Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - The Story That Killed Him: Following the Money | Murder: True Crime Stories

Episode Date: May 3, 2026

Danny Casolaro believed he was uncovering a network of financial and political corruption. He was later found dead, and his research was missing. This episode explores the theory that his investigation threatened powerful interests. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money and Murder to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Scams, Money and Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. The American Dream. The promise that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can be successful as long as you work hard enough. But over the years, the goalposts have moved further away. Success is a lot harder to reach. Nowadays, one of the most popular ways to get there is by becoming an entrepreneur,

a master of your own destiny, if you can make it work. Around 90% of startups fail, but those that don't can see unparalleled levels of success and money, especially in the tech industry. It's a pretty big gamble, and it requires a lot of time, energy, and skill. But there are a lot of people out there who see a future in the world of technology. In fact, there's a name for these people. Tech bros. Of course, not all tech entrepreneurs are men, but the vast majority are, and not everyone is happy

about their success. In fact, some people out there are willing to do anything to take these tech bros down a notch, even kill. From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories. They're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes, a crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios. Every Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. These cases are wild, and I want to hear what you think. At the end of each episode, leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate,

review, and follow conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes to continue building this community together. And for ad-free, early access to both of our weekly episodes, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. Today, I'm looking into a series of killings that have rocked the tech world in recent years, dubbed the TechBrow Murders. It's no secret that Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are full of people trying to make it to the top, but very few get there. And according to the media, those who do succeed are in danger, because there are a lot of people. out there who'd kill for their wealth. But that story of an assault on the 1% isn't so cut and dry.

In most of these cases, the motive is more complicated than just cash, which makes you wonder, what are the tech bro murders really about? And who is actually at risk? All that and more coming up. Like any other industry, the tech world is filled with people from all walks of life. But most of the big names we know came from privileged backgrounds. That's not to say they aren't smart and capable, but it does mean a lot of them started their careers with a leg up.

That's not the case for every entrepreneur, though. Some, like Fahim Saleh, had to fight for every inch of their success. Fahim's parents were originally from Bangladesh, but they traveled all over the world looking for job opportunities. When Fahim was born in 1986, they were living in Saudi Arabia. but they didn't stay long. The Saleh family moved to the United States when Fahim was just a kid, first to Louisiana, before settling down in Rochester, New York.

For years, Fahim's parents struggled to make ends meet. His sister said it was an incredibly difficult period of time. The only restaurants they could afford were places like dominoes. Fahim was desperate to help in any way he could. Even though he was just a child, he was incredibly smart. and by the time he was in elementary school, he understood complex topics like supply and demand. When he was in third grade, Fahim would buy candy from a local dollar store and sell it to his classmates at a markup.

His hustle paid off, and before long, Fahim took his sales abilities from the real world to the internet. When he was just 13, he started a website called Monkey Do. It sold jokes and prank ideas to other kids. His parents thought it was a waste of time, until he got his first ad revenue check from Google for $500. After seeing how well Monkey Doe worked, Fahim decided to stay in the world of practical jokes. When he was in high school, he created a call service called Prank Dial. Users could anonymously purchase prank calls, things like pregnancy scares, Rickrolls, messages from the police, and have them sent to unwitting victims. In 2009, Fahim graduated from Bentley University in Massachusetts with a degree in computer science.

By that point, Prank Dial was a huge success, even if it did get him a few real calls from the cops because of disgruntled customers. Fahim spent the next six years growing Prank Dial into a multi-million dollar company. He used the revenue to invest in and create other entertainment and gaming apps. Fahim enjoyed the work. the money it brought in, but he still wasn't satisfied. He felt like something was missing. Like a lot of startup founders, Fahim was eager to change the world. But the future he wanted to build wasn't based in the United States. He saw enormous potential in bringing technology to developing countries, and before long, his vision came to life. In 2015, 29-year-old Fahim

used the money he'd made from Prankdile to found Patau, a motorcycle. cycle ride share company based in his parents' native Bangladesh. The company was an instant hit, and by the time Fahim left Patau three years later, it was valued at over $100 million. Some people would have taken their cut of the profits and called it a day, but Fahim was always thinking bigger. In 2018, he co-founded Gokada, another successful ride share company based in Nigeria. That, combined with Patau, skyrocketed his net worth to over $150 million. Fahim used a lot of that capital to invest in other companies based in poorer countries, like Pekap, a Colombian ride share app.

Fahim's efforts earned him a reputation as the Elon Musk of the developing world. And Fahim's success made his family's life better, too. He financially supported his parents, who were able to retire early. Fahim was on top of the world, and it seemed like there was nowhere better to settle down than New York City. In 2018, he moved there, and the following year he bought a lavish $2.25 million condo that took up the entire seventh floor of a newly built high rise in Manhattan's Lower East Side. It was the start of an exciting new adventure for Fahim, but unfortunately, not everyone he came across had good intentions. Like Fahim, Tirees Hossbill had a rough start in life.

But unlike Fahim, Tirees didn't have a stable family to support him along the way. Tirees' mother was sent to an institution when he was just a kid. His grandmother took him in, but sadly, she passed away when he was just 12. At that point, Tirees went to live with an aunt. Later, Tirees decided to cut ties with her and finished high school in foster care. Instead of becoming bitter and angry at the world, Tyrese saw the challenges he'd faced as motivation. He was determined to build a better life for himself,

and he was willing to do whatever it took to break the cycle. While attending Valley Stream Central High School on Long Island, Tyrese was an active member of the future business leaders of America, or FBLA. He dreamed of having a career in tech one day and even got first place in a web design contest the club hosted. And it wasn't long before Tyrese crossed paths with a real tech superstar. In 2015, when he was just 16 years old, Tyrese met 29-year-old Fahim Saleh at an FBLA event. Fahim had just founded Patau, the rideshare company in Bangladesh, and it was already taking off.

Fahim was impressed by Tyrese's drive. He reminded him of a younger version of himself. Fahim told Tyrese to stay. in touch, and he meant it. When Fahim moved to New York City in May 2018, he posted a job listing for an executive assistant. Nineteen-year-old Tirees applied and got the job. Tirees helped Fahim with day-to-day tasks like managing his calendar and walking his dog, but Fahim also put Tirees in charge of managing his business finances, and that's where the trouble began.

By the summer of 2018, Gokada, the Nigerian Rideshare Company, was blowing up, which meant Fahim had to spend more time in Nigeria while Tirees stayed in New York. For a while, everything was fine. Tirees kept Fahim's schedule up to date, his dog fed, and his business accounts in check. But somewhere along the way, Tirees started to wonder what being Fahim would feel like. With his boss out of town, it was easy for Tirees to pass Fahim's life off as his own. He would take friends out on the town, then entertain them at Fahim's apartment. He even pretended that Fahim's dog was his, and things only escalated from there. By that fall, Tirees was funneling money from Fahim's accounts into his own.

He made them look like normal business transactions, so they wouldn't be detected. Then he used that money to pay off family debts and fund his own high-flying lifestyle. But Tirees was walking a thin line, and soon, Several of Fahim's other employees and associates sounded the alarm. At that point, they didn't know the full depth of Tirees' deception. However, they could tell something was going on. And when Fahim looked into their claims, he agreed. He fired Tirees in May of 2019.

But that wasn't the end of the story. On January 10, 2020, Fahim emailed his former assistant asking about a $35,000 transaction that was made from his account. Four hours later, Tyrese responded. He said the charges were probably because of a clerical error. Fahim wasn't convinced. He demanded an explanation. A few days later, Tyrese came clean. He told Fahim he needed to pay off some debts and profusely apologized. Fahim could have gotten the police involved, but that's not the kind of person he was. Instead, he gave Tyrese an out. They would keep him. keep up a strict payment plan until the money was paid off.

Tyrese eventually cleared his debt, but Fahim had no idea it was just the tip of the iceberg, because Tyrese hadn't just stolen $35,000 from him, he'd taken an additional $400,000. With that kind of money on the line, Tyrese knew his time was running out, so he decided to get rid of his problem before it was too late. On the morning of July 13, 2020, 33-year-old Fahim left his luxury Manhattan condo to go for a run. While he was out, 21-year-old Tirees entered the building behind someone else. He was wearing an all-black outfit and a dark face covering. Tyrese spent hours waiting in a stairwell with a knife and a taser gun hidden in his jacket.

When he saw Fahim enter the lobby, Tyrese snuck out of the stairwell. and followed his former boss into the elevator. During the ride up to Fahim's floor, they even made small talk for a bit. Fahim didn't seem to recognize Tairis behind the mask. Because Fahim's apartment took up the entire seventh floor, the doors opened directly into the condo, and as soon as Fahim stepped inside, so did Tirees. Before Fahim knew what was happening,

Tyrese fired the taser gun, sending Fahim to be airste to the ground. Fahim fought back, but eventually Tirees overpowered him. He stabbed Fahim five times in the neck and torso. Then he used a handheld vacuum to suck up the anti-felon ID tags that had been ejected from the Taser. These are little pieces of confetti with the Taser's serial number, which allows law enforcement to track who fired it. Except Tyrese missed one. The next day, Tirees went to home depot and bought disinfectant and a power saw using Fahim's credit card. Then he returned to Fahim's apartment to get rid of the evidence. He started by dismembering Fahim's body. But halfway through, the saw's battery died, and Tyrese left to go get a new one. While he was away, Fahim's cousin

arrived at his apartment looking for him. She used her copy of the key fob to get inside, and as soon as the doors opened, she saw his body, with his arms and head cut off. Fahim's cousin called the police, and by the time Tirees came back, a crowd was swarming the building. Tirees walked in the opposite direction, hoping to escape suspicion. But it wouldn't take long for the authorities to figure out who had murdered Fahim Saleh. Tirees didn't know he'd left that single anti-felon ID tag on the floor. When police traced the serial number, they learned the taser gun had been purchased by Tyrese Haspell. And the more they dug into Tyrese's finances, the more they realized, he had a reason to get rid of his boss. Tyrese was arrested on July 17, 2020, four days after the murder. He pleaded

not guilty. Tyrese claimed he was in a state of extreme emotional distress when he killed Fahim, and therefore, not responsible for his actions. The jury didn't buy it. In June of 2024, 25-year-old Tyrese was convicted of first-degree murder and grand larceny. Tyrese's attorney argued for a reduced sentence, only for Tyrese to ask the judge for life in prison. It seemed like Tyrese wanted to take responsibility for his actions, and in the end, he was given 40 years to life. Fahim Saleh's murder sent shockwaves through the tech community. High-level entrepreneurs were already worried about being targeted for their wealth.

The fact that Fahim's killer was someone he trusted only made the rest of the industry more anxious. And it wasn't long until everyone started wondering, who was next? Dead on a doorstep, gone after a hike, vanished without a phone, wallet, or trace. 12 of America's top scientists with ties to classified programs and not a single explanation. This is Vanessa, host of Crime House 24-7. These weren't random people. They held secrets most Americans will never know about, and someone, or something, is making them disappear. One researcher texted a friend before she was found dead.

Quote, if you see a report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not, end quote. Since then, the case. cases have only multiplied. Now Congress is demanding answers from the FBI, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. And the question nobody can answer is simple. Who is targeting America's scientists? And that's just the surface. We're going deeper on Crime House 24-7, where we cover Breaking True Crime News daily, follow Crime House 24-7 wherever you listen to podcasts. So you never miss what happens next. Vahim Saleh's story ended in New York, but a lot of other tech bros get their start in Silicon Valley. This wealthy enclave in and around California's Bay Area is where companies like

Apple, Google, and Mehta have their headquarters. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of people in Silicon Valley, those with a vision, and the engineers who turn that vision into reality. Bob Lee was one of the rare people who could do both. Bob was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1979. He grew up during the personal computing boom and became fascinated by the technology, but he didn't just want to use it. He wanted to push it forward.

By the time he was in high school, Bob programmed his own 3D graphics engine before graphics cards were even released to the public. But Bob wasn't just a computer geek. He was also a talented athlete. His high school friends called him crazy Bob because of his high-energy plays during water polo. The nickname would stick with him for the rest of his life, and his water polo abilities would earn him a scholarship to Southeast

Missouri State University. Like a lot of major tech figures, Bob eventually dropped out of college, but he was still committed to making his mark on the world. Bob first made a name for himself in 2001 when a computer worm known as Code Red was infiltrating Microsoft servers and spruce. spreading malware. Bob coded a fix for the worm, nicknamed Code Red Vigilante, and released it to the public for free. This helped Bob get a job as a technical architect for AT&T, and it wasn't long before he made his way to Silicon Valley. In 2004, Bob got a job as a software engineer at Google's Mountain View headquarters. This was around the time the company started to expand beyond search engines, and Bob dove right in. He played a major role in the development of the mobile Android operating system.

Within a few years, Bob had established himself as one of Google's best engineers, and by 2009, he was leading the entire core libraries team, which was responsible for developing, maintaining, and evolving Google's software. With that kind of resume, it wasn't long until other companies took notice of Bob's abilities. In 2010, when he was 31, Bob was recruited by the company. by the e-commerce company Square and became their chief technology officer. There, he co-created Cash App, which now boasts over $280 billion a year in transactions. It was an incredible accomplishment, the kind that many tech bros can only dream of.

For Bob, it was the crowning moment of his career, and afterwards, he was ready for a new challenge. In 2014, he left Square and Cash App. Instead of continuing to work for a big corporation, Bob started investing in different startups. He also used his experience in financial technology to become a major player in the world of cryptocurrency. In just over a decade, Bob had gone from a low-level software engineer to one of Silicon Valley's biggest success stories. But Bob had another side to him, one that he didn't advertise. Despite his clean-cut reputation, Crazy Bob liked to party, and the wealthier he got, the bigger his parties became. Things only got more hectic when he and his wife separated in 2019.

That's when he allegedly got involved in what people called the lifestyle. Supposedly, this was a high-level underground party circuit in San Francisco involving designer drugs and casual sex. That's how Bob met Nima Momeni. Nima Momeni was born in Tehran, Iran in 1984. Growing up, Nima's father was incredibly abusive to him and his family, and by the time Nima was 14, his mother had hit her breaking point. She took Nima and his younger sister, Hazar, and escaped to San Francisco. It was a big change, but Nima fit right in.

He had a gift for technology and taught himself how to do IT work. When he was 21, those skills got to be. him hired at different tech companies around the Bay Area. Five years later, Nima launched his own IT consulting firm called Expand IT. Despite Nima's abilities, his company struggled to take off. It didn't help that the next year, in 2011, he was arrested for having a switchblade in his possession, a misdemeanor offense in California. Nima took a plea deal the following year, and the charges were dropped, but his reputation was permanently damaged. Even then, Nima did his best to take care of his tight-knit family.

He helped pay for his mother's education to become a dental hygienist and later bought her a BMW. But there was one person Nima was especially protective of, his younger sister, Hazar. In 2013, Hazar married Dr. Dino Eliasnia, one of the most successful plastic surgeons in the Bay Area. Dino's money and their open relationship completely. completely changed Hazar's life. She and Dino moved into separate apartments in the Ritzie Millennium Tower, and Hazar started partying full-time, living the lifestyle. There were plenty of other people doing the same thing, including Nima and Bob Lee.

Hazar met Bob at the Battery, an exclusive private club in 2015. It's not clear if Bob was also in an open marriage, but he and Hazar began a casual sexual relationship that lasted years. They regularly met in the city's most expensive hotels and high-rises for late-night hookups. And after Bob and his wife, separated in 2019, his relationship with Hazar got more serious. It lasted until October 2022 when Bob moved to Miami, Florida to help his widowed father. But that wasn't the last time he saw Hazar. In the spring of 2023, Bob was back in the Bay Area to see one of his kids,

in a production of High School Musical. While he was there, he called Hazar on April 1st at around 4 a.m. He asked if he could come over to her apartment. They seemingly spent the morning together, and the next night, Bob returned to Hazar's place. But this time, he wasn't alone. He brought his drug dealer, Jeremy Boyvin. Hazar said that she and Bob ingested acid, cocaine, nitrous oxide, ketamine, and alcohol.

But apparently, Jeremy took things a step further. After partying all night, Jeremy invited Hazar and a friend to his apartment to do some LSD. A few hours later, Bob and a friend showed up to party. When they left, Hazar didn't want to be alone with Jeremy, so she called a girlfriend to come over. But when she arrived, Jeremy gave both women shots of GHB, which is often used as a date-raped drug. According to Hazar, she passed out. And that's when Jeremy sexually assaulted her. When Hazar came to, hours later, she was distraught.

She texted her brother to come pick her up. Once Nima learned what happened to her, he was furious. But he wasn't just angry with Jeremy. Bob Lee had been the one who introduced Hazar to Jeremy, and Nima would make Bob pay for bringing him into Hazar's life. So that evening, after Hazar and Nia, Nima returned to her apartment, Nima called Bob Lee and started yelling. Bob tried to calm him down, but it was no use, so Bob went right over to Hazar's place to talk things out in person.

Nima was still furious, and he blamed Bob for what happened. Hazar then watched helplessly as her brother pulled a knife out of a kitchen drawer and threatened Bob with it. It seemed like Nima did feel better after that. He even offered to drive Bob home. Surveillance footage captured them leaving the apartment at around 2 a.m. on April 4th, taking the elevator down to Nima's white BMW and driving away. A few minutes later, Nima stopped his car in the neighborhood of Rienkhan Hill underneath the Bay Bridge. He and Bob got out of the car and had a heated conversation. According to Nima, he had made a bad joke that set Bob off. Then Nima said Bob pulled a knife on him, but he was able to wrangle it away and

stabbed Bob in the heart and the hip. Nima jumped back into his BMW and sped away, but Bob was still alive. At 2.34 a.m. he made a frantic 911 call. He said, somebody stabbed me, help me please. Those were his final words before he collapsed. Bob Lee died on the morning of April 4, 23, at 4th, 43 years old. Almost right away, major tech figures and media outlets pointed to his murder as an example of urban crime at its most extreme. They believed that Bob had been killed because of his wealth in a random attack. Some people even linked Bob's death with Fahim Saleh's years earlier. Those narratives were disproven when Nima Momeni was arrested on April 12, 2023. That's when the world learned that Bob Lee hadn't been killed by him.

someone who hated his success, he was killed by a fellow tech bro with millions of dollars to his name. After a lengthy trial, Nima was convicted of second-degree murder. He hasn't been sentenced as of this recording, but he'll probably face 16 years to life in prison. Even then, the people who used Bob Lee's death to promote their narrative weren't done. In their minds, a pattern had been established. Tech bros were under attack. And something had to be done to stop it. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency.

We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, software engineers weren't exactly considered cool. Even as computers started to dominate culture, the people who built them stayed mostly in the shadows.

That all changed in the age of social media when the concept of a tech bro started to emerge. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat were all founded and led by young white men, many of whom dropped out of college to focus on their startups. In the mid-2010s, during the tech boom, companies like these were dubbed the Silicon Valley Boys Club, because women weren't getting the same opportunities as their male counterparts. In the wake of the Me Too movement and other initiatives, that culture started to shift ever so slightly.

Even then, the disparity between men and women in tech remained clear. A 2024 report found that women in civilization, Silicon Valley made 82 cents for every dollar that a man made. A lot of brave and intelligent women have set out to change that, like Pava La Pair. Pava was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1997, and started college at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland in 2015. At first, she thought she wanted to become a doctor. But over time, she changed her tune. She fell in love with Baltimore, and its small tech industry. While at Johns Hopkins, she studied computer science for three years before switching her major

to sociology. The shift might have been surprising to some, but Pava saw a direct connection between understanding social structures and building better software. In 2018, while still in undergrad, Pava co-founded EcoMap Technologies, supplying better artificial intelligence customer support tools to major companies, Pava wanted to give customers faster, more precise answers when they needed help. Around the same time she started ECOMAP, Pava also co-founded Innovate Maryland, a nonprofit offering resources to Maryland's underprivileged student entrepreneurs. When Paa graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2019, she knew what she wanted to do

with her life. She continued to grow eco-map and innovate Maryland, and before long, she got the recognition she deserved. In 2023, when she was 26, her work landed her on the Forbes' 30-under-30 list in the social impact category. She hoped to use the newfound attention to change how the tech world operated. Sadly, she never got the chance, because a few months later, Paava came across the person who would take everything from her. Jason Billingsley was born in Baltimore in 1990 or 1991. Not much has been made public about him, but from 2009 to 2013, he was charged with three different assaults and spent most of that time in prison. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to another

first-degree sex offense. That was supposed to get him 30 years behind bars, but a plea deal suspended 16 years of his sentence. In October 2022, after serving seven years, Jason, who was 31 or 32 by then, was released on good behavior. Less than a year later, on September 19, 2023, he committed his next crime, and it was more brutal than any of his others. That day, Jason broke into an apartment in the building where he did maintenance work. He held a woman and her boyfriend at gunpoint and tied them up before repeatedly sexually assaulting her. Jason then slit the woman's throat before spraying the couple with lighter fluid and setting them on fire. The couple managed to survive, but Jason escaped the building before authorities arrived,

which meant he was free to find his next victim. Unfortunately, Pavel LaPere just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Three days after brutally attacking that couple, on September 22nd, 2023, Jason spotted 27-year-old Pava out in Baltimore. He tracked her for a while before eventually following her back home. He watched as she entered her building, then sat on a couch in the lobby. At that point, he made his move. Jason signaled to Pava from outside, pretending like he'd lost his keys. Pava, who assumed the best in everyone, didn't question him. She let Jason inside the building.

After that, she entered the elevator and Jason followed. About an hour later, Jason was seen exiting the building and wiping his hands on his shorts. Pava's body was discovered on the roof of the building three days later. Her cause of death was strangulation and blunt force trauma. Jason had used a brick as a weapon. Police were already looking for him after his previous attack, but Pava's death triggered a statewide manhunt. Authorities spent days tracing his phone until eventually he disabled the tracking feature. At one point, police got within 300 feet of him before he disappeared, but he couldn't run forever. On the morning of September 28th, a SWAT team

caught Jason at a train station in Bowie, Maryland, about 30 miles outside of Baltimore. In the aftermath of Pava's murder, both the Maryland Department of Corrections and the Baltimore Police Department received a lot of criticism. Residents wanted to know why they'd let Jason out of prison early when he clearly wasn't rehabilitated. They also wanted to know why the Baltimore PD hadn't publicized Jason's previous attack. The authorities apparently didn't have an answer for either of those questions, but they were committed to never letting him go free again. In August 24, Jason pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Pava's case. He also pleaded guilty to charges of sexual assault, attempted murder, and arson from the other case. He was

given three life sentences, two to be served simultaneously. Jason won't be eligible for parole until 2083. He would be 93 years old by then. Pava's murder also led to some major changes to Maryland's justice system. After her death, Governor Wes Moore signed a new bill into law, restricting sex offenders from getting reduced sentences due to good behavior. What happened to Pava had another unintended consequence. She had dedicated her life to disrupting the tech industry and getting more women involved. Instead, after her death, she was lumped in with other tech bro murders, and assigned a label that she'd fought so hard to change. The media and those in the industry pointed to Pava's murder as yet another example of a leader in tech being targeted because of

their success. But the truth is, we still don't know what Jason's motive was. There's no evidence that Pava was assaulted or robbed. All signs point to a severely disturbed individual whose only aim was senseless violence. The TechBrow murder's frenzy reached its peak in the aftermath of Pabala Lepere's death, but in the two years since, that narrative has started to shift. It's easy to see why Fahim Saleh's murder made headlines. It's a salacious story, and it seemed like an obvious example of violent crime being committed against the 1%. But the truth was, Fahim's murder was personal.

Tyrese Hasbill was one of Fahim's closest friends and most trusted employees. Similarly, Bob Lee and Nima Momeni ran in the same circles, and their tech-brough lifestyles directly contributed to Bob's death. Pava LaPere was the only tech industry murder that was truly random. But knowing the kind of person she was, she wouldn't have wanted her death to contribute to the narrative that urban crime is running rampant, and the data shows it isn't. In the early months of 2025, New York City saw the lowest number of shootings and murders in recorded history. In Baltimore, murders and non-fatal

shootings have declined by 50% since 2003, and in 2024, San Francisco's homicide rate was the second lowest it's been since at least 1966. In the end, the only similarities between Fahim Saleh, Bob Lee, and Pavel Laper were their line of work. But the media tried to fit them all into the same box anyway. Doing so only hurt the families of the victims and lessened the impact of their deaths. It makes me wonder what the TechBrow Murder's storyline is really about. What do you all think? Do these deaths fit a certain pattern? And could any of them have been prevented? Tell us in the comments. Whatever the truth is, one thing is clear.

The people behind the apps and software we use every day have the power to change the world. But sometimes, even that level of influence isn't enough to escape violence. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes. Come back next time. We'll decode the episode together and hear another story about the real, people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies, and criminal acts. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is a crimehouse original, powered by Pave Studios.

Here at Crimehouse, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Conspiracy Theory's cults and crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your conspiracy theories cults and crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad-free. We'll be back next Wednesday. Conspiracy Theory's Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and is a crime house

original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theory's Cults and Times team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pritzowski, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Jake Natureman, Leah Roche, and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening. Dead on a doorstep, gone after a hike, vanished without a phone, wallet, or trace. Twelve of America's top scientists with ties to classified programs and not a single explanation. This is Vanessa, host of crime house 24-7. These weren't random people. They held secrets most Americans will never know about, and someone, or something, is making them disappear. One researcher texted a friend before she was found dead. Quote, if you see a report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not, end quote.

Since then, the cases have only multiplied. Now Congress is demanding answers from the FBI, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. And the question nobody can answer. answer is simple. Who is targeting America's scientists? And that's just the surface. We're going deeper on Crimehouse 24-7, where we cover breaking true crime news daily, follow Crime House 24-7 wherever you listen to podcasts. So you never miss what happens next.