Rotten Mango - #165: The Taxi Driver & The Missing Girls In Mexico (Case of Debanhi Escobar)

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

The woman leaped to her death - plunging her body into the cold water of the river. She left a note that said “to my devil husband, I can only commit suicide to expose your crime and to tell the world about my helplessness.” It shocked the nation. She had been married to one of the richest, most powerful men in the nation. What did he do? And how does that connect to the haunting last picture of a woman that lives 7,168 miles away? The one that vanished after a suspicious taxi ride. Her driver even took a haunting last picture of her before she was killed. How are these two women connected? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com 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

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or pay to description starting at 12.99 per month. Better being Berbu.

Welcome to this week's main episode of Rotten Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and have you ever been to the Han River in South Korea. Yes I have. Okay, alright, what a flux. It's almost like a bucket list for people to go when they visit Korea. We went a few years back. It was, you know, it's not the most spectacular view, but it's really special. They have these convenience stores along the river. You can grab little romans, try and go keempap drinks.

You make the ramen inside the 7-11. You bring it out in this hot aluminum pan and you start sitting, slurping it down by the river. You see the sparkling soul, city lights, and you drink with your friends. It's K-Drama level activity. But what about the Han River Bridge? There's many of them, I believe 28 to be exact. So 28 different bridges,

connecting the two different parts of Seoul through the Han River. I imagine if I was on that bridge I mean we've driven across it but if I were walking I imagine seeing the river seeing the city lights the slight breeze in your hair it maybe it's a particularly clear day maybe you can see the mountains in the back it sounds wonderful it sounds beautiful, right? But it's also a place of death for a lot of people. Lee, Meedun, being one of them. September 1st of 2016.

Meedun had walked along the side of the Han River Grand Bridge. Now, I can't really imagine what went through her mind in those last moments, but she felt that the only thing that she could do was close her eyes, hoist herself up above the railing, and jump into the plunging cold waters to her death. She left behind her husband, her family, everything. A lot of people take their lives on the Han River bridges

that doesn't make life less meaningful. No one's life meant more than the others, but why did this person's death? Why does Lee Midhan's death, keyword eventually, why does it eventually cost so much outrage? So much controversy and honestly it just gripped the whole nation. Is there something about it? My parents remember this incident. It's something that most citizens in Korea just aren't going to forget. Maybe it was the letter that she left behind.

The seven page note that read, To my devil husband, I can only commit suicide to expose your crimes and to tell the world about my helplessness. Maybe it was the fact that our husband that she wrote about was Pang-young-hun. The second son of the chairman of Korea Daily newspaper. So it was the fact that her husband that she wrote about was Pang Yeong-hoon, the second son of the chairman of Korea Daily newspaper. Otherwise known as Choseon Il-bo from Choseon Media, one of the largest media companies in all of South Korea, one of the most powerful families to just exist, to reside in this

entire country. The Choseon Il-bo, well I guess if you're Korean, it's the Chosun Ilbo, it's one of the oldest daily newspapers ever created in the country. I mean this is not just any family that we're talking about. The husband at one point was the Korean hotel CEO. So not only does the family have media control, they own this powerful, you know, enterprise of hotels. Many people refer to Lee Miran as Madame Choseon or Hotel Madame. She was part of what's known as the Choseon Royal Family. Wow.

So why would she want to take her life? I mean, she had the money. She had the power, influence, respect. She was living in the top 1% of the 1% of the 1% in South Korea. These are one of the wealthiest families in South Korea. Why on earth would she want to take her own life? What did the note mean? Did the CEO of Korean hotels do something that bad?

But that's not the only story today. We're getting into another one, but just let me tell you about the Han Bridges first. From 2012 to 2016, there had been at least one attempted suicide case per day, from jumping off one of the many Han bridges. The Han River bridges see more suicide than any other place in the entire country, which side note suicides in South Korea or a whole other conversation, in 2019 out of 100,000 citizens, 28.6 people took their lives. South Korea ranked fourth in the top 10 developed countries with the

highest suicide rates. The government had to start what they called the Bridge of Life project in 2012, where at first they decided, well, how do we stop these people from jumping to their death on these bridges? It's not a good luck for us. We need to save these lives. So how they did it was, they would pit these reassuring messages on the hand railings. They would say things like, have you been eating alright? Let's walk together. The breeze feels nice, doesn't it? The best part of your life is yet to come. The idea was it was going to make you feel less alone. It was going to make you feel comforted. Some of them even tried to combat depression with humor by saying things like did you know all gorillas have blood type B? I wonder.

Okay. Yeah, you like is this effective? Listen, I don't know, but I didn't see a picture and these have all been taken down since then, but there were talks that some of them even said things like are you good at swimming? Wereres are nothing. No way. Doesn't it feel good to be outside walking on the bridge?

Apparently some of them just threw pictures of food on there. One of them is called Mapao Bridge, so they put a Mapa tofu pictures on the bridge. I'm laughing because why? Like their idea is how can you be depressed when you're looking at this wonderful dish? And since we're talking about rich families of South Korea, this endeavor was taken on by Samsung life insurance. So it's a bunch of privileged rich people thinking, how do we save the middle class? Mopatofu. Obviously, it wasn't that effective. These were later taken down. They also installed motion-activated lights near the railings. So during nighttime, you wouldn't be in complete darkness if you walked along the sides of the bridge. They even created these sculptures to sit on benches

across the bridge. One of them was a gold-colored statue showing a man wiping another man's tears. It was supposed to be heartwarming, endearing to show you that you have hope, but since the initial efforts of Bridge of Life, Suicide's actually multiplied on the bridges by six times. Yeah, six times or two sites. When they started putting pictures and doing all this. Uh-huh. It seems that all the marketing that they did about the Bridge of Life project,

the government and Samsung have essentially fed into the idea that people go to the bridges to end their lives. It's said that showering depressed people with obnoxiously positive sayings only makes them more depressed, makes with the publicity of the bridge efforts, it's like the strison effect. All the news of the bridge, their efforts, always linking the bridge to suicide, made it an even more known place to commit suicide. As well as dubbing it the bridge of life, I mean, I don't know.

Why did they just add physical restrictions, like higher railings, nets, like everyone requested? So in 20, they just thought this was better. I don't know if it was for looks, I don't know if it was for marketing. Probably for looks, that makes sense. So they're like, this is better, let's just add some pictures of food

and fun facts about Gorilla's. Now, in 2022, most of those have been taken down. And South Korea has actually invested a lot of technology into preventing suicides on the bridge. Each bridge seems to have a slightly different suicide prevention tech. One of them has railing sensors. It can detect when someone is gripping the guardrails harder

than usual, the pressure. Some have eight-foot safety fences and guardrails. Another bridge has sensors to alert rescuers of bodies that fall underneath the bridge, and now the government is trying to test out AI. They want to set up cameras that use AI technology to determine how someone is more likely to jump, depending on their stance, their walk, their body movements. Are they wandering an area of the bridge for more than a few seconds? Are they appreciating the view or are they pacing a little bit?

So then this AI will send alerts to rescuers and security teams that are functioning 24-7, dispatch them, and hopefully it saves lives. But most of them wasn't in place when Leighmeet unjumped. September 2nd, 2016, a construction worker called the police after seeing a body floating in the Han River. It was Midan, and she was dead. But like I said, that's not the only story today. Because 7,168 miles away, we have another story that's dominating a ton of news cycles. But not enough news cycles, honestly, and it all started with a haunting picture of a Mexican girl named Debani Eskabar.

Standing, she's standing in the middle of this pitch dark highway, called the Highway of Death. Listen, that's a really scary freaking name, and it's because so many people disappeared and vanished on this highway that they called it the highway of death or death road. Debani had been dropped off by a cab driver in the middle of the night on the side of the highway of death. And oddly, bizarrely, really, he had taken this picture of her

before he quote unquote, drove off. It's the last picture of Debani, and it's haunting. She has her arms folded in front of her, like, cross her arms. Her gaze is forward. She's not looking at the camera. She's looking ahead in almost this defiant stance. Like, she's upset, like, she's not going to give someone the pleasure of looking

into the camera and smiling. Her hair and her dress are slightly flowing back from the wind. It's very dark on this side of the road. It looks incredibly dangerous. And with the pattern of her purse and her flowy skirt, in some ways it even looks like her torso is floating. The driver says he took this picture to prove that he dropped her off alive and well. So why was alive and well,

Deboni found dead in a water tank? So I know you're probably struggling to understand the connection between the two cases, but it's there if you just look close enough. But first, as always, full show notes are available at rottenminglepodcast.com. There's a ton of show notes for this episode. The Dabani case is still ongoing. There's constantly new updates, so make sure to keep your eyes out for those. And as for Midan's case,

this one was a bit harder to research since most sources were in Korean. You're gonna see that there's a lot of different powers at play, so it's really hard. In both of these cases, to get accurate information that doesn't feel altered or said differently to make it benefit one group or another, it's really hard. So this one was really hard considering the fact

that a lot of powerful people wanted meet on story suppressed. I had articles professionally translated. My sister and my mom helped me figure out a town of Korean articles. So as always, please let me know if you have any additional information. If anything gets lost in translation.

So with that being said, imagine this. You're walking down a dark alleyway. And it's not so great part of town, like it's a city area. It's quiet. Too quiet. It's nighttime. It's dark. You town like it's a CD area. It's quiet, too quiet. It's nighttime. It's dark. You feel like everybody's looking at you. Kind of staring at you.

You're like, why are they staring at me? Oh, yeah. Well, it's because you have $50,000 in cash, strap to your chest. What? They can see it. Fat stacks of hundreds. It even has the bank bill wraps.

That's a $10,000, $10,000, $10,000. And there's five of them. Just strap to your chest. You think your jacket could cover it up, but it's not really going to work. Maybe what would you do? Maybe you would avoid eye contact with people. You don't want to give them any reason to ask if it's real or talk to you or look at the money, right? Maybe just briskly walk by. Where they see it on your chest. Yeah, it's strapped to your chest. Maybe you'll cross the street to avoid anyone that you might cross paths with because, you know, just in case, maybe you're paranoid. Hopefully it's safer. You stay off your phone because you're

trying to be more alert. Maybe you even contemplate growling because I don't know. Maybe see me seeming unhinged as the best defense. Maybe you'll put your keys between your fingers so that if someone tries to grab the $50,000, you can just slice open their retinas. You probably wish you brought that pepper spray with you. You notice something happens? People might not believe you. In fact, they might even feel inclined to ask you, what the hell were you doing walking around with $50,000 dropped to your body?

I mean, shit, like you had to have known that would cause a situation, no? Why would you even do that? I mean, you were showing people that you had $50,000? Of course they would want to take it from you. It's honestly kind of your fault. Sounds terrifying, right? Well, this is what a lot of women say it's like to walk down an empty road.

This is the life of women. Whether you're born a woman or you identify as a woman, there are certain dangers that are more prevalent in a woman's life, which side note, for the men listening, I just want to say we have a really amazing community of men that just get it. Like the guys that get it, they get it. I know I have my fair share of rants about this world and literally every male supporter of ours that we've ever talked to, met in person, have exchanged emails or DMs with, has been the most supportive, respectful, compassionate human being ever. And I know that you

guys know it's not that we're saying men are never sexually victimized, men are never objectified or assaulted or don't have their fair share of struggles because they do. But it's just a fight that we're all fighting together now. These are the lives of women. So Mexico's president initially made a very tasteless comment when Dabani's body was discovered. He later changes his tune, but initially he said, women shouldn't worry about their safety. Disappearances are not exclusive to Mexico. They're happening everywhere.

Okay. Yeah, that's what he told his citizens to try to make them feel better. Like it's not just something that happens here, even if you go on vacation anywhere, it could happen there. Don't you feel safe for our already? I'm so glad bad things happen to women all over the world. But there is kind of some truth to it, because it doesn't matter your looks, your class, academic achievement, success levels,

age, family, friend group privilege, or even your geographical location, a woman's safety is almost never guaranteed, and that much is sure. So let's talk about Midan. From the limited sources that I could find, it said that Midan was born to a family of doctors. Her father and her grandfather were both very prestigious doctors.

They were often trusted by even powerful politicians to provide care. So of course for that reason, the Lee family, I mean, they're going to be very well respected in their community. There's nothing more respectful than a family full of doctors in eastern Asia. I'm just saying, okay, maybe anywhere in the world, but definitely in Korea. They were truly a family filled with academic intellectuals. They might not be the wealthiest, although don't get me wrong, they're probably very, very wealthy, but they had the respect, the the honor the envy of a ton of people so growing up in

this type of house I mean there was a lot of emphasis on education for Midan it seemed she did really well and when she graduated from college she meets this guy named Pang Yong Hun I'm just gonna call him Yang who is a Teboan essentially just means you're born into wealth and I'm not just talking rich I'm not just talking Lamborghini's and you know Louis Vuitton. I am talking This is a term that is reserved for the top 1% of the 1% the families behind the global brands like Samsung Lotte LG noong shim and yeah Chosen able the newspaper company. Like generation old money?

This is, yeah, this is like the true definition of old money. I would liken these families to being a part of the Zuckerberg Muskates Bezos kids. Like this is what you're dealing with. Yeah, but it's different in Korea and in Asia, because they have different type of treatments. Yeah, so it's kind of crazy.

Like if you were to watch Elon Musk walk through a mall, you might have like his fans come up to him or people who want to be like, why are you buying Twitter? You know, come up to him. But if you were to see a Samsung dude, one of the Samsung Royal Family members walk through a mall, I'm talking 90 degree bows from pretty much every employee,

they would run out of their little retail store Into the hallway of the mall to just bow their forehead onto the ground. It's like you're truly royalty You're not just rich. You're not just a CEO. You are royalty. I mean, it's it's kind of crazy They're not as rich as the Zuckerberg's musk skates and bezos, but you know, they have a crazy level of power and money. Now, a lot of people said that when Miran met Young, it was kind of this instant connection. Miran was beautiful and young and intelligent, and she had this way about her that was just incredibly graceful.

Young, on the other hand, he comes from the powerful Bang family, the Chuseon Royal family, and of course, I think him showing any attention to any woman is gonna make her feel some butterflies. It's like a princess singling you out in the crowd. Like why does he notice you? You start getting, oh my gosh, what's going on? It's like a movie. And on paper they were the perfect match. Young, a handsome young allegedly talented man from a mega wealthy powerful family, and

to tame him, to humanize him and the eyes of the public is this elegant woman who didn't grow up with luxuries, but rather, her family is filled with gentle, soft, spoken, well-respected doctors. This is literally on paper, a match made in heaven. In the news, she's like the Amal Clooney. That's like a good comparison, you know? So the person that would come in, make sure that this guy lives a good humble life, even

though he's already rolling in copious amounts of money and is born with a silver spoon perpetually stuck in his mouth, she's gonna do something for him. And I think that's what Mida probably thought too. She had no idea that this marriage would effectively open the gates of hell. She knew it wasn't gonna be easy. To be part of such a cutthroat, powerful family, I mean, it's not gonna be a walk in the park, but she loved young, and I think that's what she thought

would carry her through all the hard times. That is till the love were off, and I had nothing to do with Meadon. But it just had everything to do with the short attention span of young. Then all that Meadon was left with was a controlling husband, who by the way was super traditional. I mean, regardless of who he was and what family he belonged to, he was a traditional dude that believed regardless of status and finances, wives should obey their husbands

blindly. He wasn't the only one. Apparently, the whole BANG family was kind of like that. They were incredibly controlling. I mean, she just had a lot of immediate family members that were down her throat non-stop. And the first thing that she needed to do, and she knew this because any girl entering this position would know this. Your power and how much say you have in this family matters on how many kids you have. How many sons you have? How many errors you can produce? How many shots at the throne do you have?

Oh, this one's not that smart? That's fine. Have 10 more. One of them's got to be better than the nephews and nieces, right? One of them's got to be the best lead. Then, when my husband's fucking dead, steps down, my son takes over, I can live a purely luxurious life. Where I call the shots, because that's my son.

So that was the first issue. She's expected to be a breeding machine. I mean, it's in her best interest to be a breeding machine, the more children, the better, the more standing you have. So she's popping out baby after baby and okay fine, maybe if her husband's not loving, maybe he's always working. She can still go, like, are we really feeling bad for her? She can still go shopping with his millions of dollars. She's got nannies, go to Pilates, live her best life. Stay at home, mom. Well, now, really,

young was incredibly ruthless and cheap with his money. Meadun had to ask for every single penny that she could spend, whether it was on her life necessities and maybe some small luxuries like clothes, food, makeup, because at the end of the day, no matter how cheap young was, he needed her to keep up with appearances. But she would even have to ask money for the kids.

She would have to ask for school supply money, for textbooks, money for the kids' meals, every little single thing. I mean, this guy is part of the Chosen Royal Family for Christ's sake. Sometimes when young was being especially petty, he would demand to meet on, write down every single thing that she put in a journal that she bought Even down to how much she spent on like a stalk of green onions and since the family conglomerate owned supermarkets as well He would critique her if he was like wait green onions at this supermarket that we have we sell it for this price Why would you go there and get it? That is crazy Take a game. He's just like this price. Why would you go there and get it? That is crazy. Take a game.

He's just like trying to like power. Oh yeah, he's definitely just power. It's controlling. Now fast forward to 2004. The couple's kids are growing up and they've always wanted to study abroad. I think young himself studied abroad if I'm not mistaken. I think he graduated from Ohio State University. So that's cool.

Now since meet-ons older sister lived in Canada, they thought, why don't we send the kids there? I mean, they'll always have an aunt to look after them, it'll be great. I guess Young was feeling generous because he loved the idea and he immediately wired 5 billion one to MEDAN. That's about 4 million US dollars. Wow. Which sounds excessive. But again, the Chose-on-Earbow royal family, their kids are going to be attending some of

the finest institutions. They need visas, living expenses. You think they're going to live in crappy dorms now, way? All of their daily expenses, their tuition, all of that had to be covered for the entire study abroad years. And they needed it. These kids were not the brightest, allegedly, according according to sources and not me don't sue me But they were not the brightest academically speaking. They were too busy partying

So they were flunking out of classes and a ton of that four million dollars was used to get the kids into good colleges and Keep them from flailing out bribery essentially allegedly And so while the kids are gone, it's that the couple seem to be doing okay. Or at least we don't know anything about happening. You know, we don't know as the public, we don't know as even Korean citizens. There's some scandals here on there, but it's nothing too crazy. It wasn't until the kids graduated and came back to Korea that the secrets start

kind of leaking out. Some sources say that it all happened because of the kids. Young is sitting there and is like, Meadun, you need to pay me that $4 million back. And she's like, what are you talking about? That was for the kids' education. No, it wasn't. I was going to give that money to the kids. That was part of their inheritance and you stole it from them. And you spent it. I don't know what you blew it on, but you blew that money and I need it back. What? Yeah, which is wild when you think about it on, but you blew that money and I need it back. What? Yeah, which is wild when you think about it because these are your kids too.

Meadon was forced to quit any professional pursuits when she married Young because he demanded that she be a housewife. Where do you think that she's going to get that money back? Some sources say that Young was suspicious of Meadon and thought that she gave the money to her parents and they were keeping it. Which like side note her parents or doctors, they really didn't need money and second of all. Let's say she did, none of this is going to justify what happens next. I mean, you're part of the Chosen Royal family.

You can't even take care of your in-laws. And he just keeps arguing there's no way the kids needed that much money in Canada. Now this fight, or if it was this fight, coupled with a bunch of other things and it was like this massive pile up, I'm not sure. It gets violent pretty quick. Young severely beats Meadun. And with all the bruising on her body, he knows that she has to be contained. I mean, she has to be controlled. If she's given a chance out, she might take it and she might tell the world what her husband did. He might even have to be the front page of his family's newspaper. He's like, I can't risk this. So he locks up his wife of 33 years in the basement for the next four months.

He refused to letter up. Nobody was allowed to visit her without his permission. Nobody was allowed to letter upstairs or even provide her food without his permission. What's wild? And this is really going to show you the difference between the privileged and America versus places like South Korea. What's wild is that they still had staff at home.

They still had, you know, their housekeeper, their chef, everybody was at home that saw her locked up in the basement, getting beat. Later, the housekeeper would testify, whenever Mr. Bang or Young came home in a good mood, he would give his wife two sweet potatoes and two eggs for the day. That was it. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he would throw her down into the basement, beat her, and throw down whatever rotten food we had in the house. Sometimes he would just stop giving her food in general for a few days.

I knew that she was starving because, for days, she'd be so hungry and I could smell this rotting smell from her mouth. I know you're like, wait, Stephanie, The kids though, the kids could save their mom. Maybe they're on vacation, but surely when they get back, I mean, maybe they're working, but surely when they get back, maybe they moved out, but surely when they get back, they will take their mom away from their evil father. The kids were home the whole time. They knew what was going on. In fact, they would throw parties on the

first floor drinking and eating and laughing and having a blast. And their mom, Mrs. Lee, was locked in the basement starving. How old are the kids? Oh, they're like in their 20s. So they must be charged to them. Yeah. They're part of the crime. Yeah, you're like, I mean, how do you do that to your own mother? I mean, let alone a person, but your own mother, how does that even make sense? Great. So it's said that in a lot of these royal families in Korea, they like to build these competitive atmospheres at home.

The kids are somewhat pit against each other, so they can do better over-perform, exceed expectations, and out of them, they'll pick the best to be the heir. See who deserves a spot on the throne, type of vibe. I know, so serious. It's honestly so goofy when you think about it. Like you're a family. Not what are you doing?

Well, young had turned the kids against their own mom. Some reports say that he told the kids that the $4 million that I gave your mom was not for school. She didn't use it on your school. It was part of your inheritance, and she stole it from you guys and blew it all. And these greedy little kids who have never really worked a day in their life were pissed because their part of their inheritance was stolen by their own mother.

And they're like, wow, I hate my mom. She is a thief. They kept calling her a thief, by the way. It's also said that young told the kids, whoever gets the money back gets a shot at more family power and property. Allegedly, that is the environment that these kids, I mean it's almost like this competition this game of, whoever can be more sadistic to their own mom would be Daddy's favorite. And Daddy's got all the power, he's got all the influence, so go at it.

Do you know how many kids there are? I think there's four. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in there. Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's going to catch us? What a police. It was the height of the crack era, and instead of locking up drug dealers, some New York

City cops had become them. I would suit up in my uniform and we're going to want some drug dealers and I know how to do it really well. This is the inside story of the biggest police corruption scandal in NYPD history and the investigation that uncovered it all. Did you consider yourself a rat? 100% I saved my soul just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey originals documentary podcast series available now

in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. Now, allegedly, this was a huge reason that they would always fight anyway, the couple I'm talking Miran and Young, because Miran hated how the kids were being raised. She was raised with really strict morals. I mean, she comes from, like I said, a family of doctors who are very, very keen on keeping good standing with each other in the community, and having a sense of wanting to help others and what's right and what's wrong.

But whenever her kids were in trouble, for things as dangerous as drunk driving, their dad would bail them out. And instead of saying, hey son, don't ever do that again. Or even a, hey son, you're gonna embarrass our family name, don't you dare do that again. He would say, don't worry about it. The police are my idiots, they're my ponds, Chosen your broken, cover anything up.

So she's like, what? You're, this is the most horrendous thing that you could do in raising kids. And I say allegedly, but I'm very inclined to believe this because this family has another scandal involving a ten-year-old girl who literally makes a 60-year-old employee cry. Oh, we're going to get into it in a little bit. Now, the kids, they had no problems with humiliating

and sometimes even beating their own mother. They called her a thief. They would throw her back into the basement whenever she asked for food. They even talked to their father and said, what if we send her to a mental hospital? We could all come together and say she's got mental issues. And of course the hospital and everyone is going to take our word over hers. I mean, look at you, you're the Korean hotel CEO.

And then she could just die in the hospital. Be sedated to death and nobody will even know. Eventually she'll probably lose her mind. We never have to deal with her again. Oh, maybe we could even send her to a mental hospital abroad. It's even harder because she can't even speak the language. At one point they do try to drag her to a mental hospital. But Mira knew the moment that she was put in the care of a hospital like that she would

be done for. There's no getting out. So she grabbed onto everything and everyone in the house so they couldn't drag her out. It said that she grabbed onto the couch so hard that her nails broke off. And allegedly her kids were screaming, cut off her hands, cut off her hands. Mita called her sister, she ran to her phone, called her sister, who called the police. And when the police showed up at the door, they saw who the family was. They saw the house, the neighborhood, and the police decided, well, it's happening

inside the house. There's no burglar, there's no third party. It's a family dispute then. You know, the closest, most loving families fight the most, right? Am I right? That's what they say. So we're just going to leave y'all to it. No need to have us involved.

Have a good one. Because Mi-Dun couldn't fight back, I mean, she was sent to the hospital. And there they took pictures of all the bruises she had, and there were a lot. There was bruising and wounds all over her arms, thighs, everywhere. And Mi-Dun's still being the mom that she was.

She thought of her kids, the ones that never ever thought of her, and she lied and told the hospital staff that she heard herself. So after they dropped her off, the kids and the husband just kind of leave the hospital, I guess they really didn't care. So somehow she convinces the hospital to let her go in the care of her own mom and not her kids and her husband. So now Meadon is with her mom. And I, I'm sure her mom knew a lot of what was going on, but it seemed to be really out and about now. The first thing her family realized, being a family of doctors, is that none of these

wounds were from a fall or a slip or a self-harm. They were all inflicted on her. They would not buy Mita's story that she fell and hurt herself. So for the next 10 days, Mita hid out in her mom's house, not really knowing her next move. I mean, what could she do? Call the police? Young would easily shut them down and they would do nothing.

They were practically nobody's in the grand scheme of things. Could she what? Contact a journalist? Most of them work for Chosan Yibo, and if they don't, they're not gonna burn that bridge. Holy cow. Her husband is just gonna control the news, control the media. Her kids are up against her.

Everyone's, it's her against the world. They're gonna say she's crazy. She had no idea what to do. I mean, it's doubtful that her husband is gonna let her leave live peacefully at her mom's house and maybe even let her get a divorce. Also, side note, she did want a divorce and she tried to divorce him, but her family said, any time she went to a divorce attorney, young had already got to them first and said,

if you take my wife's case, you will never work again. And I'll make sure of it. So she couldn't even get a lawyer to represent her. Nobody was taking her case. And me and I was right, ten days of hiding in her mom's house, they heard loud banging on the door. Someone was trying to cut down the door with a freaking hammer. Well, I mean, sometimes it's described as a hammer, but it was more like an ice axe. You know, I'm talking about not an actual axe, but an ice-pick axe.

So Mi-Dunce getting desperate, she doesn't know what to do. She probably felt like she couldn't hide at her mom's house forever. And there's actually this haunting last image of her on the CCTV. She's in the elevator, heading down to her car, which she will then drive to the Han River. And she just looks so tired is the word. Now it's not said if she wrote her suicide note in the car or if she wrote it beforehand, but the note didn't include all the details of her abuse, as well as this. I can't bear to see everyone being tortured. However, how can I win pang yang hun of Choseon Ibu? I want to live, but I can do nothing about it. I'm

afraid of death, but I'm more afraid of my husband's cruelty. At least as long as I'm dead, my children won't have to suffer. So it seems like even in the last moment, she's still cared about her kids. The kids that didn't even consider her their mom, like who chose money over her. Meeraan then texted her older brother, I'm so sorry, I tried to live, but how do I beat Pang Yong Hun? I'm scared, this is my only option. And he was so scared for his little sister,

he rushed to file a missing person's report, but they could not find her. And when they do, she was already dead. And on her way to be cremated. I know, you're like, what? What are you talking about? What do you mean cremated? Okay, this is where things get muddier

and even more suspicious. You think that that's the most of the story, but it's not. So young was never really looking for his wife. I, he was not a concerned husband at all. Maybe he had no idea that she was missing, which I doubted, I'm sure they freaking called him, the family. Maybe he didn't care.

I think it's more that. But her family filed a missing persons report. The police start looking for Midan. They get an alert that a woman's body was found in the Han River. They rush to the scene, identify her as Midan, and immediately they call her husband. Which is okay fine, I mean it is the next of kin. But this is the same one that wasn't even looking for her to begin with. You don't even call the brother? Fine. The Pang family claim her body immediately. They had their doctors

perform a very simple autopsy and allegedly bribe to the police and forensic doctors to have her cremated immediately. Now, the reason people say they allegedly barbed everyone is because in situations like this, even when it is what the police deemed to be in their opinion a suicide, they typically don't release the body within that month. It's, you know, just takes time. So young had her cremated and destroying any evidence

of his abuse on her body without even letting her family know. The police later told the family, oh hey, by the way, Mita was found, her body was cremated already. Like, it's very much giving this guy is terrified someone is going to stop the cremation. You know, what are you hiding? Young even had a private guard station where Mita was getting cremated. I mean, what? So what? I mean, I don't know how this was leaked, but apparently the kids also at their mom's funeral that was incredibly short seemed to be very happy. One of the kids was holding up a peace sign randomly, like just like would randomly do a peace sign. It's a funeral, like I can't even imagine a professional or a sombre setting where I would throw up a peace sign.

And again, I don't know if this is true, but some sources say that the family of Mid and still has no idea where she's buried to this day, like where her ashes are. Now for a while it's radio silence. I mean, I think people heard the news that Mrs. Lee had jumped off the bridge, but there were whispers that she was depressed and she was taking antidepressants. It was more tragic than anything what more could people say. Suicide is a big problem in South Korea. It was heartbreaking news. But then, Mita and family starts coming out, talking about how she was abused.

I believe they were even suing the Bung family and even the children, so the grandchildren. They said that they knew that she was abused for a very long time. It wasn't just recently. They said once she was stabbed in the back literally with a knife by her daughter. She always had varying bruises or varying healing times, which means that she was being abused consistently, allegedly at one point she had been hit on the back of the head with an ice pick. Now, Mita and family said, in order to protect her family's reputation, Mita only went

to small clinics. She would pay them under the table, they wouldn't call the police, they wouldn't record her treatments, they would just stitch her up and let her be and when this all came out young countered all of this by saying well She was depressed. She was literally diagnosed with depression and she was self-harming da Like it's very clear again to a family of prestigious doctors that these wounds were never self-inflicted So now meet on family is suing young and their kids. And at first it was for Mayhem and Harming relatives, which by Korean law you would be sentenced to 15 years or less. But young, using his power had the charge changed to crime of coercion,

which the maximum sentence for that is 5 years. As the max. And since young is the CEO of Korean hotel, and he's the one bringing in the money, he's the royal family, I guess he didn't feel weird about essentially throwing his kids under the bus. His oldest daughter and oldest son pled guilty to the crime of coercion and said, oh dad had nothing to do with it. That's absolutely wild. The two of them, the two eldest kids were sentenced to just eight months and two years of probation. Eight months. Probation. Prison, but two years of probation.

Now, at this point, I mean, the public is aware of what's going on. It went from a suicide to family drama to one of the richest, most powerful families have these dark abusive secrets that were hidden and tried to stay hidden. It's crazy. And this is a joke of a sentencing, you know? Even at the trial, the children of Mitaan said, at the time this all happened, our mother was depressed and she attempted suicide. We thought the best option to prevent our mother suicide was to let her rest at her mom's house. Instead of living in the basement by herself, which she wanted, she wanted

to be there because she was so depressed. So it's clear that Young's privilege was at play. Now, enough people were angry. That a big news station decided to do something about it because they would win the public by exposing this powerful family. They're like, oh, we're not an equally horrendous corporation. Look at us, we're exposing people.

We're on your side, eat the rich. That's what they were doing. They're called NBC, huge, huge company. They created a documentary to expose the Chosen Uble Royal family. And in the documentary, you have the housekeeper that's talking about what she saw. The suicide note was also featured

about everything the abuse that went on. There was even more CCTV that was released in that documentary of Meadon's sister's house. At one in the morning, two months after Meadon's death, Young and his two eldest kids go to her house to throw stones at her door. I'd meet Meadon's sister's door? Yeah. They even tried to break down the door with a hammer. The security footage shows Young was the one trying to break down the door and his son is stopping him and is like holding him back. So the police are called and meet on his family, I mean, they're terrified.

But they're thinking, okay, now the world is going to see his true colors. This time we have it on camera. The young still got away. He straight up told the police, my son was the one that was trying to break in with a hammer because he was really mad because, you know, he's grieving the loss of his mom and i had to hold him back and i had to stop him even with the iris beautiful video evidence the police went with young's word i i the amount of mental cartwheels really even a lawyer said when you watch the

cctv video young is the excited one he's ready to do something and his son is stopping him. But what can we do? Every Korean knows the power of the Cho-Sung-Yubo family. So what can we do? Now, here's where another layer of messiness and disgust gets thrown into the mix. I mean, nobody was surprised that Yong was not faithful at all, like ever in his marriage, right? It wasn't shocking. There were countless scandals of young being caught cheating on his wife, blatantly bringing other women home, going to hotels to meet women. I guess he truly was not a discrete cheater, but one of the most shocking affair news that came out. Had to do with an incredibly famous actress, Tang Tion. I remember watching her in boys over flowers, so she played

sunny in that, and she was signed with this huge talent agency called the Content Entertainment. And the CEO was known for forcing talent, women and girls, to entertain high-powered executives that would invest in his agency. And by entertaining, yes, the CEO was trafficking his models. He would force them into sex work. And in 2009, Tyon was found hanging in her house.

It's said that she wrote a seven-page note listing at least 40 powerful men that included powerful politicians, business moguls, influential figures, and show business that she was forced to have sex with. In 2009, South Korean police suppressed the full list and they said, oh, those businessmen were there not actually suspects because we don't have evidence. And this is probably not even written by her.

You know, she was, she was dealing with depression because her parents were killed in a car crash, you know, back in 1999. So this is, ignore this, ignore this. Even when they raided the boss's office, the CEO of the talent agency Kim's office, they found a secret room with a shower in a bed in the office. So the guy gets arrested and the case is closed with no further investigation. None of these politicians, business moguls, nobody was even really investigated. The whole thing was so shady, there was so much outrage from netizens, but again, it seemed like every Korean knew the power of these families, so what were you going to do?

I'm not even really diving into the whole thing, but in 2019, 10 years later, the president ordered the case to be reopened. He said there are cases where the truth was buried, as investigators intentionally were covering them up or they didn't do their jobs properly. Some suspicion remain and numerous questions are still unanswered. These cases have influential people involved and the prosecution and the police did not try to find the truth.

So it's being re-investigated, but it seems like it's just for show, and I'll explain why. So anyways, because this was a messy case with so many cover-ups and so many different influences, I don't wanna say, oh for sure this happened or this happened because it's not in court documents, you know, it's all kind of speculated, but I just don't know why it wouldn't be true. From 2005 to 2009, it said that Tyron was forced to provide sexual favors for over 100 times to a list of 40 men.

provide sexual favors for over 100 times to a list of 40 men. Allegedly, she was even forced to have sex with four men at one time. There were some allegations that she was sexually assaulted with wine bottles and humiliated during these sex acts. Sometimes she would be called four times a day by her CEO to come and meet other people. And if she didn't listen, her entire livelihood she would be blacklisted from the industry. She would lose everything.

And she was in what they call in Korea a slave contract. And a lot of, you know, K-pop artists or even sometimes Korean actors and actresses, it's when you're literally so indebted to the agency, you'll never really be a celebrity. Like you're just, you're making no money and you're working 20 hours a day and they want

you to be 88 pounds. It's ridiculous. So she was forced to serve these men and because it was getting hard to do that, they forced her to take drugs allegedly. And some sources say that she was forced to get her tubes tied so that these married high-powered moguls would enough to worry about getting her pregnant and dealing with a mistress scandal. Yes, so they deprived a woman of her right to be a mother so that they could sex traffic her. Allegedly, the list includes, but obviously is not limited to. And I'm not saying just because I'm on the list that they're guilty, I'm just saying,

this is what the list included. The CEO of Lotte Group and his son, which both of them were allegedly on the list, so that's disgusting. And, yeah, guess who else? Pang Yong Hun, of Choseon-Irbo Royal Family, as well as his nephew. So what was the result of all these things being exposed, where people canceled, did they lose their jobs, did they step down a CEO? No, not really. I mean, it did shake up things a little here and there, but ultimately it did nothing. Everybody kept their jobs, rebuilt their reputations. Honestly, it wasn't hard

to because money by its praise. I believe only Tion's boss was fined and punished, and in 2019, a random reporter from Cho's Honey Bolt. Not even an actual family member of the royal family of Cho's Honey Bolt, just like a random employee, with sense to when you're in prison from a lasting tie-on. Another scapegoat, really. The other powerful men are still not deemed suspects due to insufficient evidence. So a female star or just any woman, committing suicide did not make waves

in the royal families of Korea. After all, she's not part of the family, she's not part of the business, she's not part of the business, she's just a plaything. Even when these men's wives die, nothing happens. And that is the life of women. You know it's ridiculous. And one of the few times that someone in the Chosen, both families stepped down, remember the nephew that I was talking about? The nephew that was on the list with Tion? the nephew that I was talking about. The nephew that was on the list with Tyon. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is his daughter. So this nephew was the CEO of Tucson's TV department. Anyways, his daughter is 10 years old and a recording was leaked by her chauffeur.

By the 10 year old chauffeur? Yeah, she has a chauffeur to drive her to school and wherever else, her heart desires. And this is what she said. By the way, the chauffeur is 60 years old and he's been working for this family for a long time. And this is in 2018. The 10 year old daughter is yelling at the chauffeur, saying things like, hey you, I'm gonna talk to my mom today and you're gonna get fired. You're fired, do you hear me? I'm speaking to you.

I told you I don't wanna sit down. Why should I sit down? This is my car and not yours. You're just a disabled guy. Really, you have no arms, no face, no ears, no mouth, nothing, you have nothing. You're insane. What's wrong with you?

Is it because you didn't have money and you couldn't go to the hospital or the dentist because you were poor? Wait, is he disabled? I'm not sure. At one point, he does say, hey, don't say that. Your parents are teaching you wrong. Your family members are teaching you wrong.

You can't say these types of things. Ugh, I really hate you. I don't even like to look at you. I just want you to die. That's my wish. Hey old man, listen to me. Are you a monster or just stupid? I was a nice person, but because of you, I'm bad. I did the same thing to the previous old man driver because he wasn't doing well and you're worse than him looking back I should have kept him he was better than you This is a ten-year-old girl That is horrifying. I can't imagine what she'll be like when she's 20 30 50 like

10 when I was 10 I was scared of all adults like I would never dare to even speak to another 10-year-old with anything like this is just disgusting. So her dad was forced to release a statement that said. Wait, so this recording was leaked? Yeah, by the chauffeur. Thank God. Oh, by the way, the chauffeur, he was just fired. By the way, it got nothing out of this.

I hope he sees the family. I don't think anything's gonna happen even if he does, but what the heck? on this. I hope he sees the family, I don't think anything's gonna happen even if he does, but what the heck? So this guy, the CEO, who also happens to be on Tyron's list, just said, I express my deeper, graphic causing the public trouble related to my child. I will step down from TV Chosen's presidency to take responsibility for what has happened. I'm not saying this isn't traumatic to the chauffeur, and it definitely was something that he should step down for it totally was. But this guy was on Tung Tung's list, and nothing happens to him. It's crazy. I mean, he's still rolling in it, he lives a posh lavish life. I'm sure he has still a similar position in the company. It's not like he was paycheck

to paycheck and lost his job. Nothing really happens to anyone, everybody just got to slap on the wrist. Last year, young died of cancer, and the rest of his family continues to be rich and powerful, because that is the royal family of Chosen-Earble. So what happened, there's no investigation on the death and... Nope. What? The two kids got eight months and two years probation for the abuse. Well, I guess they call it a crime of coercion and that's it. Even with the Tang Day on the list, nothing happened. And Miran, well, she is almost forgotten. Not forgotten, but almost. Because that is the life of love and I'm going to go more in depth on this on a later episode

But when you have the top 10 companies in South Korea typically run by families that account for 85% of Korea's GDP Everyone is their plaything. The president is their pawn. They rule the land and they will get away with anything That's just how it is But it's kind of like that everywhere. I mean you think it's not in the US But maybe it's just not as blatant in our face. Because, you know, law being is a thing. It's like that in Korea, the US everywhere, also in Mexico. So in Mexico, people have tried to bring attention to a lot of women that were being killed.

I mean, since 2018, 96 activists, 47 journalists were killed in Mexico for trying to expose what's been going on. The Assistant Interior Ministry Secretary stated that 90% of crimes against journalists go unpunished. Which I mean, think about that, that's terrifying. Yeah, like who will report anything now? It's self-sensorship. You know, maybe the government is not necessarily quote-unquote censoring you by definition, but you,

it's in your best interest and your life's best interest to just shut up. So Regina Martinez was one of them. She was a 48-year-old journalist who can really be described by the word badass. Like she really was. She was one of those women that valued the truth over everything, even above her own life. That's why she was a fearless reporter. She covered stories on politics, human rights violations, narco traffickers. She went after the cartels. She shed light on

stories most of it, other journalists were too terrified to even think about. She specialized in exposing violence, abusive power, cover-ups. She wrote articles on political assassinations, natural disasters, abuse of authority, corruption, government mismanagement. To those who knew her, her nickname was Shorty. She's only 4-11. But she was really just a strong woman. That's how you really describe her. A woman that was also for other women that wanted to shed light on what was happening to so many women in Mexico. It's a country that has about 10 women to 11 women murdered each day.

Just lives taken. So around the time of her murder, she starts focusing on exposing government corruption as well as the local drug trade and all the organized crime. I mean, you can see how this is going to get super lethal very soon. In particular, Regina wrote about how Mexican drug cartels were corrupting government officials in Veracruz. And just one week before her death, Regina wrote about an incident where the Mexican Navy arrested nine policemen who were working with the cartels. She also focused on heinous crimes committed in the area that everyone just tried to sweep under the rug. There was this elderly indigenous woman who was beaten, then left for dead, by soldiers. The torture and massacres of passengers on a local bus, like these are the stories

that she wanted to shed light on. So that made her a target. In April of 2012, Regina was home alone, and her killer slash killers, we don't know exactly how many there were, but they broke into her home, she was ambushed, severely beaten to the point where her jaw was shattered, and she was strangled to death with a dish towel. Her killer killers left the front door open when they left, her neighbor called the police and they found Regina's body on the bathroom floor. Now this is where things immediately get shady. The police are quick to arrest two people for the murder, a man named Jorge and another man named Jose.

Now according to the two of them, Regina let them in and they were chatting. They all knew each other and at some point, Jose got pissed for some reason and just started beating Regina. He's like, tell me where your money is. And they get carried away and they beat her till she died. They told the police about how they kept ramming her head into the twillet bowl, hid her head with brass knuckles through her head against the tub until her skull cracked. So the police were saying this was an attempted robbery gone wrong.

That's what they claim. The two men took her TV, her phone, her laptop, her camera and all these things. So Jorge was charged and brought to a court where he immediately said judge, the police made me say those things. Like I don't even, I don't even think I have brass knuckles. They held me hostage for a week and they wouldn't stop torturing me and the police even threatened to kill my mom. It didn't matter. Jorge was sentenced to 38 years in prison for attempted burglary and murder.

Despite the fact that he claimed to be tortured and despite the fact that his fingerprints were not found at the crime scene. And the apartment was largely intact, I mean nobody stole the TV. So how does this robbery story even make sense? The police did find DNA, fingerprints, and even blood samples at Regina's house, and they refused to test them. They refused to even cross-match them with Jose and Jorge. They said, well, they confessed so, which is going to go with it. Why spend money on testing and making shorts then when we're already shorts then?

A lot of reporters and journalists were not buying it, I mean this was targeted. This is not a random robbery. Someone powerful was probably pissed off that she wasn't going easy on them and was trying to expose their crimes. It's ridiculous. Later there was evidence that two male fingerprints found at Regina's house were never identified. Her brand new TV and CD player, which are the things that you would want to steal, they were just left there.

But her phone, computer, tape recorder, and various documents were taken. Documents over a TV. I've never met a robber in my life. I was like, give me your life insurance documents. I don't want the TV. Give me your utility paperwork. I just want to take some files.

So when fellow reporters looked into who the hell Jorge was, he was a sex worker that was without a home and a raging drug habit. Oh my God. He was almost the picture-perfect scapegoat. And he's now going to likely serve the rest of his 38 years for a crime that he didn't commit. I mean, I guess technically his prints could have been

at the scene, but the cops refused to test it. So most people are inclined to believe it's not him. I mean, especially with this outrage that's going on now, you could easily just test it and be like, I told you so, it is him, now everybody shut up. Even the prosecutor said, I was never allowed to interview Jorge alone without the police there. The prosecutor is confused.

Now, here's where the story comes full circle. Allegedly at the time of Regina's death, she was digging into mysterious disappearances of thousands of Mexican citizens, many of whom were women. She wanted to see the role of local officials, police, the cartels, organized crime, concealing up thousands of missing women's cases.

So maybe the authorities were terrified of being exposed. And they adamantly deny that Regina's murder had anything to do with her death. Sure, sure. Allegedly, there is a sophisticated espionage unit run by the Veracruz Public Security Ministry. According to well-placed government sources, it's said that there's a vast network of paid

informants to gather information on people that could be potential political opponents to the governor. These informants are everywhere, sometimes in the hundreds, sometimes in the thousands, they could be waiters, shoe shiners on the side of the road, pizza vendors, taxi drivers, drug dealers, activists, corrupt journalists, anyone really. League documents show that they have hundreds of files on targets, and these files are pretty throw. They have full lists of family members, addresses, co-workers, favorite hangouts, political

affiliations, even sexual preferences. And allegedly, Regina had a file. That's why fellow reporters are very quick to suspect that the governor of Vera Cruz Javier had something to do with it. Javier denied it, but at the end of his term, he went on the run. Literally the guy who goes on the run. So like, how is that not suspicious? He was later arrested and is serving nine years for criminal association and money laundry. He tried to appeal saying that the evidence gained against him was a violation

of his human rights. I'm not laughing because it's funnier because it's not a serious topic, but like, okay, I don't know how to- like what even is the audacity? Obviously, his appeal was rejected. He even tweeted, the journalist most critical of my government and of me have always been respected, so much so that their articles and reports were and are published without any censorship. Okay, that's how it's supposed to be. He tweeted this from jail by the way. So you're like, okay, what the hell was Regina looking into?

Well, the fact that seven women in Mexico go missing every single day, and that ten to eleven women are murdered every single day in Mexico. The statistic is so insane, I thought it was bad translation. But from multiple sources, they're repeating this statistic, so I'm inclined to believe that it's very close to the truth, if not fully the truth. And more than 70% of these missing women's cases are concentrated in four different areas, including a place called Nuevo Leon. Now, that's where we'll be looking today.

It's the host to the bloody war between the Sinaloa and the Northeast cartels, so it's got a bit of a situation going on. It's pretty violent area. Now it's been such a problem that the government has even coined a term for when women are murdered. It's called Femissite. It's when a woman is murdered for being a woman. And it started when activists Diana Russell wanted to recognize the systemic violence against women.

So she coined this term and it's later said, according to the UN, that around 47,000 women and girls are killed globally, at least in 2020, by their immediate partners or other family members. This means globally, on average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in their family every 11 minutes. Which like, okay, you're like, what about the guys dying? Okay, yeah. So a global study by the UN established that, although men are the main victims of homicide worldwide, they're also the perpetrators, but also on top of that, women represent a larger majority of homicide

that are perpetrated by people around them. So there's more random, or maybe there's more gang related, or robbery related type of deaths among men, but women are killed by their father's brothers, boyfriends. You know, suicide note, in most countries homicide is homicide. In the US, we have hate crimes, but they're also very incredibly hard to prove. So technically, you could be charged with both homicide and a hate crime, but murder is

an easier charge to pursue legally because the burden of proof is lower. You just have to prove that this person killed someone else. It would be hard to say, oh, this person only killed this person because they're Asian and because they're a woman or because they're because of this, because of this. It's very difficult. So maybe having a homicide is cool, right? In Mexico, it's a good lot. You could be charged for a homicide. You get more years for killing a woman if you are charged and convicted of a homicide. It sounds more woke, but it's actually not because it's paradoxical. It's so much harder to prove than just regular homicide. The burden

of proof is higher, so it almost feels like it benefits the murder in a sense. It's like, okay, yeah, if you do get convicted of it, your time is going to be a lot longer in jail, but the likelihood of you getting convicted of it is a lot lower than regular homicide. You need to prove that misogyny is the factor, which is difficult to prove because I know shocking. Misogyny is oftentimes not objective, which, you know, what? But for example, maybe this clears things up. Remember Edwin Snowgrove?

We just talked about him. He loved the sight of topless, helpless woman. So you might argue, okay, okay, wait a minute, that's very specifically woman. Like he loves helpless, topless woman. He wouldn't kill these women unless they were topless, helpless woman, right? Would he do that to a man?

Probably not, because he's straight. But not really, because he didn't kill the woman purely because they were women. Some would argue that his main motive was sexual pleasure, not misogyny. So that's where it's so nuanced, it's annoyingly nuanced and not clear cut, so it might actually be harder to get a conviction for the murder of a woman in Mexico versus somewhere that doesn't have this special charge. So regardless, the rate of woman banishing in Mexico has been going up,

and it seems like the government would rather just not draw attention to it. In fact, they want to make it known that there's no organized crimes into kids involved. They're just lost. These women are not reported to their parents. That's all. The government seems more preoccupied with silencing journalists and activists, so now people are getting fed up, but it wasn't till Dabani Escobar disappeared that the problem couldn't be ignored anymore.

Now I'm not saying that her life was more important than anybody else's. Each woman that disappears globally, their life is as much important as the last. But she was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. She was kind of the face and the name that people could stand behind to start a movement. She was the 20th woman that month in Nuevo Leon to be reported missing. So who is Debani? She was an 18-year-old law student and she had always wanted to go into law to help other people. That was her dream. So she's young, ambitious, incredibly intelligent, and honestly, she's very woke. She was painfully aware of the increased violence against women in Mexico.

She wanted that to change. She was a real girl's girl. That's how her friends describe her. She wanted women to feel empowered. She wanted to help them make sure that they were safe. She attended civil rights movements, feminist protest. She was just this beautiful girl with this bright future ahead of her. And all of that would change at a house party, which like how ridiculous is that? And no,

it's not her fault for going to a house party. It's just ridiculous that something as innocent as a house party can change someone's life. So, Dabani goes to this party with two of her friends and it's unclear what exactly happened, but it said that it wasn't a blast of a time. Devani was getting into arguments with her friends and we'll kind of see why later. She just, she wanted to go home early, okay? She didn't have a car, so her friends decided to call a cab driver to take her home. Think of it like Uber. But this is where things get shady.

The driver that came wasn't on duty that night. Now, I don't know how her friends called him that night. It seems like they had his personal number. So what people are speculating is that maybe they got an Uber ride with the sky once. And he told them, Hey, I hate paying a percentage to this company for hosting this ride. How about you call me on my personal cell? I give you a discount and I keep the whole fee. I mean, I don't know if this is exactly what happened, but this is what people are, you know, thinking of. And I can see this happening.. I mean I don't know if this is exactly what happened but this is what people are you know thinking of and I can see this happening. So anyway, I don't know if Dabani knew this or not but she gets into the car and it was a very short ride for some reason. Again we don't know why but the driver dropped Dabani off on the

side of the remote road called the highway of death. I mean hundreds of people have gone missing on this long stretch of road in the past couple of years, so it's not a safe area. So the driver, Juan, but also some sources refer to him as Jesus, but the driver took a picture of her before leaving her stranded. That's the haunting photo that I was telling you about. That's the last picture of her alive,

and it's truly this haunting image. Why did he take the photo? Like, it's so weird. Why is she dropped off there? Yeah, so he claims she wanted to be dropped off. It was weird. Maybe she was meeting someone as how he's saying it. Anyway, she's saying, well, I wanted to take a picture of her

because I didn't want, I thought it was dangerous to drop her off here. And I needed proof that she was alive when I dropped her off. He dropped her off at 4.24 am, but he did not send the picture to Dabani's friends till 5am. I mean, all of this is strange. Like who takes that as proof? It sounds like you know that something's gonna happen, so you're trying to give yourself

some sort of alibi? Why did you wait so long to send the picture? Why did you even drop her off in the middle of the highway of death? Now the photo is not the last recorded media of Dabani though. It's a last picture but there are some videos of her. So after being dropped off, Dabani is seen crossing the highway and entering a trucking company's office around 4.30 a.m. Maybe she couldn't get help there because she walks another CCTV catches her walking

towards the local motel. Motel Nueva Castilla. And after that it seems like she vanishes into thin air. The next morning, DeBonnie's family are freaking out that she's not home, and they call her friends who tell her about this really weird cab driver. And without the family contacts the police.

I mean, this cab driver. What, it all sounds so weird. Why would you, why wouldn't you just, what? The guy's 47 years old working under the table for teenagers. Is this some sort of business agreement? Is there something weird going on? The police agree, yes, frickin' weird. Let's bring in the driver to be questioned.

Now get this, the driver has already been investigated for harassment and attempted kidnapping of woman in the past. He's also been arrested on drug charges, so there's just a lot going on here. Now, I don't know what the driver told the cops. Probably the same story that we already know, because he was released on Bond, and a $5,000

reward was posted for anyone with information to locate Deboni. Unfortunately, they would locate her remains. So Deboni was found in the water tank close to the motel. The motel that she was walking towards. The police had already searched the motel and they never searched the water tank, which maybe you're like, I get it, you might not think to just check the water tank unless you are into true crime and you're like, oh, at least I'm right. But the motel staff and the guests complained about a foul order coming from the water tank when the police were investigating the motel.

No, yeah, sounds like a plumbing problem, not a police problem, we're not plumbers. We're the men with the guns, remember? So, Dabani's body was found in the water tank. They needed a diving team to pull her out of there. She was found 13 feet below the tank. At first, all the authorities and reports were saying that she had drowned.

Now, when she's taken into biotopsy, the medical examiner concluded that the cause of death tank. At first all the authorities and reports were saying that she had drowned. Now when she's taken into the autopsy the medical examiner concluded that the cause of death was a deep contusion to the skull. But the police are saying it was accidental drowning, like she was drunk and got into the water tank, it's giving Elise a lamb, like she was drunk, she went into the water tank, she drowned, it was a very sad thing. But it doesn't make sense because somehow she accidentally fell in the water tank and it caused this deep Contusion to the skull and then she drowned like which one is it and the police are like yeah kind of like a little bit of everything But we know that she was alive when she went in the water tank because she managed to stand up before she died

Which everybody was like that's so specific and weird. How would you even know that she stood up? Like is that relevant if the water tank is 13 feet deep, how did she stand up? Now, she slipped and hit her head, which knocked her out in the water, she would have drowned. Okay, so maybe that's what the police are saying. Or maybe she bled to death, but like, she drowned somehow. So that must mean there's water in her lungs, because that's how you drown, right?

There wasn't any water in her lungs, which implies that she was killed at a different spot then thrown into the water tank There wasn't any water in her lungs, which implies that she was killed at a different spot then thrown into the water tank. There's no water in her lungs, that means she wasn't breathing when she was thrown in the water tank. Now, there is an update to this to hold on, but this was the initial result like,

oh, she drowned and like, she accidentally hit her head. So, Dabani's family and the public are just so critical of this. Even the fact that she was in the water tank, it's hard for you to walk on foot there. It's hard to get to the water tank, let alone fall into it. Accidentally, like the authorities claim.

It's like the Alisa Lam situation all over again. It's just not an easily accessible area, anywhere, a water tank. The motel is surrounded by a tall wall that has barbed wire at the top. The only entrance that you can get into the motel without climbing this tall wall, like scaling it like a freaking spider

and getting over this barbed wire is the motel entrance, which leads you directly to a reception area that has cameras. It's open 24-7, there's motel workers. Devani was not seen walking through there. And all the other points of the motel complex are closed stuff. I mean, there's no way.

Are the police implying that she literally climbed the wall and scaled it and went over the barbed wire while reportedly being so drunk that she was slurring her words? You're like, wait, she was drunk. Does that change the story for you? Because it really shed it. But to some people, it might. Because here comes the victim blaners. Devani's story starts blowing up in the media. Thanks heavily to social media.

And the driver goes on to a TV show to clear up the rumors. Eh, that's what he said, clear up some rumors. He said during the interview, I only ever tried to help her, but she was drunk or something. I love the or something people like to add when they're victim blaming. It's like leave it open to interpretation. Maybe she was snorting 9,000 bricks of cocaine all at once or maybe she took an ad fill What do you mean or something? Do you know anything? So anyway, he's claiming he asked a Bonnie's friends before starting his drive. Hey, why is your friend acting so weird? Is she drunk? Did you guys give her something? She's slurring her words Anyway, that's all that happened. She wanted me to drop her off.

I took a picture as proof that she was alive, but my name should be cleared in the press because authorities have reviewed my case and have found nothing against me. Thank you. Then DiBani's own friends came out. The two friends that were with her the night that she was murdered, they said, well, DiBani was acting crazy. She even attacked us. Some people we didn't know tried to take DiBani from us because she was that drunk. So they were carrying her and I

noticed them and I was like, let her go. And she went in, she hid in the bathroom because she was like crying. And after that, she ran away from the party and yeah, love it. Further painter has this messy drunk victim asking for trouble. Nobody will ever let you forget that she's drunk in this case. It's just in every source everywhere. The fact that Dabani was almost kidnapped before being actually kidnapped doesn't even seem to be as alarming as the fact that she's drunk, in this case, it's just in every source everywhere. The fact that Dabani was almost kidnapped before being actually kidnapped doesn't even seem to be as alarming as the fact that she was drunk. Like that's crazy. There's security footage near the house party, and around 3 a.m., it shows Dabani running

down the street from a guy, and then suddenly six other men surround her, and they keep trying to grab at her, and she's pulling away, she's trying to run away from them, and then a car pulls up. A white car that matches the description of the driver. I'm not saying it's the driver, but it matches the description, okay? What? Then Dabani gets into the backseat, likely not by her own free will. A man, one of those men, talks to the driver and he drives off.

I mean, this video is so alarming because it paints a completely different picture of what happened that night. Did Dabani's own friends have something to do with her disappearance? And why? It's terrifying to think about. So Claudia Munix from a nonprofit that serves families of missing people thinks that Dabani's friends are all pawns of the government. This is a strategy to change public opinion around Dabani's case.

So the government is kind of forcing her girlfriends to victim blame. Whether by threats or by pressure, we don't know. Because this whole thing to Claudia seems like an orchestrated shame campaign. The interviews were allegedly set up by the government, by government contacts reaching out to these news providers. They want us to think

that women go missing because they are high or drunk. What? Who cares? Someone died. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy that if that even works. Yeah, and it's funny because I mean so many people have pointed this out, but you never really ask a robber who burglarized a home. Were you drunk that night? Like you don't ask the homeowner. Were you drunk that night in your house? Yeah, exactly.

So maybe you were asking for it then. It's the most ridiculous thing. So Claudia honestly might be on to something because Mexico's president even said, disappearances aren't exclusive to Mexico. They're happening everywhere for women. So no, women shouldn't be especially alarmed about their safety here. Claudia thinks something more sinister is going on.

She said in two months, we saw 10 girls disappear from the same town, with a very similar profile. Implying it can't be a coincidence that maybe something sinister is happening, are young women and girls being deliberately targeted. Claudius is as town as a hotspot for human and sex trafficking, and that should be investigated.

Sure, Debani was stranded on the highway of death, but she was only a few meters from the nation's Attorney General's office. There must be surveillance in that area. Why wasn't there surveillance? New updates have been released that Debani was sexually assaulted before her death. The conspiracy that I see online is, you know, fuck her friends first of all, they sold her out, and the driver is alleged that he tried to do something with Dabani when she was in the car. And Dabani resisted, got out of the car, or maybe he forced her out since she refused to go along with it.

She was left abandoned on the highway of death. Now we don't know if the true killers have anything to do with the driver. Maybe he took the picture to have an alibi and then went back for her because you know his friends did call him. So he could be like, oh yeah, I did drop her off like this picture. But he maybe went back for her and was like, oh, sorry, get back in the car or maybe forcibly forced her back into the car or forcibly told her to go here and he'll help her. I don't know because we don't really have footage of her entering a motel. She was just walking near the motel. Someone could have easily picked her up, done something, somehow got her in the water tank. Some say that there are allegations that the taxi driver is working for cartels and will

drop off women at specified locations and bring them to the cartels essentially. So there is a lot of Reddit threads that you can read up on this and I don't know how much truth there is to this because I don't know, I haven't done enough research and I don't even know if you can find research like this. But some drivers said when they're driving specific women that are alone,

they have different lights to signal to cartels. So if it's a tourist that are alone, they have different lights to signal to cartels. So if it's a tourist that's alone, that's a female, it's a different light versus someone who is native to the area, it's a different light. And when they drive by, the cartels know the lights. So maybe the lights depend on whether they stop that car and ambush it and force that woman out or not.

Maybe there were just opportunists who saw her alone on the road and decided to commit a crime. Now, these are just the theories and it's terrifying to think about how it's not solved yet. And hopefully it does get solved. But we're never really promised justice ever in this world, I think. And not just women just to anybody. I mean, just the sheer fact that of how many people could be involved is so terrifying. There are even rumors online that allegedly the owner of this motel and his wife are both Mexican politicians that have allegedly somehow been involved with Nixie-M, the sex cult. Well, I don't know.

That's just what's being said on the internet. Now that there has been enough social media outrage, though, the president has reached out to our family and even made a statement that said, I spoke with her family and made a commitment to help clarify what happened. I want to ensure that there is no impunity. Her parents are very good people, a teacher, his wife, and as parents, they're very hurt, broken. Deboni's death is now being investigated as a femiside.

After originally being registered as a disappearance, the attorney general's office due to public outrage has dismissed two public prosecutors for errors and emissions on this case. So this is where the case is now. It's something I'm going to be keeping an eye out for and I hope you do the same, but that so far are the updates on the Bonnie Eskivar. But there is this fascinating quote by Margaret Atwood. She once said, you know, she was kind of curious, why do men feel threatened by women? So she asked a male friend of hers.

And the guy said, I mean, and she's trying to explain to him, I mean, men are bigger most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better if they need to, and they, on average, have a lot more money and power than most women. And the guy, I'm sure he said it not to lot me, but he's like, you know, I think guys are afraid that women will laugh at them. So curiously, Margaret Atwood was giving a quick poetry seminar at a college, and it was a bunch of female students, and she asked, why do women feel threatened by men? And they answered, we're afraid of being killed.

And that is how the very famous Margaret Outwood quote that has been used in the handmaid in Stale, that men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them. Came to be. And that is the life of women. And before you get mad at me, I don't hate men. And it's actually not the life of a woman we'll be talking about in the next mini-sode. Because she is, well, something else. She's a bit of a, kind of a bitch. So that is the story of Emi Ran and Dabani Eskabar.

This one was a tough one. And I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye. Stay safe. This one was a tough one and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini short. Bye, stay safe.