Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Kidnapper Wanted to 'Raise An Army' of Kids with Women He Raped in Makeshift Jail Cell: Feds

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So this is just really horrific in the level of detail and planning that he was going about this. A man already accused of kidnapping two women and holding one in a cinderblock cell after she'd been repeatedly sexually assaulted, may have actually wanted women he kidnapped to give him children so he could, quote, raise an army. I have the disturbing allegations from federal prosecutors in the case against Negasi Zuberi. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. The allegations that federal agents and prosecutors make against Negasi Zuberi sound like something out of a woman's worst

Starting point is 00:00:45 nightmares. Not only is Zuberi accused of kidnapping two women and sexually assaulting them, now federal prosecutors say Zuberi wanted to hold women captive so he could raise an army. The FBI says Negasi Zuberi kidnapped a woman in May of 2023 in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Court documents say the woman claimed she awoke in his car, not knowing how in the world she got there. The woman said she had been waiting outside of a bar looking for a ride and Zuberi approached her. Documents say Zuberi threatened the woman when she was in the car with a taser, hitting her in the ribs with it after he had stopped the vehicle. The woman, called just adult Victim 2, said she was restrained with two pairs of handcuffs at the wrists and ankles.

Starting point is 00:01:30 Then she claimed Zuberi fired a single shot, telling her he'd shoot her if she did anything stupid again. Adult Victim 2 said in court documents that Zuberi then covered her face with a hood and drove her to his house and backed into his garage. She described seeing a pile of cinder blocks and Zuberi telling her that even if she screamed, no one would ever hear her. Prosecutors said Zuberi beat the woman and raped her multiple times. The documents say the woman convinced Zuberi to let her go after she told him her dog was sick. He then apologized for what he had done to her face and said he would pay for it and gave her $300 he had withdrawn from an ATM. The kidnapping and sexual assault

Starting point is 00:02:11 allegations made against Negasi Zuberi are terrifying and it's a reminder that you have to do everything you can to make sure the people around you are safe. Truthfinder.com is a website that will help you research people that you meet. I put in Nagasi Zuberi's name and found that he's lived in nine states, including Oregon, Florida, and Colorado. And the kidnapping case that he's charged with also shows up on Truthfinder. Truthfinder will also show you addresses of sex offenders in your neighborhood. If you want to try Truthfinder, you can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix. Log on and start accessing information about almost anyone. Zuberi is also accused of kidnapping a sex worker in Seattle, Washington

Starting point is 00:02:57 in July of 2023, about two months later, after engaging in a sex act with her. After the sex act was over, an affidavit says Zuberi told the woman he was an undercover police officer and was taking her into custody, and he pointed a black and yellow taser at her. The affidavit says Zuberi claimed he was taking her to a substation, but then the woman noticed that the map on his phone said he was two hours and four minutes from his destination. Then the woman realized she was being kidnapped. During the trip, the affidavit says Zuberi pulled over and forced the woman to perform oral and vaginal sex. The affidavit states that Zuberi put the

Starting point is 00:03:36 woman in a makeshift cell made of cinder blocks in his garage and shut a metal door that did not open from the inside. Then Zuberi left and he claimed he had to go do paperwork. The woman, according to the complaint, escaped after she realized she would die if she didn't. She managed to break that door open. She grabbed a gun from Zuberi's vehicle and ran for help. Zuberi was arrested the following day in Reno, Nevada, in a car with one of his children. His wife, according to the FBI, was outside of the vehicle. The complaint says Zuberi cut himself and bled profusely and tried to destroy his cell phone. Thankfully, that child was not hurt.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Zuberi faces a long list of charges, including two counts of kidnapping, transportation for sexual activity, felon in possession of a firearm, and others. He's also accused of trying to escape from jail. Federal prosecutors say Zuberi ultimately wanted to raise an army and called his mission Operation Takeover. A photo of a notebook the feds say came from Zuberi listed bullet points, including leave phone at home, make sure they don't have a bunch of people in their life. You don't want any type of investigation. Prosecutors have pointed to another drawing they say they seized from Zuberi's notebook when they point to his intentions.

Starting point is 00:04:56 Writing on that page says, dig a hole straight down 100 feet, and then at the bottom of the hole it says, concrete block, rubber coat, foam insulation and waterproof concrete with the word expand. Zuberi's defense attorneys have fought prosecutors being allowed to include a list of targets as evidence at his upcoming trial, saying the women he's accused of kidnapping weren't on that target list. But prosecutors say the targets show his motive and intent to kidnap the women. They also claim he made statements about the role of women and what that should be. Dr. April Alexander is a professor of forensic psychology. So Dr. Alexander, the allegations in this case are something that I said earlier sound like something out of a woman's worst nightmare. So how does somebody get to this point where they say, I want to raise an army of

Starting point is 00:05:46 children and I'm going to kidnap women and put them in a cinder block cell in order to accomplish that goal? There's so much to unpack there. And I know we don't have a lot of the details of this person's background or history yet, but really gruesome in what we've seen in the evidence so far. We've seen a lot of statements in some alleged writings about violence against women, a lot of premeditation in his writings of being able to plot out the space he wanted to kidnap individuals, the type of victims that he wanted to pursue, people who were vulnerable, people who didn't have close family members. So this is just really horrific in the level of detail and planning that he was going about this.

Starting point is 00:06:31 There was a lot of thought, according to what prosecutors are laying out. He's innocent until proven guilty, of course. But there are photographs in these court documents that show a pile of cinder blocks. He's got this room. He has the drawings. And you're right. He talked about targeting a specific person, somebody who is vulnerable, who doesn't have a lot of people in their lives because you don't want an investigation. So somebody who would not be missed. But what is striking to me about this, according to the documents, is the fact that he let one of the women go and apologized to her for what he had done and let her go, allegedly, because she said her dog was sick. So I guess I'm just confounded by that.

Starting point is 00:07:18 Right. Not having maybe empathy or compassion for human beings, but having empathy and compassion for animals and thinking about kind of what are the differences there or what happened in that particular incident. Obviously, again, a pattern of some gruesome behavior, planning of how he was able to successfully kidnap someone. So, again, we're worried about the level of premeditation that went into this and the grave detail. What would have happened had he not released someone or the person had escaped? How long would this have gone on? The FBI had put out a notice after his arrest, basically saying he's lived in many, many states over about a 10-year period, and they were looking for more people to come forward if they had had some interactions with him we know of two victims at this point who he was accused

Starting point is 00:08:11 of kidnapping so we know of two women uh right now um does do you think there probably are more people out there that haven't come forward or is it just hard to say? It really is hard to say, but from some of the details that we're having from the prosecution right now, I am worried about other victims. Again, there was writings and statements that referenced potentially drugging women. Again, that victim selection is really what scares me of thinking about picking the most vulnerable people. So selecting individuals who had no family or friends highs, selecting sex workers. We've seen this before in other cases where individuals will select people who will least likely to be believed, people who are least likely to go to law enforcement about their assaults. So I do worry that maybe there is

Starting point is 00:09:03 potential victims out there. So I'm glad that law enforcement is getting on the forefront of this, of being able to say, if you know anything or experience anything, please seek help at this time. Well, we know the one sex worker, she did escape, thank goodness, according to the court documents, that she was able to bust open that door, the metal door and escape. And she she actually stole his gun and made her way to help. Thank goodness and escaped. But I just can't go. I keep going back to this idea of somebody.

Starting point is 00:09:37 To me, it's this grandiosity of wanting to raise an army of children, somebody who thinks I need to be able to have an army of children. Somebody who thinks I need to be able to have an army of children. And obviously you have to engage in sex to have children. So to me, it's like this power and control, but also what is this whole thing about wanting to have multiple children, an army, not just like a few children, an army.

Starting point is 00:10:06 And you named it. It's about power and control. So thinking about maybe that sense of entitlement, we've seen this in other cases where individuals have this superiority complex that even in some extreme cases think that they're the superior being. And we've seen this with white supremacists and other radicalized groups that my stock has to carry on and live this legacy. So I'm curious if we're going to see more of those types of details in some of this, because we're seeing some of those glimmers in what we've been presented so far of that maybe potential grandiosity, that narcissism, and wanting to continue to spread on through these power and control dynamics of sexual violence. One of the things that's so disturbing to me, too, is the fact that, according to everything the prosecutors have laid out in the documents,

Starting point is 00:10:54 you know, the cinder blocks, this is something that took a lot of thought. A lot of planning. Yes. And talk to me about that. The cinderinder blocks the insulation uh the waterproof concrete i mean all of these things to maybe even create some type of soundproof room um i mean thank goodness to our knowledge um this wasn't carried out in full um but goodness me like a dig of a dig a hole 100 feet down i mean this this is some stuff that um is very disturbing i mean it's something out of a dig a hole 100 feet down. I mean, this, this is some stuff that is very disturbing. I mean, it's something out of a horror movie. It reminds me of that scene in Silence of the Lambs where that poor woman is down in the hole. So it's just, it's

Starting point is 00:11:36 beyond upsetting. So just talk to me about what would go into that type of planning and what this says about somebody who would draw something out like this. I mean, it really speaks to the extensive preoccupation with this. So, again, some of the details that you mentioned and some of the further ones, finding land or looking for land to be able to kind of build this out, getting the cinder blocks, waterproof mats. This takes a lot of detailed time and planning. So think about the level of a person's preoccupation to want to carry out these actions. This isn't just something that's on a whim that they would, you know, go out on a day and, you know, kidnap someone. This is something where a person is doing a lot of detail and has a lot of preoccupation with wanting to commit this act of sexual violence for their larger goals. So yeah, something that is scary and concerning. And what I'm curious about is what was his level of

Starting point is 00:12:38 engagement with others to be able to go to stores repeatedly and get these things? Yeah, it might be hard to tell the difference between him and a construction worker, but were there anything else out there that would have given us some type of kind of guidance into who this guy was and why he was engaging in these actions? Well, we know he was able to get a taser, a couple of pairs of handcuffs, which is incredibly disturbing. The taser, a couple of pairs of handcuffs, which is incredibly disturbing. The taser to me is really, really disturbing. And then, of course, impersonating the police officer, drugging of the drinks.

Starting point is 00:13:14 You know, all of these are allegations that will have to be proven in court. But it sounds like they have some cooperating witnesses and some evidence to back that up. Yeah, and I think sometimes when we're looking at these severe cases, we often wonder about like psychopathy, individuals who have low empathy, who are able to engage in coercing people into some of these actions. He was able to lure some of these women to him. So trying to get a sense of how he was navigating his own world around him. Was he this person who could be perceived as a police officer? And that makes him even more

Starting point is 00:13:52 dangerous if people were going to him as a person they thought would be trustworthy. And we might have seen that with maybe if we get more information on his interactions with roommates and others, who can give us some insight into his mental state over this long period of time. It's a disturbing case for sure. And his trial is scheduled to begin in October. We will see how it unfolds. Thank you so much, Dr. April Alexander. Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Kidnapper Wanted to 'Raise An Army' of Kids with Women He Raped in Makeshift Jail Cell: Feds

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