20/20 - Devil in the Desert: The Witness

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

What does Hossein Nayeri’s wife know about his involvement in the horrific crime against Mary Barnes and Michael?  To catch new episodes early, follow "Devil in the Desert" for free on ⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon Music⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Deborah Roberts here with another weekly episode of our latest series from 2020 and ABC Audio, Devil in the Desert. Remember, you can get new episodes early if you follow Devil in the Desert on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Now, here's the episode. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply.

Visit bmo.com slash vi porter to learn more. In January of 2013, as Detective Ryan Peters inched forward in his investigation into the kidnapping of Michael and his roommate Mary Barnes, it dawned on him. Newport police had a potential lead right under their nose. A Chevy Tahoe, a car involved in a high-speed chase months earlier. Police had spotted the Tahoe speeding through Newport Beach in the pre-dawn hours of September 26th 2012. After a chase, the officers lost sight of the vehicle. They found it later that night, dumped on Balboa Island. It's a residential community in Newport

Harbor. And the driver, he'd vanished. Itaho was registered to a Courtney Shigarian. Her husband was Hussein Nyeri, whose DNA had just shown up on a glove found in Kyle Hanley's car. Now, Detective Ryan Peters knew that the Chevy Tahoe might have nothing to do with his kidnapping and torture investigation, but at this point, he couldn't leave any stone unturned. I don't want to ignore anything, and I want to fully invest all my time into every possible lead. I go and write a search warrant for the car knowing that it's a long shot.

Detective Peters Hunt, for answers, led him to the impound lot. He began to rake through the car. Inside he found some gift cards, keys, and paperwork. But then, he found something that changed the course of the entire investigation. I pull out this little box, I'm looking at it, I'm like, what is this thing? And I realize it's a micro mini camera.

And then I pull out another one from underneath the seat, and it's another micro mini camera. And then I pull out another one from underneath the seat, and it's another micro mini camera. And then I pull out, like, a small little case with two magnets on it, and immediately realize this is a tracker. A GPS tracking device and two hidden cameras. Detective Peters emptied the car and took the box of stuff back to his office so that he could examine it more closely later.

It turned out that those little devices had recorded hundreds of hours of footage over a period of months. When he studied the footage itself, his jaw dropped. I'm at my desk and I remember opening it and the first image that pops up is Michael's house. These devices had been installed outside of Michael's home where he lived with his roommate Mary Barnes. And the GPS tracker had followed his whereabouts when he was at his parents' home, at his girlfriend's house, entering and leaving his property.

The person who set up the tracker and the cameras could see exactly how Michael went about his day to the minute. Whoever had been watching Michael was studying him very closely and for a long time. I'm ABC News Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman. This is Devil in the Desert. Episode 4, The Witness. As well as the surveillance cameras, the team had also found another important item in the Tahoe, a cell phone belonging to Hussain Nayeri.

Matt Murphy was the deputy district attorney on the case. And when they get into that phone, what they find is they find a series of orders that were placed for items which could have been used in this crime, including the stuff for the surveillance cameras and some other things. The phone had also been getting updates from a GPS tracking system. It had been receiving text messages about when the tracker left or entered a specific location. Based on the tracker's movements, it seemed to Detective Ryan Peters that it was stuck to a vehicle.

And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. Like, Jose Nyeri, whose DNA is on a glove in Kyle Hanley's truck, also has cameras linking him to watching Michael's truck. You can't refute that. So for me, this is huge. Remember, the glove was important to investigators because it connected Jose Nayeri to Kyle Handley, whose truck was seen at Michael's house the day before the attack. And now, the items found in the Chevy Tahoe strengthened that connection. The items found in the Chevy Tahoe strengthened that connection. Nyeri seemed to have been surveilling Michael for a period of months before Mary Barnes and Michael were kidnapped. The contents of the Tahoe raised another question. The truck didn't actually belong

to Jose Nyeri, it belonged to his wife, Courtney Shigarian. So what did Courtney know about the surveillance of Michael and how much was she involved? You start to wonder, is this woman totally innocent? Back in September of 2012, on the night the Tahoe was found on Balboa Island, police showed up at Courtney's door. She hadn't been helpful. She had refused to answer their questions and would not identify Nayeri as the driver.

Later she called to report that the car had been stolen and had come to collect it from the impound lot, but after the contents had been removed by Detective Ryan Peters, which gave Newport PD an opportunity. In the spring of 2013, Detective Ryan Peters invited Courtney to come down to the station. He said, hey, why don't you come get this box of stuff we took from your car? On the surface, it looked like normal police procedure,

but this was actually a trap carefully laid by the investigators When she came down to the station police planned to get her to sign a document to get her stuff back It was called a property release form the document would have a list of everything Inside the car the cameras the GPS the phone, and when she signed that document she would be saying, these are all of my possessions. And if Courtney signed, it would immediately incriminate her in this scheme to surveil Michael. And with that leverage used against her, detectives wondered if there was more she might be willing to share with them.

But would she sign? On April 9th, 2013, Courtney Shigarian arrived at the Newport Beach Police Department. Detective Peters was there to greet her. Can I help you? I'm just here to take a property. The meeting was recorded by greet her. Can I help you? I'm just here to pick up property. The meeting was recorded by Detective Peters. In the tape, Courtney seems confident, poised, and all business.

What's your name? Courtney Sheeran. Do you need my direct assessment? We do, yeah. Ryan Peters explained that the contents of the Tahoe would be released to her. Yeah, that's just the items that we're releasing to you. Okay. You can take your stuff.

Oh, I can take my stuff. Asked if everything was there, and I said, yeah. And I kind of went through it. This is a camera, this is a tracker, this is a Pepsi can, this is change, this is trash, this is the slides, this is the clothes. And she's like, okay, great, yeah, I'll take it. And she signs for it and then goes to pick it up.

Ryan Peters' plan worked. Courtney signed for the listed items. But her reaction to the whole ordeal surprised Peters. No hesitation, no emotional response, no physical response to it. And she knows that that was involved in a crime. And now she's got me like, man, does she maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she has no idea what this is. Courtney seemed calm for a person whose car contained surveillance equipment, equipment that had been used on a victim at the center of a months long investigation.

Maybe she really didn't know exactly how serious this situation was. Detective Peters announced that he had a search warrant for her belongings. What is that? I'll talk to you about it. I'm right here. Nice to meet you. This is a search warrant for your person, your phone, your car, your house. All of a sudden, Courtney didn't seem so confident. And then Detective Peters began to ask his questions. Do you know who St. Mary is?

Yes, that's my husband. That's your husband? And Kyle Henley? I know Kyle Henley? Uh, I know who Kyle Henley is, but... Janelle Michael... I don't want to talk about anything. I don't... I feel very off-put by what you're saying. I don't

know what you're talking about. This is weird. Why did you have me come in here to pick up items and now you're trying to ask me questions. It seemed like now, when it was past the moment of too late, Courtney had finally figured out the real reason she'd been asked to come down to the station. Matt Murphy, the deputy district attorney on the case, again. It's a jack-in-the-box moment, right?

It's like, hey, we got bad news and we got some worse news. Bad news? You're not getting your stuff back. Worst news is this document that you just read implicates you as a co-conspirator in a case that potentially could send you to California state prison for the rest of your life. Pushed into a corner, Courtney Courtney went on the defensive. Courtney didn't know that she wasn't allowed to leave the police station. The police had a search warrant, and that meant that legally they could absolutely detain her so she couldn't interfere with her search. Detective Peters asked, do you want to talk about this in a different room? But Courtney didn't want to talk, at least not about the questions they were asking.

I don't understand why I'm being asked any questions at all. I don't know what you're talking about. And I feel very weird and off-put by just what happened. I would just like to have my attorney present for everything. I don't know what you're talking about. Peter's tried to calm her down. He told her she wasn't under arrest, but that he had to complete the serving of the warrant. You know. You're nervous.

You're scared. I get it. This is weird. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we need, I can, I also need to get a buckle swab of your cheek for your DNA. For me?

For you. Why me? She didn't want to have her DNA sample taken, but in the end, she allowed them to take a cheek swab. She kept asking the officers, why were they interested in her? Why is there a search warrant? Because we're investigating the kidnapping of Michael and Mary Barnes. Detective Peters kept having to tell Courtney, you are here because we suspect your husband's involvement in this crime.

You're married to St. Nighter. We'd like to talk to him. Can we talk to him? Can you call him? Tell him to call me. Detective Peters hoped that Courtney was the missing piece of a puzzle that would finally reveal the whole picture of the crime. Or at the very least, maybe she could tell them where Nayari was hiding. Now, Courtney knew that Nayari was in Iran. He left right after Kyle Hadley was arrested in October of 2012, nearly six months ago. The detectives had begun to suspect that he wasn't hiding out at Courtney's apartment,

but if he was that far away, they needed to know. She didn't tell investigators any of that. Instead, she shut down. She kept her responses to the mere basics. The conversation went on for almost an hour and a half, but despite their efforts, detectives couldn't persuade Courtney to open up. Right at the end, one of the officers tried to reason with her. He said, sometimes in cases there are all of these roles, suspects, witnesses, and co-conspirators.

And sometimes those lines get blurred, they get gray a little bit, and that's when it takes some soul searching to ask yourself, who am I? Where do I fall in line in this? And maybe that's what you should think about. After that, the interview ended awkwardly. Courtney didn't seem like she wanted to do any soul searching.

She wrote down their details and then with the search complete, she was free to go. Any questions? Thank you. Have a good day. We're seeing you. Courtney left without the tracking equipment from the Tahoe. Detective Peter's great plan had turned out to be only partially successful.

He didn't get the crucial information from Courtney that he might have been hoping for, like the location of her husband or confirmation of his involvement in the crime. And he may have spooked Courtney, possibly burning their best chance of getting closer to Nyeri. But Courtney had walked right into their plan to implicate her in the surveillance scheme. They'd gained leverage. Now they needed to figure out how to use it. The question was, how could they reel her back in and get her to talk? This show is supported by HelloFresh.

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I have dived with a lot of sharks around the world, but I have never seen the most famous and the most feared. Sharks Up Close with Birdie Gregory, now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. When the investigators began digging into Courtney Shigarian's life, they spotted something in her bank records. Courtney had been giving money to Nayeri, money that had been given to her by her family who were supporting her through law school.

That gave law enforcement an idea. I was like, why don't you call the girl's father, right? Because we wanted to get Courtney turned around and off of Team Nyeri and onto Team DA. This is Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown, a longtime colleague of Matt Murphy. She had joined the case a few months earlier. It was she who came up with the idea to go around Courtney and focus on her family. Courtney's family had an approved of her relationship with Nayeri. They had once been close, but in recent years, Courtney had been drifting away. She didn't even tell them that she and Nayeri had married back in 2010.

Her relationship with Nayeri had kept her isolated. And even when things started to go awry in their marriage, like when Courtney had to call the police when Nayeri had bruised her arm, she hadn't told her family. She was totally focused on Nayeri and on keeping his secrets. But what if her family could help steer her back into the investigators' hands? Maybe if they could get through to her, maybe they could tell her just how much trouble she was in. Heather Brown's strategy was something Detective Peters

was willing to try. Three weeks after that first meeting with Courtney, he called up her father. And I told him, I said, hey, your daughter is drastically involved in a violent kidnapping. If she's going to go to law school, if she's going to have any sort of family in the future and start over and have a come to Jesus moment, it's right now. And you need to help me do that. But getting off the phone with him, like I wasn't sure. On this phone call,

Courtney's father learned two huge pieces of information. One, that she was married to someone he'd previously expressed serious concerns about, and two, that she was now implicated with this man in a serious crime. Within minutes, Ryan Peters got a call from Courtney's lawyer, a man named Lou Rosenblum. Whatever Courtney's father had done behind the scenes had moved things along fast. Lou said he was willing to work with Ryan Peters to help Courtney get back on the investigators good side. They came up with a plan together. Newport Beach Police would offer Courtney a way to cooperate by using a proffer. A proffer is an

agreement between law enforcement and a person involved in a case. The person agrees to be interviewed, but there are conditions of protection. The investigators get information that could help their investigation, but they can't use any of that information against the person giving it. It didn't mean that Courtney was completely off the hook. They could still press charges against her based on evidence collected from other sources, but it was a start. And it would be the first time that investigators could sit down and ask their questions to a receptive witness.

Courtney's lawyer, Lou, wanted to impress on Courtney the importance of this interview. He told her to be honest. He said, there are no second chances here. One lie can ruin everything. It was only maybe within 48 hours. She was sitting down at Newport Beach with her attorney and she was telling us everything she knew. Now the Newport Beach Police Department sits just off a two-lane road next to a golf course. Its parking lot is ringed with palm trees and from the front door you can see the lush

golf course right across the street. Courtney's proffer interview was in the conference room inside. On May 7th, 2013, Courtney walked into the room filled with Newport PD representatives. The investigative team said she looked scared out of her mind. Courtney's lawyer was there, as were Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy and Ryan Peters. Today is May 7th, Tuesday at 1443 hours. Interview with Courtney Shagarian. Detective Peters started off with the basics. How exactly did she know Jose Nayeri?

They went over the significant dates of their relationship and Nayeri's involvement in growing and selling weed. Courtney also confirmed right off the bat what the investigators had begun to suspect. Nayeri was gone. Once again, he had fled to Iran. Okay, the 912307, that's the number that he's using now? In Iran. Okay. That wasn't all Courtney was willing to share. Detective Peters dove right into the question he really wanted to ask.

This time, Courtney held nothing back. Can you tell me who's involved in the kidnapping? Just identify people? Yeah. Hussein Nayari. Kyle Hanley. And their third person, I don't know his actual name, but Hussein referred to him as Brown. This was the biggest break in the case so far. Courtney was willing to confirm that Nayari and Hanley

and a mysterious third man were the ones who had committed the kidnapping and torture. And even though Courtney didn't know exactly who Mr. Brown was, she had another name for them, Ryan Kivorkian. Hothin and Ryan were very close. Ryan Kivorkian was another graduate of Clovis West High School in Fresno. His wife was close to Nyeri, and Courtney thought she might have been involved with planning the crime. And crucially, not only could she confirm the investigators' suspicions about who had

committed the crime and give them a lead for the third man, she could also finally explain the motives behind it all. It came back to Nayeri's marijuana growing. Hussain told me that he showed his product to Michael. Michael had his friend try it. The friend said that it had too much chemicals in it and he wouldn't buy it for that price. And Hussain got offended and was like you know what is this guy telling me that this is your product.

She said that after Michael had refused to pay him what he asked for, Nayyari had sent Kyle to talk to Michael. Try him again with the exact same weed. Michael had paid Kyle for it, but Nyeri felt that the payment wasn't enough. He felt cheated. After that, she said that Nyeri wanted Kyle and Michael to become friends. Just as Michael had told investigators in the days after the attack, Kyle Hanley went with Michael on a trip to Las Vegas, where tens of thousands of dollars were spent partying.

What Michael didn't know was that Kyle was reporting everything back to Nyeri. A plan formed between Nyeri, Kyle, and Mr. Brown. They believed that Michael had huge amounts of cash. They decided to track him and find out where he stored it and then steal it. Courtney wasn't protecting Nyeri anymore. In fact, a lot had changed for her in just a few days. With her father reaching back out to her and her lawyer laying out the risks

of not participating in the investigation, something had shifted. As well as cooperating with the law, she was also working on repairing the damage that her relationship with Nayeri had done to her personal life. Lou, her lawyer, had found a therapist for her within 24 hours of getting her to agree to a pro proper meeting. Now she was signed up to daily sessions. Lou wanted to get Nayeri out of her head to deprogram her from Nayeri's influence. She was back in close contact with her family and she'd cut off all contact with her husband

completely. She'd picked a side. And now Courtney was holding nothing back, even on the parts that made her look just as bad as him. Investigators wanted to talk to Courtney about the surveillance on Michael. They knew that Nyeri was monitoring Michael's house in Newport Beach, but they had also discovered that he was watching Michael's parents' house and that the family had a dog.

This dog presented a problem for Nyeri. Courtney thought he wanted to be able to install cameras inside Michael's parents' home, and the dog would bark at anyone approaching their property. So one day, Nayari asked Courtney to pick up some meat at the store. And I asked why and he said that he got something that was poisonous for dogs because he wanted to poison the dog that was at Michael's parents house and he said, oh can you make hamburgers with this? Cause he's like, I need to like poison that dog to make him sick so that I can go into the house.

He said the dog barked a lot or whatever. Did he? I'm pretty sure I made the hamburgers or he made the hamburgers. Cause I remember the, he wore gloves and like had to handle it carefully. And I think he gave the, I think he did it. Thankfully, the poison didn't work.

Because I feel like I heard him complaining after the fact about the fact that the dog didn't get sick. And I mean, sometimes it's hard to remember because there's just so much pain. DA Heather Brown said this detail was damning. You can admit to a lot of things, but like making poison burger patties for someone's dog is sure to get you on America's top 10 I hate you list. After learning more about how Nayeri operated, the investigators started to see Courtney

in a new light. They viewed her as someone who had been harmed by Nayeri, someone manipulated by him, someone held captive. I think that she was very young and troubled when she met Josein. And he filled a void in her life at that time and made her feel safe when really he was anything but safe. Courtney was also able to show investigators that the surveillance, as well as being menacing, had also shaped the night of the crime itself. Remember, for months, this team, Nyeri, Kyle Handley, and the still unidentified Nistra

Brown were watching Michael's daily whereabouts. And one day, in early September 2012, the tracker on Michael's car showed him taking a trip. He drove out of Newport, through Orange County suburbs, and into the Mojave Desert. He went with a friend to look at a tract of land he was thinking about buying. There are abandoned gold mines out there that in recent years have been the subject of a real estate boom. He drove around, decided not to invest, and went home, thinking nothing of it. But Courtney told investigators

that this trip hadn't gone unnoticed by Nyari. Hossain had put the GPS on his car. Someone had gone out to the desert and circled in an area in the desert. And Hossain one day had asked me, he says, why would someone go out to this remote area and just keep circling around? Doesn't make sense.

And I said, I don't know. And he says, that makes perfect place for someone to bury a bunch of money. So yeah, probably right. Michael had inadvertently done something he would live to regret. He had unwittingly drawn a map of his own kidnapping route. Courtney had spelled out the motive for the crime, and now the night of the kidnapping made sense.

The reason the attackers had ignored Michael's offer of $100,000, why the sports car in the garage wasn't taken. Nyeri really thought there was a million dollars buried somewhere in the desert. And when they couldn't find the million, that's when things turned ugly. Months of work, all that surveillance down the drain for nothing. Courtney even had details of who Nyeri said was responsible for the worst parts of the torture of Michael. Hussain told me that Kyle drove and that Hussain and Brown were in the back with the two victims. Hussain told me that they beat him with a cable and Hussain told me that Hussain directed Kyle to cut off the victim's penis in retaliation for the victim, not giving them the money

that they believed was buried out in the desert. Courtney's proffer interview was three hours long. At no point did she waver or change her mind or refuse to answer. And by the end, the investigators made plans to talk with her in a few days. She wasn't out of the woods yet. She could still face charges for her role in the crimes she'd described to them. She was helpful, convincing even, but there was more investigating to do and no telling of what detectives might find.

Still, she had left them with a name to check out. Ryan Kevorkian, the possible Nistra Brown. The team wanted to get a sample of Kevorkian's DNA. They would test it and see if it matched the DNA that was found on the zip tie at Kyle Handley's house. So on September 25, 2013, the team located Ryan Kvorkian. He was in Lancaster, a town on the edge of the Mojave. Detectives went to his home and then spent the day following him as he moved around town.

He at one point went into the 24-hour fitness to work out and the one cop said to the other cop like, hey, I'm a member, are you a member? And so they decided to go into the 24 hour fitness and follow them around the gym. So while he was working out, he tossed his towel that he had been wiping his sweat with. Investigators brought that towel back from the 24 hour fitness, swabbed it and sent it to the lab. Soon they got an official DNA hit. Ryan Kvorkian's DNA matched the cut zip tie that was found at Kyle's house. Courtney was right, they had found their third man.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy then went back to Courtney's attorney with an idea. And it was essentially, look, let's give her a chance to redeem herself by luring Hussein Nayyari out of Iran. They offered Courtney a chance of not just cooperating, but actively participating in the investigation. They wanted her to help them lure Nyeri out of hiding and help deliver him to the police. It was her chance to save her own life. But to do that, Courtney would have to go back to speaking to Nyeri, a man she'd now

incriminated in her proper interview and who she had abruptly cut off contact with. Now, she had to worm her way back into his life without raising suspicion, and for their plan to work, investigators needed Nyeri to trust Courtney implicitly, just as he had done before. Courtney implicitly just as he had done before. So first, Courtney attended the funeral of Nayeri's uncle, knowing that word would get back to him. And it did. Nayeri had a bouquet of flowers delivered to her door.

And a few days later, in mid-June of 2013, husband and wife were back on speaking terms. Hi. husband and wife were back on speaking terms. Hi. Hey. Hey. Thank you for my flowers. What Nayeri didn't know is that now, his wife isn't just the chief witness in the investigation against him, but also a secret informant. I know.

This is the best guess because you're just on call. You have no idea why I'm shaking phone call. You haven't really been quiet. I'm just shaking right now. I know. Courtney Shagarian has become the Newport Police Department's best chance of bringing him down. They think any second I'm going to tip him off. I was terrified for Courtney. If Hussein ever finds out, or when he finds out that I've done all this and I've been recording it,

he's going to kill me. find out that I've done all this and I've been recording it. He's going to kill me. Devil in the Desert is a production of ABC Audio, ABC News Studios in 2020. Hosted by me, Matt Gutman, this series was produced by Madeline Wood, Camille Peterson, Amy Padula and Kiara Powell. Our supervising producer is Susie Lu, music and mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Dendas, Janis Johnston, Eamonn McNiff, Jake Lefferman,

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