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In July 2020, 33-year-old tech entrepreneur Fahim Saleh was found dismembered down to his torso in his New York City apartment. Bank statements would reveal who had the motive to commit such a heinous murder.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
July fourteenth, twenty twenty, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,
a young woman walks down the sidewalk towards her cousin,
Fahim's place. Bahim lives in a luxury apartment on Houston Street.
It's the kind of place where the elevator opens right
into the living room and through walldawall windows. A sprawling
New York City glimmers. The young woman, called A and

(00:36):
her family haven't heard from Fahim in a few days,
so they've asked her to go drop by. Bahim is
an extremely successful tech entrepreneur. He's only thirty three years old,
but he's worth about one hundred and fifty million dollars.
His phone is always glued to his hand. His business

(00:57):
is his entire life. Ah I know how he feels.
Fahim's family knows that he's received their texts. He must
have heard their misscalls. A is worried just like the
rest of the family, so she finds herself in the
muggy summer heat trudging towards Fahim's building. A sweat pools

(01:20):
around her neck and forehead. A fishes around in her
purse for the key, and when she finds it. She
swings open the glass doors to Fahim's building using the
virtual doormen. Amazing how you can replace minimum wage nowadays.
She steps into the elevator and heads to the seventh floor.

(01:41):
A scrolls her phone as the elevator hums. She's hovering
her fingers over the last exchange she had with Fahim.
Where is he? If he's at home, she'll be surprised.
Maybe he had to go overseas for business. Maybe he's
met someone and they just took off on a romantic,

(02:01):
spur of the moment trip. But that just wasn't like Fahim.
The elevator stops and dings. A waits for the clunky
doors to release her. When they do, she looks up
into Fahim's beautiful, sunny apartment. She steps inside and calls

(02:21):
his name. Her voice echoes back through the silence. It
smells like his place, but there's a strange burnt odor
in the air, not like a kitchen fire, but the
smell of hair that's been singed with a lighter. A
furrows her brow at the smell. Then she hears Fahim's

(02:45):
dogs nails tapping on the floor as the little husky
comes to greet her. She bends down the pathot dog.
Then she sees it a human torso. It's just been
sitting there on the floor, no limbs attached, no head,
just the fleshy brown middle of Bahem's body, dismembered down

(03:10):
to the core. She screams and drops to her knees.
The dog skids off towards the bloody mess, spinning in
a circle and knocking into the torso Clumsily. As the
dog runs off, her nails leave bloodprints on the polished
luxury floor. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares, True Crime

(04:11):
for Bedtime, Where nightmare beginnings Now. Fahim Salah was born

(04:34):
in December of nineteen eighty six in Saudi Arabia. He
was the youngest and only boy of the Sale family,
with two older sisters, Ruby and Riff, who coddled him
like he was their baby. Fahim was born a year
after the family had immigrated from Bangladesh to Saudi Arabia.

(04:55):
Fahim's father was constantly trying to make life better for
his kids. In nineteen nine, he took a big leap
and migrated the family to the United States. They settled
in Louisiana in a small two bedroom apartment. Fahim's father
pursued a PhD in computer science, and his mother worked
at a local laundromat, folding clothes for minimum wage to

(05:18):
keep the family afloat. Times were tough, as it is
for many immigrants, and money was always tight, but the
Sallet family had one another and tried to make do
with what they had. Fahim was always an entrepreneur. When
he was only ten years old, he took what little

(05:39):
money he had saved and bought stockpiles of candy from
the dollar store at recess at school. He'd flip the
candy to his classmates for a profit. Huh, that's funny.
I used to do the same thing with these stickers
called garbage pail kids. He used to sell them an
elementary school to other kids for like twice the price.

(06:02):
Fahim's kind of cool, actually, and he was making some
good pocket money until the principal caught wind of his
operation and immediately shut it down because you know those
public school types, they hate capitalism. Despite the setback, little
Fahim was hungry for the feeling of success and cash,
so he cooked up another plan. He asked his father

(06:25):
for an advance on his birthday gift a jewelry making kid.
His father agreed, and Fahim set to work making necklaces
and bracelets, which he sold at school that week. These
were the humble beginnings of a business career, the kind
that would make a father proud. Fahim was also the

(06:46):
kind of kid who always had to know how something worked.
He was notorious for taking apart toys and trying to
figure out the mechanics. I swear to God is Fahim.
Me am I Fahim. I used to do literally the
same shit. I took apart, stereos, took apart all kinds
of things. When Fahim was a teenager, he got access

(07:08):
to the Internet and it changed his whole world. He
began to teach himself how to code and soon started
making websites. I swear to God, I'm being punked. This
is like an autobiography and only thirteen years old. He
built a site called monkey Doo. Okay, I didn't do that.

(07:29):
The site contained jokes, pranks, fake poop, fart spray, and more,
you know, fun things for teenagers. When a five hundred
dollars check from Google showed up in the mail addressed
to Fahim. Mahim's father was stunned. The Sallet home was
filled with books on technology and coding. Fahim had studied

(07:51):
his father's textbooks. Teenagers are visiting the site, Dad, and
I'm monetizing their ads from Google, Fahim said. His dad
was shocked. How is this teenager making that much money
playing around on the internet. But Fahim's big break would
come with the creation of his website teenhngout dot com,

(08:14):
which was a social network that offered free aviators or
buddy icons for AOL chat. The site blew up, and
Fahim made enough money by the end of high school
to put himself through university, becoming completely financially independent before
he was even of legal drinking age, quite an accomplishment.

(08:35):
Fahim had graduated from university into the bleak job market
of two thousand and nine, caused by, of course, the
housing crash and subsequent recession. His offers were scarce, so
he decided to go his own way. Now, Fahim had
always loved pranks. He was the kid in high school
who actually made the prank calls because unlike his buddies,

(08:59):
he could actually stay in character without breaking or cracking up.
In high school, he had bought the domain name prankdial
dot com just in case, and now it was time
to use it. He recorded a few mock prank calls
as MP three's, uploaded them to the site, and created

(09:20):
a system where the user could pick what kind of
scenario they wanted for the prank call. Things spiraled upwards
from there. By the time prank dial was a week old,
Fahim was making twenty dollars a day, but through social
media and Google advertisements, the site grew to be worth
ten million dollars. Yeah, I know, the Internet's crazy. Doesn't

(09:45):
make any sense. By the way, prank dal is still
active in earning income today. Go try it out on
your friends or call in line is nine five four
eight eight nine six eight five four have a ball.
Like most entrepreneurs, Fahim's business ebbed and flowed. He'd make
a bunch of money and then the idea would fade

(10:06):
and something fresh would come into play. But Fahim wouldn't
worry about it. He just dreamed up the next plan
and got to work. He was good at kind of
figuring out what the next thing was and taking advantage
of it. By the time he was in his early thirties,
Fahim's greatest accomplishment was his company Pathio, a delivery courier

(10:26):
and ride sharing company that operated in four cities in
Bangladesh and two in Nepal. As Pathio thrived, Fahim and
a business partner founded go Kada, a Nigerian based ride
and food service much like Uber, but with motorcycles. This
is when friends started calling him the Elon Musk of

(10:49):
the developing world. So when Fahim's cousin a found him
chopped into pieces on his apartment floor that sunny July day,
no one could underst stand who could have done this
to Fahim. He wasn't involved in anything unsavory. His businesses
were clean. He had no enemies, or so they thought.

(11:45):
Fahim's investment firm was called Adventure Capital, and he used
it the fund projects in the developing world. In twenty eighteen,
he hired a young computer programmer, an aspiring entrepreneur named
Tyrese Haspill as his personal assistant. Tyrese had a rough
life grown up. His mother had become pregnant with him

(12:07):
as a result of rape. She never got over it.
She eventually committed herself to a mental institution When he
was just a child, and Tyresee was raised by his grandmother.
When she passed away, Tyresee was abandoned again, but this
time the twelve year old boy was saved by an aunt.

(12:27):
Tyresee was aloof and independent, and he avoided conflict. His
aunt described him as the kind of kid who had
a wall up. He did what he wanted despite his
aunt's rules. But Tyresee was smart and he wanted more
out of life. When his aunt finally had enough and

(12:47):
severed ties with him, he ended up in foster care.
But that didn't stop him. He joined the Future Business
Leaders of America program and worked on his charisma. He
invested in wire framed glasses and sharp clothing. He worked
hard and shook hands. That's when he met Fahim. Fahim

(13:09):
saw something in Tyresee. Tyrese was smart, he was good
at school, and he'd won many awards in computer programming.
He had even sold one dollar snacks during home room
to make extra cash, just like Fahim's own recess candy scheme,
and just like my garbage Pale kid scheme. The two
clicked right away. Over the years, Tyrese helped Fahim with

(13:31):
his personal affairs, even walking his dog for him and
managing his schedule. But soon he proved himself to be
more valuable and Fahim promoted him to more of an
executive assistant role for his investment firm. Tyrese had access
to all the finances of Adventure Capital, while Fahim would
be off in Nigeria or Bangladesh for business. Tyrese took

(13:55):
advantage of everything Fahim had given him. He used Fahim's
luxury apartment to host parties, He signed off emails as
chief of staff, He treated his friends to drinks, dinner
and shows with the company card. He even told the
dog rumor that Fahim's dog was his. He was living

(14:15):
in a fantasy world of his own making. Though Tyree
started his relationship with Fahim a Gung Ho employee, he
soon began to slack and Fahim had had enough He
let Tyrese go on. In May of twenty nineteen, the
two parted ways, but Tyree had done something sneaky. Four

(14:39):
months after he had been hired at Adventure Capital. You see.
Tyrese had opened a discreet PayPal account under the name
Another Tech Switzerland to mimic something that would regularly be
seen in Fahim's records. And then guess what he started doing.
He started steal the money and that's why I don't

(15:02):
have a personal assistant. On January tenth, twenty twenty, Fahim's
accountant noticed something. Money was missing, A lot of it,
just under one hundred thousand dollars worth. Hey, Tyrese, uh
hope all is well, Fahim wrote to his former assistant.
On a recent visit to my accountant, there were several

(15:24):
transactions marked on the Adventure Capital Chase account amounting to
over thirty five thousand dollars. My memory must be failing,
but I don't remember authorizing such charges. Can you please explain?
When tyree saw the email flashing in his inbox, he
clicked and then froze, Taking a deep breath. He crafted
his response carefully. He needed to be concerned, but not panicked,

(15:49):
cool and calm. Tyrese had been siphoning money not only
through the PayPal account, but in larger chunks from Adventure Capital.
He'd have to manage this situation properly. Hey Fahim, I'm
not sure myself must be a clerical error. Can you

(16:10):
send more information so I can look into this and
remedy this. The exchange grew more intense with each email.
On his end. Fahim was toggling back and forth between
messages from his accountant, phone calls, and transaction sheets. Fahim
was perplexed as to how or why this could be happening,

(16:31):
but the more he dug, the more he was convinced
that Tyrese had stolen from him. The two argued via
email throughout the evening. Tyrese hovered around his laptop, pacing
and stretching in his small Brooklyn apartment while he waited
for the next response to come in. Was he going

(16:52):
to get caught? His girlfriend sat in the corner. What's
wrong with you? She asked. Tyresee waved her off angrily.
Bahim shattered Tyrese with the bank records. He was caught.
What's the explanation here? He demanded in a final email.
Tyrese had no choice but to fold. He chewed his

(17:15):
fingers and rubbed his temples. He stood up and kicked
the bottom out from under his chair and punched the wall.
His girlfriend shouted his name, but he just slammed the door.
I was desperate and I needed to pay off debt
and help my family. Tyrese typed, I apologize for deceiving you,

(17:36):
and I'm ready to take responsibility for my actions. Tyrese
suggested a payment plan. He told Fahim that he would
pay him a lump sum every month until the debt
was gone. Please don't involve the police, please kind Fahim agreed,

(17:56):
and the problem with kindness is that bad people often
take advantage of it. But Fahim had his attorney draw
up a specific payment plan. Tyrese was to pay monthly
with a small interest rate, and the debt would need
to be cleared and under two years. Fahim warned Tyrese

(18:19):
that if he didn't follow the plan, he would take
legal action and have him criminally prosecuted. Tyrese agreed, and
he signed those papers. Tyrese paid twenty thousand dollars and
a few more payments of around three thousand dollars a
month April May June. But the whole time Tyrese was stewing,

(18:40):
he was also plotting. He was also planning and unbeknownst
to Fahim, he was still leaking money from the secret
PayPal account into his own pocket. Tyrese knew Fahim's schedule

(19:26):
like the back of his hand. This wouldn't be difficult.
On June eighth, twenty twenty, about a month before Fahim's
gruesome murder, Tyree sat in his fourth floor rental apartment
in Brooklyn staring at his laptop. His work was suddenly
interrupted by a buzz at the door. It was FedEx.

(19:46):
Tyrese let the delivery man up and shuffled in his
slides to unlock the door. When the FedEx worker passed
him a small, eight ounce package, he flashed a grin
and then turned his head down. He was alone. Tyrese
ripped open the package. Inside was a taser gun. This

(20:08):
wasn't just any taser gun. It was a top of
the line model that cops often use. This wasn't a toy.
This specific model released little id tags made of colorful
paper circles when the weapon was fired, like some kind
of confetti fingerprint. But Tyrese did not know that. What

(20:32):
Tyrese did know was Fahim's workout schedule. His former boss
liked to jog mid day. Bahim liked to hit the
pavement when the sun was at its hottest and the
workout would be the most challenging. On the morning of
July thirteenth, twenty twenty, Tyrese dressed himself up in a
black suit and tie. He put a black baseball hat

(20:56):
on his head, black sunglasses on his face, and slipped
on his black COVID mask. The crisp collar of his
white dress shirt was the only light piece of clothing
on him despite the blazing summer heat. He left the
house just before sunrise and headed into the city towards
Fahim's apartment on the Lower East Side. COVID made it

(21:19):
so easy to slink around under the disguise of his mask,
Tyrese could have been anyone, just another twenty something in
a suit with a designer duffelbag. He made his way
up to Fahim's door, as he had so many times
over the years. Luck struck and he was able to
sneak in behind another tenant. Then he sat in the

(21:41):
lobby and waited. This building had no dormant, no one
to notice him, who would anyway. Everyone in New York
kept their eyes on their phone or on the sidewalk,
looking down, never looking up, never making any kind of
human connection or eye contact, and now with a mask

(22:01):
on their face. Just people, no names, no faces, no identities,
just people shuffling past. Tyree sat there in plain sight
for hours, just waiting. Fahim liked to run during the
workday when he could find a chunk of time to
break from the grind. That day, he put on his

(22:25):
running gear and headed out just after lunchtime. It was
eighty six degrees outside. He didn't even notice Tyrese and
the lobby as he swiftly jogged by and out the
door into the city. When he returned, Fahim was sweaty
and thirsty, breathless as he entered the elevator, then noticed

(22:46):
a man behind him. It was a young blackmail in
a suit and tie. Fahim smiled and held the door.
The man nodded and said nothing, his face hidden by
sunglasses in a COVID mask. It was, of course, Tyrese.
The two rode the elevator quietly. Tyrese pretended to fumble

(23:10):
with a key fob while Fahim checked his phone quickly
before shoving it back into the pocket of his shorts.
Tyrese was sweating underneath his blazer. Every second felt like
an hour in the small elevator. Then the button for
seven lit up. Fahim nodded to the mystery man before

(23:30):
turning towards his apartment. That's when Tyrese whipped out the
taser and shoved it into Fahim's back. The electric shock
ran from the gun to Fahim, and Tyrese felt the
intensity follow his hand up his arm. He watched as

(23:51):
Fahim fell forward, hitting the ground like a bag of rocks.
Tyrese pushed him into the apartment with the side of
his foot and felt the doors closed behind them. That's
when he pulled out his knife and began stabbing. He
stabbed and slashed with precision and force. He stabbed, one

(24:14):
stab for every chunk of money that he himself had stolen.
Fahim's head clunked on the ground as he fought back,
but Tyrese was too strong. The taser had weakened him.
Terree stabbed until his former mentor was quiet, until he

(24:36):
was still. It was over so quickly that it scared him.
Terree stood up and exhaled. He had never felt so
alive in his life. He'd be back tomorrow to finish
the job, but for now, he had plans to celebrate
his girlfriend's birthday and he needed to get some gold balloons.

(25:00):
What is this level of psychopathy, of sociopathy? Where does
it come from? I wonder? Tyrese had rented an eighteen
thousand dollars a month airbnb just fifteen minutes away as
a staycation gift for his girlfriend's birthday. I wonder who

(25:21):
was paying for that? This was really an alibi attempt
and to get him closer to Fahim's place for the murder.
The two spent forty eight hours dining and dashing about
the city together, his girlfriend blissfully oblivious to what had
just happened. When Tyrese took off to home depot for
an electric saw and supplies, he told his girlfriend that

(25:44):
he had a work thing to handle in she ate
it up, as they often do. He was almost done
dismembering Fahim when cousin A entered the apartment. Tyrese had
spent the morning with the brain new Mikita saw, cutting
his former boss into healthy chunks and packaging his legs, arms,

(26:05):
and head into black garbage bags. He had researched where
the human joints were and had even surprised himself at
how precise his cuts had been. The heat of the
saw buzzed in his hands, and his arms grew heavy
as the job went on. Bahem's thin, small frame wasn't
that hard to chop up. Tyrese had all the cleaning

(26:28):
supplies ready. He was meticulous as he soaked up the blood,
careful not to get any on the furniture or rug.
He left the torso for last, after all, it was
the heaviest He had plans to burn the body parts later.
Tyrese was lost in his thoughts on the far end

(26:49):
of the apartment when he heard the elevator ding. Terror
ran through him. Someone was coming. Bahem's dog star it
towards the elevator. Tyrese grabbed his stuff and bolted. Fahim
had a back exit into the staircase. He was gone

(27:09):
before he could hear a screen. Tyrese Haspell is awaiting
trial for Fahim's murder. When the police arrested him in
his luxury airbnb, he tried to run. Of course, today
he says he's innocent. He didn't kill his former boss,
but the prosecution has a strong case against him. You

(27:32):
see the confetti from his taser, the one he bought,
the one that was found in Fahim's apartment. You know
that can be tracked. Tyrese has caught on multiple cameras
around the building on the day of the murder, and
you know, there's pretty much no one else anywhere in
the world that could have done this or wanted to.

(27:56):
So there's that for now. Tyres Reese awaits his fate
in a cell on Rikers Island, where I'm sure he's
regretting most of the decisions he's made in his sad,
phony little life. Until he comes face to face with
an actual judge, he'll be stuck in jail where it's

(28:17):
pretty hard to be an entrepreneur when all you have
to sell is yourself and nobody's buying. If you enjoyed
the show, please consider joining plus at Sword and Scale
dot com slash plus, But if you can't, consider leaving

(28:38):
us a positive review on your preferred listening platform. Sweet
Dreams and good Night