A podcast turned into a horrifying true crime story of its own early Friday, after its host and her husband were murdered in their home in Washington state by a crazed fan.
The killer, trucker Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, had stalked his victim for “many months” before he broke into her house in the Seattle suburb of Redmond through an open window at 2 a.m. Friday, police said.
Khodakaramrezaei then gunned down podcast host Zohreh Sadeghi, 33, and her husband, Mohammed Naseri, 35, before turning his weapon on himself. Sadeghi’s mother managed to escape and called the police from a neighbor’s house.
Jill Green, a spokesperson for the Redmond Police Department, said Sadeghi met the killer months ago, when he started tuning in to her podcast.
“He had begun listening to her podcast and started emailing her and messaging her, just starting conversations about the podcast, and my understanding is that they became friends,” Green told The Daily Beast.
But the pair’s relationship took a concerning turn when Sadeghi became uncomfortable with the content of Khodakaramrezaei’s messages and how often he was contacting her.
“He just started barraging her with messages until it escalated to where she decided to file a no contact order,” Green said.
Redmond detectives saw the situation as “an escalating case” and decided to take it on, Green said, but were unable to make contact with Khodakaramrezaei.
“Our detectives had warrants to get information from his phone and were trying to serve the no contact order to the suspect [but] had not done so yet. Being that he is a trucker, he’s hard to pin down,” Green said.
Police do not know whether Khodakaramrezaei traveled to Washington with the intention of committing the murder or was simply in the area, but they have confirmed that he did not have a criminal record.
The upscale suburb where Sadeghi and Naseri lived in their $1.6 million home is most famous for being the site of Microsoft’s headquarters.
bet there were no RED FLAGS for the FIBbers to see. They should have put up a noose at their house. That would be the ticket….