0:03

Sasikala and Hanunara moved

0:05

into the Foxtrot apartment complex

0:07

in two thousand eight, It's got a large

0:09

Indian population and maybe that's

0:11

what Drudinar is there. Their

0:14

son and Nish was born in twenty ten,

0:16

and the Narra stayed in that same one bedroom

0:18

apartment until the murders in twenty seventeen.

0:22

We know where the Narra lived, On Hamilton

0:24

Road, the apartment number was three d.

0:27

The unit was just six hundred fifty square

0:29

feet. We don't know what

0:31

went on inside that apartment. Did

0:33

they have any friends or acquaintances? Any

0:36

enemies? And what about their neighbors?

0:38

Like the woman on the nine eleven call? Did

0:41

anyone see or hear anything

0:43

strange the night of the

0:44

murders? So

0:46

let's head out with reporter Betsy

0:48

Shepherd. Check check

0:51

1234. There's

0:53

Betsy and Tinkoo sitting

0:55

in a car in May or

0:57

shade New Jersey. We

1:01

crossed from quaint Maple Shade over

1:03

the six lane highway to fox meadow

1:05

apartments. And

1:08

you really couldn't get any

1:10

more different. You're literally looking at

1:13

row upon row of generic brown

1:15

and beige wood structures that

1:18

look dated and run

1:20

down. The paint is

1:22

faded and peeling

1:24

Some of the wood is rotten. There's

1:27

trash everywhere, and it

1:29

really

1:29

is. And we suddenly find ourselves

1:31

directly in front of apartment three d.

1:35

It's eerie knowing what happened

1:37

here. And just then,

1:39

we see a man coming out. It's

1:42

a worker repainting the apartment for

1:44

a new tenant. Betsy and I asked

1:46

if we can take a look inside. Says

1:48

sure. We're in

1:50

the apartment at the moment just doing

1:52

a little walk around. It's one bedroom

1:55

apartment. It's very small. And

1:57

be very small for three people, two adults

1:59

and a young child living together

2:01

in this space is

2:04

pretty unimaginable to be on in

2:07

my mind, you know, but

2:10

very large window here would not be

2:12

difficult for I

2:16

can't even finish my thought because

2:19

that's when it really hits me. I'm

2:21

standing in the exact spot where

2:23

an unspeakable tragedy occurred.

2:27

I get the chills and have to rush

2:29

out of there. I'm

2:32

Benadaire. And I'm 2 Ray.

2:34

You're listening to Strangeland. Season

2:37

2, murder, in Maple

2:39

S2Episode

3:00

two, The Divide.

3:06

The

3:06

Nars apartment is on the bottom floor of

3:08

a two story building. Today,

3:10

it's painted gray. The wood on

3:12

the roof and the door of what was their

3:14

apartment are warped from water

3:16

damage. There's a small patio

3:18

with a large rat trap on it.

3:21

Standing there in that apartment, I

3:23

feel like I could catch a glimpse inside

3:26

the Narra's tiny world and

3:28

inside the crime scene. There

3:31

are three points of entry. The

3:33

murderer either came in through the front

3:35

door, the patio door,

3:37

or the large window inside the bedroom.

3:40

But each one of these are public facing

3:43

and within few of dozens

3:45

of neighbors.

3:46

Each numbered address in Boxmetto has four

3:48

units, ABCD,

3:51

and two of the units share walls with

3:53

the NARS apartment. They all share

3:55

an entryway. So that's where

3:57

we start knocking on doors with

3:59

a photo of Sasiah underneath in one

4:01

hand and a mic perphone in the other.

4:08

I guess there's no one home. Let's try one

4:11

next door. Door

4:14

after door. No one answers

4:16

or no one lives there. It's hard

4:18

to tell. So we move on with

4:20

a plan to circle back. Nope. It's

4:23

on to the next block. Some neighbors do

4:26

answer and are friendly. But

4:28

don't know what we're talking about. Hi.

4:34

I'm a reporter. My name is Tinkoo Ray. I'm doing

4:36

an investigation on a murder

4:38

that happened here five years

4:39

ago. Well, what wasn't this one I hope?

4:42

No.

4:42

Okay.

4:44

But I ain't seen no ghost. But, no, I just moved

4:46

in maybe three weeks Okay. Alright. Okay.

4:49

Other neighbors are downright hostile.

4:56

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry to

4:58

talk to you. We're we're investigating reporters.

5:00

We're trying to we're trying to find out about the

5:02

writers that happened on the next block. Do

5:04

you know anything about

5:05

that? We're

5:06

we're gonna kill.

5:08

Do you recognize that? They recognize that.

5:10

Well, I do not. Then There's

5:13

also the language barrier.

5:18

For residents who do remember the crimes,

5:21

but have no useful information. Hi.

5:24

Agentless working on a story about

5:26

a family and a murder that happened here at Foxtrot

5:29

five years

5:29

ago. Yeah. Do you remember that?

5:32

Do you wanna would you talk to us about it?

5:34

I just heard, like, when

5:37

it happened, a whole bunch of cops and stuff

5:39

came but I really didn't know, like, what happened.

5:41

Yeah. Sorry. Thank you.

5:44

Thank you. Boxmeters

5:51

was diverse, but far from a melting

5:53

pot. The complex was built in nineteen

5:56

seventy six and as the highway's banded,

5:58

the complex grew larger and less

6:00

white and became increasingly cut

6:03

off from the rest of Maple

6:04

Shade. The nickname for

6:06

a fox meadow is fox gecko. This

6:09

is a resident we'll call John. He

6:11

didn't want to give his real name because

6:13

he doesn't want anyone to know that he

6:15

lives in Foxgetto

6:17

as he calls it. Once you cross

6:20

the highway, there's two different towns

6:22

basically. Fox it was its own town and

6:24

the rest of Maple Shade on the other side of its own

6:26

town. If people ask me, I tell them I live

6:28

in Maple

6:28

Shade, I don't tell them where I live. John

6:31

started a Facebook group for Fox Meadows

6:33

residents to share their experiences.

6:36

I see complaints every day about something that's

6:38

going on with the complex. We

6:40

have bug

6:41

issues, mice issues. People

6:43

have air conditioning issues. Buildings

6:45

are falling part.

6:47

John didn't live here at the time of the murders,

6:50

but he says crime is a big

6:52

ongoing problem in Fox Meadow.

6:54

You never know what's happening, especially if

6:56

their sun goes down, there is

6:59

cars being broken into, there's apartments

7:02

being broken

7:02

2. So people

7:04

are very, very concerned with the

7:07

security and safety of the themselves

7:09

and other residents around them. I'm

7:11

speaking with John right next to what looks

7:13

like an abandoned brick center within

7:15

the

7:15

complex. It looks

7:17

like what could be VCs.

7:23

Repeat you on the walls as well.

7:26

I start to wonder about Susie's

7:28

life here. A

7:31

lot of immigrants who

7:33

come 2, especially the United

7:35

States, there's a dream that they

7:37

have of what this country can offer

7:39

them. What was she thinking? Was

7:41

she thinking where have I landed up? From

7:43

where to where? Is this what I came to this

7:46

country for? This

7:48

is not the kind of lifestyle that anybody

7:51

would, I think, try and give up

7:53

their homeland and their family and their

7:55

friends four. It just doesn't

7:57

compute for me.

8:04

We reach out to Fox Meadows multiple

8:06

times to find out about security and

8:08

maintenance for the complex but they

8:11

don't respond to our calls or emails,

8:13

and they want nothing to do with us when Tenguin

8:15

Betsey show up at the leasing office. We

8:18

checked the New Jersey Department of Community

8:20

Affairs and discovered that Fox Meadows

8:22

had more than a thousand code violations

8:25

on recent inspection report. Eighty

8:28

nine of those violations are listed as

8:30

life threatening. These include

8:32

faulty or non existent carbon

8:34

monoxide detectors, dead smoke

8:36

alarms, even a missing guardrail on

8:38

one of those balconies. Fox

8:41

Meadow owned by Khamsin Corporation, one

8:43

of the largest property management companies

8:45

in the northeast. And it's faced

8:47

dozens of lawsuits for black mold,

8:50

injuries caused by poorly maintained

8:52

grounds and assaults on the premises.

8:56

The founder and CEO of Khamsin is

8:58

billionaire Richard Kurtz who

9:00

until recently lived in a

9:02

sixty eight million dollar

9:04

home. Imagine

9:07

coming home every day to

9:09

this. Thirty thousand. Described

9:11

in this clip from CNBC as quote,

9:14

the most expensive house in New Jersey

9:17

painted an eighteen carat gold.

9:19

Eleven bedrooms, nineteen

9:22

bathrooms, an indoor

9:25

basketball court, and four

9:28

kitchens. Trimwork painted

9:30

in eighteen carat gold and a

9:32

pair of chandeliers worth two hundred

9:34

and fifty

9:35

grand. Kurt's

9:37

luxury lifestyle couldn't be any

9:39

further removed from Fox Meadow.

9:42

One Google review of the complex reads,

9:44

quote, eighteen hundred dollars

9:46

a month to live in filth, constant

9:49

plumbing

9:49

issues, mice, overflowing dumpsters,

9:51

and trash all over the grounds. Not

9:54

to mention all the shootings and drug

9:56

deals that happen here. Honestly,

9:58

this place should be shut down. End

10:01

quote.

10:02

This is just one of the countless negative

10:04

comments posted online.

10:06

One resident tells us that Foxmeadow

10:09

recently installed a couple of security

10:12

cameras near the entrance of the complex.

10:15

But before that, he said there were none.

10:17

If there had been cameras,

10:20

maybe the Narra murders would have been solved by now,

10:22

or at least garnered some solid leads,

10:25

but there's no security footage from that

10:27

night. So back

10:29

to our search for the next best thing.

10:33

Eye witnesses. Then

10:37

finally, we find a resident who remembers

10:39

the Nara murders. Maborsha's

10:42

murder is nice town friendly

10:44

people.

10:46

And I always say nice town shady

10:48

people. That's coming

10:50

up right after the break.

11:00

It was horrible. It was something you would see on TV.

11:03

Our search for someone, anyone

11:05

with information about the night of the murders,

11:08

Finally, gets us somewhere. My

11:11

name is Christine Davis, and I've

11:13

been resident of Fox Meadows for

11:16

thirteen years.

11:18

Christine lives in a second story unit

11:20

directly across from the Naras. She

11:22

appears to be in her mid fifties. She's

11:24

still in her PJs because it's her day off.

11:26

She works at a house cleaner. Refined

11:29

Christine smoking a cigarette at honor

11:31

balcony, which has a direct view

11:33

of the Narra's front door. It

11:35

was packed

11:38

with cops, corners,

11:40

and ambulances, and caution

11:43

tape and red lights and

11:46

blue lights and it's chaos

11:48

crazy. Christine says

11:50

she saw Hanau when he first came out of his

11:52

apartment. He was screaming. Oh

11:55

my god. She's dead. But in a either

11:57

in a shocked way or like,

11:59

a put on kind of way, like, oh my god.

12:01

She's dead. Oh my god. She's

12:03

dead. And I guess the neighbor next door

12:05

heard him. So she went

12:08

in. I don't know why she went in. And

12:10

then I heard her say, don't go back in

12:12

there. Don't go back in there.

12:15

But she was even scared. She was crying.

12:17

She was so upset because death

12:19

right next to you, like, a

12:22

murder, not a death, a murder. We

12:24

ask Christine about this female

12:26

neighbor. That must be the woman we heard

12:28

on the nine eleven call.

12:31

Sorry. How about that? He is

12:33

sick. He said I

12:35

just came back from the office. I

12:38

just came back from the office. But

12:40

Christine doesn't know her name and

12:42

the neighboring question moved out shortly

12:45

after the murders, she says. She

12:47

likely didn't know the family either

12:49

because as Christine explains, anaras

12:52

mostly kept to themselves. But

12:55

then, she takes a long pull on her

12:57

cigarette as if she's remembering something.

13:00

She says there was one

13:02

neighbor who knew the Naras. The

13:05

man who lived upstairs was

13:07

friends with six year old Anish. He

13:10

never really played outside, the

13:12

little boy. When he would come

13:14

home, he'd be so excited to see that neighbor

13:16

with a big smile on his face, and

13:19

he was very heartbroken when he passed away.

13:22

The neighbor loved Anish, we

13:24

press Christine for more info, a

13:27

name, anything, but all she

13:29

has is a nickname, bubba.

13:32

We're just calling that because he was big. Big

13:34

bubba. But that's not as wrong in

13:36

there. Christine says bubba

13:39

moved out of Fox Meadows several years

13:41

back. But she doesn't know where,

13:43

so it's 2 be hard to track him down.

13:46

But she does remember one key detail

13:48

about him. He worked my work.

13:51

He was a a stocker. Like, you

13:53

know what I mean? In ShopRite, he got, like, awards

13:55

and everything for being dedicated and

13:59

He was proud of that. A stalker

14:01

at ShopRite, one of the local grocery

14:04

chains. It's not much to go on,

14:06

but it's something. Christine

14:08

shares one last insight. At

14:10

the time of the murder, she says the

14:12

Naras had a large shrub right

14:15

in front of their patio. It blocked

14:17

everyone's view of the apartment. I

14:20

always said anything could happen behind

14:22

that bush because you could never see

14:24

what was going on behind there. And I

14:26

always thought that was very dangerous. And

14:28

so I decided to call that the

14:30

murder bush. Christine

14:33

thinks that the killer slipped behind the

14:35

bush into the Naras Patio and

14:37

entered their apartment through the sliding door.

14:40

That would explain why no one saw them

14:42

coming or going. And that

14:44

thought terrifies her because

14:47

it means there's a killer still

14:49

out there. There's been nothing.

14:51

No updates. No Not

14:53

that for us to know as tenants. But,

14:56

like, should we be alarmed? Should we not be alarmed?

14:59

Was it personal? Was it just

15:02

random? It's right at that moment

15:04

that someone comes out of the apartment and

15:06

interrupts us. It's Christine's

15:08

roommate, Bob. He starts

15:10

warning Christine not to talk to

15:12

us. When guy come over

15:14

to Peiyou? Who? Yo. Okay.

15:18

Anybody? Anybody? Only out

15:20

of talk. Only in the other time. Whatever

15:23

she's gonna do with

15:24

this. It's gonna get the oil

15:26

world. Go ahead. It should. They

15:28

know come looking for you. Oh, yeah.

15:32

Go back in Bob. As

15:35

we walk away, we see a woman coming out

15:37

of an apartment across the street near

15:39

the Naras. We approach her

15:41

and ask if she remembers the murders.

15:44

Which ones she replies?

15:47

You hear the sirens. You just you

15:49

get used to it after a while. This

15:51

is Shaneta Francis. She's only lived

15:53

in Fox Meadows for a few months, and

15:55

she says there's already been two

15:57

deadly shootings. We

15:59

looked into it, and sure enough, There

16:01

are two homicides at the complex in January

16:04

and April twenty twenty

16:05

two. It's known that anyone

16:08

can kinda get in. To the complex as

16:10

long as you have the money to pay. It's

16:12

very

16:13

unsafe. It doesn't seem like

16:15

they care about their residents at all.

16:17

And that's another reason why people

16:19

won't talk to us because

16:21

they're scared.

16:23

Snitches get stitches carries a

16:25

lot of weight in fox meadow. It's

16:29

easier to say, no, I did not hear anything.

16:31

I did not see anything 2 stay

16:33

safe. If anything happened to me,

16:35

would anybody do anything? Would anybody

16:37

even know? Safety

16:39

or the lack thereof is

16:41

something that a lot of residents complain

16:44

about. My kids every day, they

16:46

shout at me, they need to go out, but I'm scared.

16:49

This is Ahmed Marai. He'd now a herd

16:51

of the Nara murders. But he's

16:53

all too familiar with violence in the complex.

16:56

Both of the recent shootings happened

16:59

right next to his apartment. Outside

17:02

is not safe now, is not safe.

17:04

You scared if somebody can stall

17:07

them, can you

17:09

can miss them or somebody can

17:12

shooting anybody

17:13

else. Well,

17:14

I'm really scared now.

17:16

Ahmed has a young daughter named

17:18

Farida. She's around the same

17:20

age as Anish was when he

17:22

was killed.

17:23

I'm kind of feeling like people are going

17:26

to just pop out nowhere and I've been

17:28

trying to tell my dad if

17:30

he can, like, let us be moved

17:32

because I

17:34

don't feel that safe here.

17:37

Hearing about children growing up like this,

17:40

it's crushing. As a mom,

17:42

I can't imagine the level of fear you

17:44

have with so much violence at your

17:46

doorstep.

17:48

If Fox Meadows is this dangerous, maybe

17:51

the Nara Murder were about strawberry

17:54

or a hit meant for someone else or

17:56

maybe the narrows made enemies of the wrong

17:58

neighbor. There's

18:01

actually a very long history of violence

18:03

at the complex. In addition to the two

18:05

shootings that the neighbor told us about, there was

18:07

another armed burglary in twenty twenty two

18:10

And later that year, a potential serial

18:12

kidnapper was foiled. When

18:14

police arrested a woman posing as a child

18:16

welfare worker, going door to door,

18:19

asking to see people's babies. In

18:21

twenty nineteen, a man was caught breaking

18:24

into a child's bedroom. The

18:26

Narra murders happened in twenty seventeen. In

18:29

twenty fourteen, there was double stabbing.

18:32

And before that, a man killed his wife

18:34

with an ax and fled the country.

18:37

These are just the crimes that were investigated. Who

18:40

knows? What's gone unreported.

18:44

So could the Narra Motors have been

18:46

a random act of violence? We

18:49

asked another

18:49

resident, a man named Ray Tucker,

18:52

who he heard from last He

18:54

says he doesn't think so.

18:57

This was personal. Let's get this history.

18:59

It was personal. It had nothing

19:01

to do with robbery. There was nothing taken.

19:06

How are you gonna go through all this and not

19:08

take

19:08

anything. They went

19:10

there with the agenda,

19:14

and they did what they did. And

19:17

got away with it. Ray

19:19

says he knows why, because

19:22

Sassy and Anish with Docs skint

19:24

were immigrants and lived on the

19:26

wrong side of Maple Shade's highway.

19:29

As a black man, I'm

19:32

used to seeing stuff like that. You're

19:35

part of another race other

19:37

than a white. Those

19:40

drives kinda get swept

19:43

under the rug. We can. We saw

19:45

we did what we could, what we're not

19:47

doing

19:48

anymore. The Maple Shade crimes

19:50

happen, they don't talk about

19:52

them. It'll bring the housing value

19:54

down.

19:57

Bad enough, you that us quote

20:00

unquote, welfare recipients or

20:03

underpaid or underprivileged that

20:07

live on this side of the highway and

20:09

they prefer to keep us on this side

20:11

of the highway. That

20:15

way, the crowd doesn't pour into the community.

20:19

It reminds me of what former Maple

20:21

Shade mayor Nelson weast said last

20:24

it was a buzz for a

20:26

while. But if you're not directly

20:29

a part of it, then you forget about

20:31

I didn't think that this long over.

20:34

And I'm certainly not making light of it, but they

20:36

just don't think it affected the

20:38

town that much.

20:41

So is that why police won't talk

20:43

to us? Because there was only a

20:45

surface level investigation. Did

20:48

they not want to spend their resources on

20:50

victims who are Indian and living in fox

20:52

meadow? Or are they just staying

20:54

quiet to maintain Maple Shades?

20:57

Nice town friendly people image.

21:01

Reed didn't get the answers we came looking

21:03

for. Just a lot more questions. And

21:06

a couple leads to follow-up on. We still

21:08

need to find the upstairs neighbor, blah blah

21:10

or whatever his real name is. And

21:12

we still need to track down the mysterious woman

21:15

from the nine eleven call.

21:17

But first, Ray Tucker has a

21:19

point. These murders do

21:21

look personal, intimate, and

21:23

that means we need to look at the center of the

21:26

family circle. Hanu,

21:28

the husband and father.

21:31

I still not

21:33

able to come out of the shaft, and

21:35

I I don't even know why it

21:37

happened, whatever happened. Police

21:40

are actively in investigating,

21:43

looking forward for the final investigation from

21:45

police. That's coming

21:47

up on the next episode of Strangeland.