not necessarily supposed to
be interacted with. They will look at the laws that
are put forth in whatever religion is current or popular
(19:53):
wherever this magic is being done, in this case, Islam,
and they will see those laws as something that are
not meant to be followed or are meant to be flouted.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right. The idea being that working around these laws, these
moral and magical and social laws, will allow you influence
and power that would ordinarily be out of your reach.
Bomo hittam and that's hi tam are supposed to be
the sorts of monsters you would see in horror movies,
(20:27):
you know what I mean? Not in real life. To
call someone bomo hitam would be very, very offensive because
it's essentially the same thing as calling a doctor or
a life saving surgeon, a butcher or a serial killer.
It's the opposite of what bomo are supposed to be doing. However,
(20:50):
that's what the Mona Fandi group appeared to be, at
least in the media when this story it hit big.
So they did this ritual realistically, killed dimember probably used
to some degree the body of Maslin and other rituals,
and they might have gotten away with it. Maslim was
(21:11):
not reported missing until July second, nineteen ninety three, after
withdrawing three hundred thousand ring it from a bank and
directly after the murder, Mona Fandi was reported to have
gone on a shopping spree. She didn't just buy, you know,
colorful clothing or jewelry or so, she went big. She
bought a Mercedes Benz. She bought a facelift. I didn't
(21:33):
know you could just do that, You could just buy
a facelift.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah. Yeah. It's very strange and one of the most
odd things here is the timeline, because it is reported
that he went missing on July second, and it was
immediately after he withdrew a large amount of money. He
did not withdraw five hundred thousand ring it right like
it was originally reported early on, or at least that
(21:57):
was the deal. I guess, so he at least could
withdraw three hundred thousand, assuming it was him that withdrew
it on that day before he went missing, and then
paid them. So he paid them money.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sure, yeah, just not all of it. Not long after
Moslan's murder, the assistant Jami Hassan was picked up for
a drug offense. He was under the influence of these drugs,
and this this country with harsh drug laws. While he
was under the influence of these drugs and speaking with
(22:30):
the police, he confessed to them that he had been
involved in the murder of a politician, an up and
coming politician.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Now that you know, that's one of those things where
you're dealing with somebody who may not be you know,
of the highest intelligence, who was also perhaps high on
a substance, who was being pressed, you know, by by
an interrogators. Then he admits to you know, these police
officers that he had something to do with it, and
(22:57):
it may not have held much sand, but if he
hadn't had led them. He is the person that actually
led the police to where the body was.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Buried under that concrete slab. Not long after, the couple
was arrested fanding her husband because Hassan it was on
her property. And then also Hassan openly said that they
did this, they committed this murder together, and then the
circus began. It was in a way, it was reminiscent
(23:32):
of how American culture treats the infamous murderers and the
depraved right, they get a lot of attention. There are celebrities.
For a time, Mona Fandi, as a murder suspect, gained
far more fame and celebrity and public recognition than she
(23:52):
ever did as a pop singer. And if all she
wanted to do was to be famous, this strikes me
as one of those one of those infernal deals you
hear about in folklore. Yeah, right, where the wording is
very important. Make a sacrifice to me, says some powerful
entity or spirit, and I shall give you that which
(24:12):
you desire. And then they said, we will make these sacrifices.
We will obey the rules of this ritual. Make me famous, Yeah,
make me famous.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Carry it should they carry it out, and they sure
as heck do get famous.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
It's strange. It's interesting when you think about it. Right now,
we don't have we don't have any primary source for
that kind of conversation, just like we don't have any
source for what happened to the rest of Malaslan's body parts,
Nor do we have a source for what Mona and
her husband and their assistant talked about her personally believed and.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
We also don't know exactly the circumstances, at least Moslin's
side of giving them all of this money for these things,
as well as giving them the land titles, because there
we'll talk about it towards the end there. But it
may have been something else going on entirely that didn't
even occur in the trial, and that would this It
would just be me speculating. But I think I have
(25:11):
I have a hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
I would love to hear this. I'm very curious. Let's
let's explore the trial so in a way, in a
very dark way, Mona Fandy finally gets her wish, and
she seems to be enjoying this new uh social position,
somewhere between fascinating and shunned and vilified. Rightly so, throughout
(25:36):
the trial, Mona Fandy exhibits strange, incongruous behaviors. She is
always cheerful, she's constantly smiling, mugging for the camera, posing
for the press. She's dressing extravagantly with bright, colorful designs,
and she's got a new banging outfit every day. Why then,
(25:57):
did they murder this politicis we have a we have
one guess from another Bomo, a self styled king of
the Bomo, Ibrahim matt Zin, and he said that Fandy
and her associates used their shamanistic knowledge for evil, because
(26:17):
Fandy was consumed by the idea of gain, of getting vengeance,
because Fandy was consumed by the idea of revenge that
the politician Maslin had made and broken multiple promises, and
she said, we will, we will have vengeance. We should
also point out that Ibrahim matt Zen is not the
most ironclad source. He gained the most notoriety in his
(26:44):
home country and in the Western news for a series
of rituals he conducted in an effort to help locate
the missing Malaysian Airlines plane MG three seventy, which we
had talked about before. He was not successful with this,
but later he recanted on what he was saying because
(27:06):
he he apologized. He said, I'm no longer king of
the Bomo. These rituals I was doing. I was just
doing what they told me to do. And he said
that some of the things he had done, like using
bamboo binoculars in a fish trap hook to help locate
the aircraft, said, you know, I was peering through these
band and really see anything geez. So he may not
(27:30):
be the best source, but he was also a bomo
and he so he'd be one of the most famous,
you know, he remarked on this trial. So here's what
they found, and it's very strange. The dates are confusing.
The court found that the murder occurred sometime between ten
pm and midnight on July eighteenth, nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
That's weird, yeah, because they you know, he was reported
miss on the second of that month, so what happened
sixteen days later? They think that's when he was killed. Now,
I'm just gonna go ahead and bring it up. This
is where my hypothesis comes in. I think if he
truly was missing from at least the second, we can
(28:17):
maybe assume even the first or the last of the
previous month, because it, you know, generally takes that long
to declare someone missing, and he took money out on
the second. I think he must have been held captive
there because in my mind, you don't, you know, have
someone go missing the day that they pay you three
(28:40):
hundred ring it, then hang around your house for several days,
let's say sixteen days in this case, then do a ritual.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Was a multi day ritual maybe sixteen days though, and
if it's a multi day ritual, and then the way
it's discribed in every report that I've seen of this,
it's that it was a very fast thing.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
He was having the flower pedal ritual occurred, and then
he got his head chopped off. To me, this seems
like they were holding him captive.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
I see. They were tried in court by a seven
person jury, this was before trial by jury was abolished
in the country, and the High Court found all three
of them guilty, sentenced them to death by hanging, and
the legal representatives for Hassan the assistant, argued that he
(29:39):
couldn't essentially be tried as an adult due to his
limited mental capacity and that our source for these ideas
about his cognitive difficulties do all come from that lawyer.
So the trial goes on until nineteen ninety five, at
which point the High Court finds all three defendants guilty
and sentences to death. The method of death is hanging,
(30:04):
hanging by the neck until dead.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, and it feels old school like it's a British
knot tied to basically a pole that's running above a
floor that drops down.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And mona Fandi, as well as her husband and their assistant,
seemed to take the news in stride. This was bizarre.
She did not stop smiling. She's a brave public face.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
She thanked the court and the Malaysian people immediately after
the guilty verdicts.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yep, that is true, and we know that they did
exercise some emotion in the intervening time because they filed appeals.
There was an appeal system here, so the sentence was
not actually carried out for a number of years.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Oh yeah, for quite a while. They continued through all
of the possible appeals processes.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Which of course you would do if your life was
on the line.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
In nineteen ninety nine, the court dismissed all their appeals
upheld the previous death sentence, and so it came to
pass that November two thousand and one, all three were hanged.
A prison official said the three people expressed zero remorse
at the execution that took place in the early hours
of the day.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, it says. You know, you'll see reports that say
they met up with their families. They were allowed eight
hours or so to meet up with their families prior
to being killed. The you'll also find it reported that
they ate KFC as a last meal, and then simultaneously
you'll see it reported that they chose not to eat
a last meal.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Right. And part of this, part of the divergent reporting
here comes about from muckraking journalism, you know, or sensationalism,
I guess, sure well.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
And there's also the problem of translation, and it occurring
so long ago, right before the Internet was so available,
with so many sources.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
This leads us to one thing that has been reported
in multiple sources and is chilling. So Mona Fandy seems calm.
Perhaps she has resigned herself to this grizzly end, or
perhaps she knows something. I think she knows something that
other people do not. During her execution, while she was
(32:25):
calm and smiling under her hood, she uttered her final
words aku ta khan mati in English. That means I
will never die.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Spooky stuff, certainly, And in a way, she's right. We
played you that music of her voice. It's still around.
She didn't fully die. Her corporeal body is gone, but
she lives on.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Let's play another clip from that's song and see if
your experience of this music changes. Knowing what you will
know now.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Well, There's one thing for certain. As we mentioned before,
parts of this politician Maslin's body were never found. We
will never know exactly what was done with those because
the only people who do know are now in their graves.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
True. This case also led for national calls to outlaw witchcraft.
That's a difficult thing to enforce. What is how do
we define witchcraft? Right? How do we separate that from
traditional religious beliefs?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
It was? Yeah, I mean that's a strange thing. It's
always going to be a strange thing.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I think, very blurry line.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
We also know that this was one of the last
jury trials in Malaysia because they stopped using trials by jury.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yep. It also led to a controversial film loosely based
on these events, film called Ducan, which, as you recall,
is the earlier sided Indonesian word described in Bomo. The
film was completed I think around two thousand and six,
and it was banned from release for eleven years because
(34:49):
of the controversy surrounding it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And then Facebook leaked it. Somebody on Facebook leaked the
entire movie.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
In twenty eighteen. That's how I got out. Yeah, ah,
and then it after it got out, after the demons
were out of Pandora's jar. The film went on to
be quite successful.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, they decided, well, I guess we can release this.
And you know it is base it's you said, loosely based,
like so loosely based, but it is about a bomo
hiton of sorts doing some pretty intense things, including you know,
a murder. But this time it's spoiler alert with a sword.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Right. Ducan is probably best described as a a legal
thriller slash horror.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Right, Oh yeah, sure very The trailer looks cool.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The trailer does look cool. So at this point we
run into a couple of a couple of questions, and
these are questions that we would like to give to you.
We want to hear your take on this. First, what
do you think about the practice? This goes back to
our idea of the serial killer merchandise people. What do
you think about the practice making films based on these
(36:02):
events and profiting from them? Is it ethical? Is it
a big deal? Not a big deal? And what do
you think about this, this strange, sordid, grizzly tale. Was
their actual magic involved or was this all just window dressing?
(36:22):
So much ornamentation for a human all too real, all
to mundane con job and murder?
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah? And also why why do you think even after
they got paid, that they decided to kill this person?
That is perplexing to me. It seems to me that
if what they are saying is true and their story
checks out, they could have builked him for so much
more money if he was willing to pay that much
(36:50):
to them.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
And what if it was a case of accident. What
if Hassan was meant to like ritualistically to send the
acts and in some way avoid harming the guy so
that he believes he's invulnerable. I mean, that's what you
would do in a con job, right ooh?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Or yeah, dude, you're so right? And maybe he just
actually did it, or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Or what if they all really believed it?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Whoa?
Speaker 1 (37:20):
So what do you think? One of the fascinating things
about this sort of story is that there are multiple
stories or in recent years, concerning this sort of interaction
between magic and true crime. You know, we've heard of
I don't know if we ever did a full episode
under this. Who heard of the practice in some countries
(37:42):
of abducting and dismembering people suffering from albutism, right, so
we want to hear your stories. Is there anything like
this that's occurred in your country or your part of
the world. The US is not immune to this. By
the way, True Detective Season one HBO series is based
on a very real, very real Satanic conspiracy that occurred
(38:07):
in a church in the South. It's a true story,
and Nick Pisolado did base a lot of True Detective
on it, no matter what he said at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, and you know, except for that whole part with
the I don't know, multi dimensional monster guy like whatever
he was, who knows about that? The King and Yellow Yeah,
that dude, I still want him to explain to me.
The shot in the last episode of season one, Well,
(38:37):
maybe I'll just talk to him about I don't want
to spoil it for anybody who may have not seen
the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Spoiler warning after this moment there are spoilers three two one.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
So the shot where they're trying to follow him down
this maze, do you remember at the very end the climax,
Essentially they're following the Yellow King through his essentially into
this other world that he's created and his underworld.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
To the old the old what seemed tostensibly be a
pirate for it or something.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. And then I believe one
of one or both of the detectives look up at
the ceiling. I'm just Gonnam looking at police if he
remembers this, and it becomes a shot of basically the
universe or the galaxies or something.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Or familiar night sky.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Yeah. But they're inside, you know, a location somewhere, and
they're looking up and seeing this, and it gives you
this feeling of maybe this is a multi dimensional situation.
Maybe they went through some kind of portal to get
somewhere else. I don't understand what's happening. And then they
fight with this guy who seems to have superhuman powers,
(39:46):
and then it's over.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
This is okay, this is interesting. This may be a
bit of a tangent, but it is established during the
show the rust Coal, the one who sees glimpses of
this other universe, suffer from, or leverages at least hallucinations visions. Right, yeah,
so he's already prone to doing that kind of thing.
(40:09):
I read a very interesting theory that I do not
completely agree with, which is that the Yellow King is
the king in yellow is some sort of non corporeal entity,
and that by killing the scard Man, the spaghetti faced guy,
Russ Cole, when he sees this multi dimensional thing just
before he opens, he essentially becomes possessed by this entity.
(40:33):
And that's why at the very end, when Woody Harrelson's
character is talking to him and wants to tell him
more about you know what's gonna happen and you know
new leads the cauld follow that's why Cole immediately dismisses
it and is calm and serene as they get wheeled out.
I don't think that's true. I think it is really
(40:55):
cool and I love a dose of cosmic horror me too.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
I was so excited when it happened, and I thought
we were gonna get at or a little more something,
or at least an extra piece of it, like confirming,
well confirming at least that it was mystical in some way.
But then it was just like, well, all, all's good,
see see you later. Let's get out of this hospital.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Right right. And I have I have sort of my
own origin story about the cult that I would love
to talk talk with you guys with, maybe over a
beer or something. We can have an episode of Beers
where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, Beers where it gets crazy. And can we write
a prequel? Why not where it's it's you and me
and Paul and Nole and everybody else listening. We're all
just trying to find out who the Orange Duke is.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Let's give it a shot. Let's give it a shot,
and we can just send it to Nick Bisilano as
a as a fan piece. Let's do it, and that's
our class episode for this evening. We can't wait to
hear your thoughts. It's right, let us know what you think.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You can reach to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook X and YouTube on.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Instagram and TikTok ork Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three STDWYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
We are the entities to read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
Void rides back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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