Podcaster & Husband Hunted by Crazed Fan | Hashtag Homicide | Forensic Files

[audio logo] Christine Mitchelle: The internet is a place where you never know who you're
talking to on the other side. Jacqueline B. Helfgott: Social media has created a situation
where regular people have become stars on a screen, but they're not equipped to deal
with it like movie stars are. Alisha Holland: Zohreh Sadeghi worked in technology.
And she wanted to help others, so she created a podcast. She was able to connect with people online,
and Ramin was one of those people. - He became infatuated with Zohreh. - The communication just kind of spiraled out of control.
Sean Kipe: Now he's calling her 100 times a day. Christine Mitchelle: He wanted to be
in a romantic relationship with her. - If 20 calls didn't work, what about 500 calls?
Alisha Holland: She got to the point where she wasn't opening windows because she didn't want to see if he was standing outside.
He even threatened at one point that he was going to set her home on fire. Marshall Telbert: To live in that constant fear
and constantly on edge, I can't even imagine. And the ability that he had to find information about her.
But it was clear, and he made it clear, that he wasn't going to stop. [theme music]
♪ ♪ Marshall Telbert: Redman is what feels like a small town, but has growing bigger and bigger.
It's a suburb of Seattle, Washington. It's a very large tech population here. Sean Kipe: Washington State is kind of where tech is,
and Microsoft and Amazon and all of these huge tech companies. There are so many tech jobs, high paying jobs.
It's a beautiful location, and it attracts the top tech talent from all over the world.
I mean, it's a very multicultural place, and I think the tech industry being centered there
has a lot to do with that. The schools are good, the neighborhoods are safe. Redman is kind of one of those pockets just outside
of the main city that people move to because it's safer than Seattle. narrator:<i> Redman is</i> <i> home to married couple,</i>
<i> 33-year-old Zohreh</i> <i> Sadeghi and 35-year-old</i> <i> Mohammad Milad Naseri.</i>
- In 2011, Zohreh and Mohammad moved from Iran to the United States. And they started tech careers in Washington
and were really living a wonderful life. She was a software engineer at Promontory Mortgage Path LLC,
and Mohammad worked as a software engineer for Amazon here in Seattle. And they were both hard working, focused on technology,
and just making a better world. Marshall Telbert: They're both so smart and articulate and
so kind, the type of people that would never wish ill on anybody. Alisha Holland: Zohreh Sadeghi was a Farsi speaker who
worked in technology, and she wanted to take that very niche skill set and help others.
So she created a podcast. And that podcast was for Farsi speakers. And it focused on resources and support in the tech world.
Sean Kipe: It is so easy to start a podcast. I think that's why everybody does it.
You can make it in your closet or in your bedroom, or in your car or wherever. And you upload it to a hosting platform,
and it's instantly accessible by people all over the world. There's a podcast for everything,
for every interest that you have or everything that's going on in your life, whether you need to talk to somebody in a therapy setting
or hear other people's experiences in that kind of setting, whether you're looking for inspiration or home
renovation stuff, or in Zohreh's case, you're looking for a job and getting some advice and
mentorship from someone in your field or a field that you're interested in. And that's what she did, and connecting
with a community of people who you have knowledge and you're able to teach people something.
Give them something that's going to be useful to them or beneficial to them. And so that's what she was a part of, and one of the things
that she really, I think, was interested in and enjoyed doing. - Zohreh didn't just talk about opportunities in tech.
She really wanted to help people. So she was actually on the app called Clubhouse,
which is really unique because users can interact with audio files. So you're really almost speaking to the person.
Sean Kipe: There are different topics. You can meet people in fields that you're interested in
or that you work in, the tech space. It's just a way to offer advice, to share advice or mentorship or information,
and just sort of encapsulated in this one app and this one central place where people
can connect with each other. narrator:<i> Clubhouse</i> <i> is a podcasting and</i>
<i> social networking app.</i> <i> It launched in 2020</i> <i> and rapidly gained popularity</i>
<i> during the COVID pandemic.</i> <i> It attracts a diverse</i> <i> community of enthusiasts</i>
<i> who join chat rooms to engage</i> <i> others in conversations</i> <i> and meet new people.</i>
Marshall Telbert: Zohreh went through a lot in her life during that time. She moved here.
She was going through some chronic pain issues, and we had the COVID shutdowns, all kind
of happened simultaneously. She seemed like a very outgoing and kind person, the type of person that would be friends
with anybody and everybody, that kind of chameleon sort of person. You could put her in a room with anybody.
Milad seemed like just such a caring husband and somebody who was doing his best to look out
for his wife and was so interested in her getting out there again. I think moving here, dealing with some chronic pain issues,
the COVID shutdowns can really take a person who was once outgoing and really make them very isolated.
So I think that he was very excited to see her get on a Clubhouse, engage with people,
interact with people in a time and in a world where it was really difficult for any of us
to interact. Alisha Holland: And this app was great. She was able to connect with people.
And Ramin was one of those people. narrator:<i> Ramin</i> <i> Dakaramrezaei is</i>
<i> a 38-year-old man from Texas.</i> Alisha Holland: She was really excited because she
really wanted to help people. She had these skills, and she wanted to put them to good use.
So when Ramin started bringing up questions about getting into tech and things that she could offer as far as resources
or support or connections, it was all really exciting. Christine Mitchelle: She was very
mindful of her own privacy and her own personal information. So she was careful not to just give out her phone number
to anybody, any listener or anybody who was connecting with her on social media.
narrator:<i> Ramin becomes</i> <i> a regular listener</i> <i> to Zohreh's podcast.</i>
Marshall Telbert: He first reached out to her, claiming that he was interested in what she was interested in.
They first began a friendship online on Clubhouse and then through their Instagram account
she had associated with the Clubhouse account. He had begun direct messaging her, liking her posts,
and as far as I can tell, it seems like it was a cordial friendship online early on.
This definitely felt like exactly what the Clubhouse application is for, what Instagram is for,
what social media is for, connecting with people all over the world, in your area and beyond,
for shared interests. Christine Mitchelle: He had begun contacting her through other means other than the Clubhouse.
And it sounds like they had engaged in, like, group chats and other social media platforms
that the suspect had joined and had started contacting Zohreh that way, which then led to him
messaging her more frequently. And he had given her this idea that he was also trying to make his way in the tech industry
and that he was appreciative for any guidance and advice. And, of course, Zohreh was more than
happy to help anybody who was trying to do the same thing that she had done and that she was trying to support others in doing.
And I think that kind of opened the door for him to really begin bombarding her.
narrator:<i> Later</i> <i> into 2021 and into 2022,</i> <i> things start taking</i> <i> a more sinister turn.</i>
Alisha Holland: At first, it seemed like that's what the conversations were. Romine was asking about those topics.
But it really didn't take long for the conversation to change, and it was clear he was more focused
on Zohreh as a person and an individual, not the help she was offering or the support she could give.
It started to turn obsessive, and his connecting with her was changing and was not focused on tech any longer.
And that's when she first started to become really concerned about him and what his real reason for speaking to her was.
- Comments about her Instagram and online activity were somewhat disturbing because he was making comments
about other men who were messaging her or commenting, or he was commenting about the clothing that she was wearing
and how much skin that she was showing. I think at some point she even deleted her Instagram account
just so that he wasn't able to track her or contact her through Instagram any further.
Sean Kipe: In the fall of 2022, after Ramin and Zohreh had been talking through the app and
communicating with each other for some time, she had started pushing away. He was becoming a little maybe possessive or obsessive.
Marshall Telbert: There was a lot of grooming early on, I mean, even the way that he
presented himself as somebody who's interested in the tech world. He later on admitted to her that he was a truck driver.
He has this, like, emotional moment where he's like crying or, like, ashamed of his job, which
I think is just so manipulative, because not only is he outing himself as I misrepresented myself
to start this friendship from the beginning, but now I'm going to come tell you this sob story
to make you feel bad for me. Christine Mitchelle: I think after that, the communication just kind of spiraled out of control.
He was contacting her through the app Telegram. She was getting message after message after message.
If you're not familiar with that app, it's really easy to just generate another account
and generate another account and another account, which made it really difficult for her to fully block him or
keep him from contacting her. [phone vibrating] Sean Kipe: He then took it a step further
and started calling her, getting her phone number. And that escalates again, and now he's calling her 100 times
a day, literally. That'll scare anybody. narrator:<i> Zohreh is left with</i> <i> no option but to file a police</i>
<i> report, but this does not</i> <i> deter Ramin from continuing</i> <i> his campaign of harassment.</i>
Christine Mitchelle: He had gone to lengths to locate Zohreh's close friends. And he had actually found their phone numbers as well,
and began calling her friends and talking to her friends about how he wanted to be in a romantic relationship with her,
which also set another whole level of fear because he's now finding her friends' contact
information and phone numbers. Alisha Holland: Zohreh tried her best to keep Ramin at Bay.
She changed her phone number, she blocked him anytime he called, but he always found a way around that.
He would change his number. He would get burner phones and call her new number, which
he was able to find online. He would stay at hotels, as part of his job, and he would call from the hotel numbers
because they weren't blocked yet. He was finding every loophole possible to be able to track her down.
What's the new phone number? What's a phone number connected to her mother? What about her friends?
And he was able to get a hold of her continually. There really was no stopping him.
He was full steam ahead. Nothing was going to keep him from her. Marshall Telbert: I don't know when his infatuation
began with Zohreh. I don't know if that was from the very beginning or escalated for him as well, but it was clear
and he made it clear that he wasn't going to stop. [theme music] [audio logo] [audio logo]
narrator:<i> Redman,</i> <i> Washington, 2022.</i> <i> Podcaster Zohreh</i> <i> Sadeghi has reported</i>
<i> to police that one</i> <i> of her listeners</i> <i> is stalking and harassing her.</i>
<i> The man, Ramin</i> <i> Khodakaramrezaei,</i> <i> has been calling her from</i> <i> different phone numbers</i>
<i> and sending her hundreds</i> <i> of text messages,</i> <i> evading any attempt</i> <i> to block him.</i>
<i> Zohreh and her husband</i> <i> Milad are deeply</i> <i> concerned for her safety.</i>
Jacqueline B. Helfgott: Stalking can be a very frightening crime in that it involves
a pattern of fantasy development, obsession, and identification with a person in a way that's unwanted,
and then a sustained behavior of trying to act out on those fantasies. Marshall Telbert: Stalking in general
is a very disturbing crime, because it speaks to not only some level of delusion or an inability
to accept somebody else's reality or barriers they're putting up, or things that they're telling you,
your inability to accept that, it also speaks to a level of commitment, the nonstop communication, finding
different avenues and angles, attempting different ways to garner engagement. Like, OK, if this didn't work, if 20 calls didn't work,
what about 500 calls? How invasive that can feel for somebody, how troubling that
can feel for somebody like Zohreh, to live in that constant fear and constantly on edge,
I can't even imagine. And just the manipulation and the ability that he had to find information about her
and then let her know that he found the information, it just really speaks to a level of intent
and a level of a fear because of the control that he had over the situation as well.
Christine Mitchelle: In December of 2022, she was home and Milad had actually just left the home to go on a trip.
He showed up at her residence, knocked on the door and left a bouquet of flowers and a card outside of her home.
She, obviously, didn't answer the door and captured the whole thing on her surveillance footage.
Sean Kipe: Your home is your castle. It's your space to feel safe. And now, with him coming there, that's gone.
And she could no longer have even a place to feel safe at home. Alisha Holland: She was horrified.
This showed that, obviously, Ramin was not listening and was not respecting her boundaries
of leaving her alone. And not only that, it seemed almost like he was showing his hand a little saying,
I was able to find your house. I know where you live, and I know when your husband leaves the house.
So, I can only assume he intended that to be as threatening as it was. narrator:<i> Zohreh fears</i> <i> for her own safety,</i>
<i> as well as that of her</i> <i> husband and her mother,</i> <i> who also lives with them.</i>
Alisha Holland: After Ramin had been coming to the house, the fear for everyone involved was through the roof.
Zohreh didn't feel safe in her own home because this man was showing up all the time against her wishes.
He even threatened at one point that he was going to set a tree on fire that she loved,
and therefore that tree would catch her home on fire, and then he would catch himself on fire.
These were extreme threats and terrifying. She got to the point where she wasn't opening windows
because she didn't want to see if he was standing outside, staring at her home or looking for her.
And to make things even worse, at the same time, she had recently gone through back surgery,
and so she was home recovering. And that was all going well, but she was pretty incapacitated.
So her fear escalated because she thought if someone were to come into the home and I had to defend myself, she wasn't sure that she could.
And it was also so stressful. It was really hindering her ability to actually physically heal.
So all combined, this was a really terrible time in her life. narrator:<i> In January</i> <i> 2023, Zohreh</i>
<i> files a second police report.</i> Christine Mitchelle: She had talked to an officer about her concerns
and also his increase in her-- contacting her. And so that patrol officer took her concerns,
wrote it down, and then even a step further in her investigation and called the suspect
and tried to articulate to him that this contact was unwanted and that Zohreh I did not want anything further from him
and to essentially leave her alone. It's my understanding that that conversation didn't
go very well, and he wasn't very receptive to what the officer was saying to him.
But that officer did what they could, like I said. They, I believe, even charged him
with the crime of harassment, and that's where it stood. The day after the patrol officer had talked to Zohreh
and had taken the report, reading through it, I was noticing numerous red flags, especially how
he had traveled all the way to Washington to leave flowers at her front door. And the incessant contact through various social media
platforms, l decided that I was going to reach out to her and introduce myself and have a conversation about digging
a little deeper, trying to figure out what transpired and how this all started and what her true concerns were
and what she thought he was capable of doing. She had requested that I come to her house
to conduct the interview. During this time period, she was suffering from a significant back injury and
some other ailments that were kind of limiting her ability to be mobile. So I went over to her house and met with her and
her husband Milad. It was very apparent that they were a wonderful couple. And she was so warm and so welcoming,
and so was her husband. I could genuinely tell that they loved each other, and they wouldn't have contacted
us if they weren't concerned. Marshall Telbert: We took this very seriously. We truly believed everything Zohreh was telling us.
She walked us through an entire history of everything that had been going on, and she showed us all the evidence
that she had collected, the screenshots, the communication they had. She had closely documented everything
that I would want somebody to do that's in any circumstance like this. So once we had all of that and we interviewed
her and her husband Milad-- who also had documentation and saved voicemails and everything else--
we were able to encourage her to seek a protection order, which she did. We were also able to file for an arrest warrant.
Darrell Lowe: A protection order and a restraining order is an order from a judge that tells a person basically what
they cannot do, so they cannot be within a specified distance of the victim. Could be 50 yards, 1,000 yards, et cetera.
You cannot phone, harass, contact, et cetera. So it attempts to emails, texts, phone calls.
And, again, it also can provide a physical distance between the victim and the suspect.
Sean Kipe: On March 3, 2023, Zohreh finally gets an official protective order against Ramin.
And he's not allowed to come anywhere near her. But the problem is he's a truck driver
and he's always on the road, so they can't actually serve the papers to him, which means the protective order is
really useless at that point. You have to serve it to the person. And that challenge of even finding where this guy is--
I mean, he's from Texas. She's in Washington. He could be in Kansas one day, and
he could be in Oregon the next, and he could be two days later in North Dakota. I mean, there's no--
he's on the highway, endless stretches of highway in the US. - Another hurdle for me, investigative wise,
is the type of crime that I'm investigating. And based on everything that I had learned thus far,
the suspect had only committed the act of stalking. And in the state of Washington, stalking is a misdemeanor
and not a felony. So that really limits what I can do and how I can move forward in my investigation.
I consulted with our prosecutors here in the city of Redmond, and what we came up with
is charging him with stalking and getting a warrant for his arrest. Meaning that if he were to cross
into the state of Washington, anyone, any officer, any trooper, any deputy within the state of Washington
would be able to effect his arrest, which was my goal. I didn't care who arrested him or
where he was found, just that he was taken into custody and that she could feel some type of comfort
knowing that he had been arrested. The prosecutors got a warrant for his arrest for stalking and, I believe, cyber harassment.
And now it was, essentially, my job to find him. That's, obviously, not an easy task
when he is a long haul truck driver and does not live, quite frankly, anywhere near the state of Washington.
So, I began tracking him. I got an order to track him through his phone. And that was working up until March 7.
His phone had been turned off at that point in time. Though he had turned it off in Utah.
I wasn't receiving any more information about his location, which is indicative of either
him turning off or the phone went dead. That, obviously, was another red flag. It was my assumption that based on where the activity started
and where it had continued, that he was probably hauling a load somewhere. I had no details on the business
he worked for, what he hauled, or where he could be headed because, again, it's not like he was at the border in Oregon.
So, at that point in time, we just made her aware of my investigation thus far. And we talked, and I told her time and time again,
if you hear from him or he contacts you and gives you any information or leaves you a voicemail,
please reach out to me and let me know because any information at all could be very important, however small it is.
narrator:<i> Three days</i> <i> after Ramin's phone</i> <i> last pinged in Utah, everyone's</i> <i> worst nightmare comes true.</i>
Jamie Ford: So it was the early morning hours of March 10, 2023. We received a call at about 1:45 in the morning.
Dispatch advised there was an open 911 line of a female crying, screaming, another male voice moaning.
And no matter what dispatch asked, as far as questions, not getting any answers back.
[police siren] Everybody starts heading that way so we figure out what's going on.
Our dispatchers were giving us info that there is some history of stalking at this address.
Within a minute, another call comes from a neighbor that someone from the house of the 911 call
came from came to their door knocking, that somebody tried to break in, that somebody has a gun.
[knocking the door] [audio logo] [audio logo] narrator:<i> Redman, Washington,</i> <i> on March 10, 2023,</i>
<i> law enforcement</i> <i> receive a 911 call</i> <i> and hear a woman screaming.</i>
- Please. Please. narrator:<i> The address</i> <i> belongs to a woman named</i> <i> Zohreh Sadeghi, who</i> <i> has an active case</i>
<i> against a persistent stalker.</i> <i> A minute later, another</i> <i> 911 call comes in,</i>
<i> this time from a neighbor</i> <i> reporting that someone</i> <i> has broken into the Sadeghi</i> <i> home with a gun.</i>
<i> Redman police</i> <i> rushed to the scene.</i> Jamie Ford: Staring at this house,
it was completely dark and quiet. The door was closed. I had officers surrounding the house.
They couldn't see any points of entry, no broken glass, broken windows, kicked-in doors.
Not a sound was coming from the house. narrator: The police learned that the woman
who ran to the neighbors is Fatima, Zohreh's mother. - [CRYING] Jamie Ford: She was in a state of panic.
She was predominantly Farsi speaking, so we get our language line. And even the interpreter on the language line
was having a really difficult time trying to translate what Fatima was trying to tell us.
Eventually, the translator says, Fatima told us that a male broke in and fired four shots.
Meanwhile, we're making announcements over our PA system on our vehicle for anyone
to come outside. So with that info, we just decided to-- form a contact team to move up to the front of the residence.
As soon as we get a contact team going, I see a male subject through a long window that
ran alongside the front door. He was at the upper landing of the staircase, just kind of swaying back and forth.
So, call out to him on the PA for him to exit the house, but he's unresponsive and he's stumbling a lot.
As a team, we opened the door and inside-- and he's on the ground at this point--
and we call him towards us because we don't know if he has a gun or if anyone else inside the house
has a gun. He's moaning, kind of in pain, but he's covered in vomit. And with the stumbling and covered in vomit, honestly,
I thought he was intoxicated at first. So he wasn't coming towards us, so I went inside the residence,
grabbed both of his arms. I drag him out as fast as we safely could because we still don't know where this firearm is at
and if anyone else inside the house still has this firearm. And this guy is just in complete pain.
Not being able to say anything, not being able to answer any questions. One of the officers did a wound sweep
to see if he had any injuries on him because he was, obviously, in pain. And at about his sternum was a very small bullet hole.
I put chest seals on him to do CPR, but he started to decline pretty rapidly. He died pretty quickly as soon as we
got him in the ambulance rig. I found out later that this was a Milad, Zohreh's husband.
As we push forward inside the house, we go upstairs since that's where we found Milad.
On the floor, on the stairway landing was a spent 9 millimeter cartridge casing and an unspent live 9 millimeter round.
And that was the first bit of evidence inside the house that something horrible had happened.
We work our way down the hallway. It's very dark inside, but as soon as I shined a light in one of the bedrooms,
I could see a male's head on the edge of a bed. And he, obviously, looked deceased.
Pushed a little further and see that he's holding on to a firearm, but he wasn't moving.
So we entered the room. He was laying on the bed. He was laying on top of a female subject.
They were both facing up, and she was obviously deceased also. And later find out that this was Zohreh
and that the male was Ramin. When we made our way downstairs, we found the point of entry being a broken bedroom window.
From the outside, you couldn't really see this broken bedroom window because it was ground level
and a trampoline was pushed up next to it. We pretty much secured the crime scene
and waited for detectives to show up. Marshall Telbert: It's a rare case where you have so much background information
about the involved parties when you arrive on scene, but, again, it's very important that you don't take things
at face value and that you don't know the scope of everything. So you follow the standard procedure
you would for any case. So we close off the scene, then we carefully and diligently document the scene
and collect all pertinent evidence. narrator:<i> Investigators</i> <i> expand the crime scene</i>
<i> from the house</i> <i> to the surrounding area</i> <i> in search of further evidence.</i>
Christine Mitchelle: Well, first it was, how did he get here? There's no truck we could locate in the immediate area.
And this is a neighborhood, right, where the houses are pretty close together, the streets
aren't that wide, and, quite frankly, I'm not really sure where he would have parked.
While we were on scene conducting our investigation, I believe another patrol officer
had located a suspicious vehicle parked on the street just north of the residence.
It was a red pickup. And when he looked into the truck-- and it was, what I would say, indicative of somebody going on
like a road trip-- there were lots of cans of Red Bull, cigarettes. It was messy.
There was packaging in there for a KA-BAR knife. Also in the vehicle was receipts for ammo,
which he had just recently purchased as well, just days before. And then we later learned that it was a vehicle rented
from the Portland airport. I actually went through and talked to somebody from the airport.
They were able to provide me with a surveillance footage, which did show that he was
the one who rented the truck. And it showed him driving away in the truck. So there's no reason to believe that the truck
belonged to anybody else. So we towed the vehicle back to the police department and got a search warrant for the vehicle and its contents.
Once we searched that vehicle, we found items, identification belonging to the suspect
that we were able to determine that he had left his truck somewhere and rented this vehicle, which, again, to
me is indicative of how he was trying to go undetected and how he made every attempt to make sure
that no one knew where he was going or what he was going to do. He took those extra steps to park on the street adjacent--
so just north of their house-- with the intention of concealing it and himself. When he arrived, it was dark.
He parked on that side of the neighborhood so he could come from the back of Zohreh's house
and entered the backyard where the window that he broke into was on the north side of the house and,
unfortunately, the same room where Zohreh's mother was staying. I believe I was contacted a few days later
after the investigation because some agency had located his semi truck, and it had been parked and towed.
After going through some of his bags, we found diaries, which were in Farsi, and then a bag full of cell phones.
It became pretty apparent that not only was he doing everything he could to cover his movements.
Most people don't travel around with six or seven different cell phones. [audio logo]
[audio logo] narrator:<i> On March 10,</i> <i> 2023, Ramin Dakaramrezaei</i> <i> broke into the home of</i> <i> podcasters Zohreh Sadeghi and</i>
<i> her husband Mohammad Milad</i> <i> Naseri in Redmond, Washington,</i> <i> killing them before</i> <i> fatally shooting himself.</i>
<i> Ramin, a fan who had become</i> <i> dangerously obsessed,</i> <i> had stalked</i> <i> and harassed Sadeghi</i>
<i> for months with incessant</i> <i> calls and messages</i> <i> despite a court order</i> <i> forbidding him to contact her.</i>
Jacqueline B. Helfgott: He just was relentless and did not stop. And she tried everything she could possibly do.
She did everything right to try to protect herself, and in the end, she wasn't able to protect
herself or her husband. And it's a really frightening example of what can happen in these cases.
Stalking is one of the most terrifying crimes there is, especially in the world we live in now,
with digital culture where crime can be created in a digital space, and so you don't know where a person is.
This can happen to any person on social media. You don't know who's out there and you don't know
anything about who they are. And it creates a situation where there was very little that could
be done about it, even by law enforcement agencies trying to help. Christine Mitchelle: After the murder,
I did learn that he has a wife and a child in Texas. And the night before the homicide,
he video called with his child and didn't exactly come out and say what he had planned or what he was going to do,
but I think after the fact and after I talked with his ex-wife, it was apparent to me
that he was essentially saying his goodbyes. His ex-wife, she had contacted our agency
inquiring about next steps for some of his property. So, we didn't really talk too much or in depth.
She just shared with me that the last time that they had communicated was just prior to the homicide
when they engaged in that video call. He had expressed to his ex-wife that him and Zohreh were going
to be together and that she was his girlfriend and that they were romantically involved.
- He's a father himself. He's divorced, a truck driver. And for whatever reason, he became infatuated with Zohreh.
And he took it upon himself to exert the most despicable power and control because he wasn't in control of the situation.
narrator:<i> Although</i> <i> Redmond police</i> <i> worked to protect</i> <i> Zohreh and her family,</i>
<i> ultimately they were unable</i> <i> to stop her attacker.</i> Darrell Lowe: The primary detective in this case
did a phenomenal job in working with the victim and working within the constraints
of our criminal justice system, which, unfortunately, do not favor victims. The detective and the Department
went above and beyond to ensure that the victim followed every step possible and appropriate
to ensure that we had the tools and resources that we needed from a criminal justice perspective.
There's only so much that we can do. This case had the most tragic of outcomes despite the best efforts of a very committed and
dedicated detective who went above and beyond the nature of this case. I believe it became very personal to the detective.
She could see the fear in the victim and the victim's family. It did have a huge impact on our department,
on the people involved in the case. Sean Kipe: In the past nearly decade, I've covered a lot of cases in podcasting,
but this one sort of hits home a little bit more than others for me because I'm a podcaster,
and my voice goes out to a lot of people. And those people largely are fans, but you just don't know who's at the other end of the phone.
What's the average person supposed to do in a situation like this? You go to the police, you go to law enforcement,
you change your phone number, you change your email addresses, but you can't completely uproot your life.
I don't know what else she could have done. I think she did everything she could
or she felt that she could at that time. narrator:<i> Investigators</i> <i> reflect on the tragedy</i>
<i> of the loss of Zohreh</i> <i> and her husband, Milad.</i> Christine Mitchelle: It's really hard.
It is. It is very difficult. I had many long conversations with them and got to know them.
And I think that this is the worst type of tragedy, obviously, that-- the worst type of outcome for any case.
And I hope that going forward, that anyone who feels like they're in a similar situation or they
can't get away from somebody, that they speak up for themselves. We're here to listen and to support you in any way
that we can. [phone vibrating] I can't express enough how you never know who you're
talking to on the other side. The internet is a place where you can be anybody you want to be, you
can play any role you want to play, you can say anything you want, and you never know what the truth is,
and you never know who exactly you're talking to on the other side. Marshall Telbert: Zohreh and Milad,
they were such warm and good people and didn't deserve this. And they're like anybody else out there
that would think that this would never happen to them, that this couldn't happen to them, that they're
like anybody else. They are smart. They are careful. They were diligent in their documentation.
So it's just a major warning sign to anybody out there who engages with people online should
be as careful as possible. And if something doesn't feel right, it's not right. Trust your instincts.
Seek the protection orders. Involve law enforcement early. [theme music] ♪ ♪

Podcast host Zohreh Sadeghi and her husband Mohammad Milad Naseri were murdered by stalker Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, who relentlessly harassed them online and in person. Despite her seeking a protective order, the couple was fatally shot in their home.

This true crime series delves into real cases in the digital age, tracing social media clues throughout investigations to reveal how online footprints expose murder and reshape the pursuit of truth.

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Brief Summary

Zohreh Sadeghi's tragic story reveals the dangers of online interactions and stalking, culminating in a devastating home invasion and murder-suicide.

Key points

Zohreh's Podcast Journey. Zohreh Sadeghi created a podcast to help others in tech, connecting with many online.
Threats Escalate. Ramin's behavior escalates to threats against Zohreh and her home.
Ramin's Obsession Grows. Ramin's initial interest in tech advice spirals into an obsessive fixation on Zohreh.
Zohreh's Fear. Zohreh's fear for her safety grows as Ramin's harassment intensifies.
Protective Order Issued. Zohreh finally secures a protective order against Ramin, but it proves ineffective.
Tragic Outcome of Stalking Case. Zohreh Sadeghi and her husband Milad were killed by a stalker, Ramin Dakaramrezaei, before he took his own life.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I can’t even imagine.

Marshall Telbert expressing the fear Zohreh lived with.

1:03WatchApr 20, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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