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Now, a special two-part edition of 48 hours. [Music] You don't know exactly what you're going
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to be finding up there. And and so just driving up there in in itself, you're kind of walking into the unknown.
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I I believe I was a little nervous. I would describe it as being absolutely savage.
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This was someone who used a baseball bat to kill the family. What I see is an attack that is not only
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calculated and carried out with precision. There was blood all over the room, on
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the ceiling, on the floor. I also see a crime scene that smacks of the murderer having a very, very
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personal vendetta. Somebody just went off the deep end and once they started killing they either
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enjoyed it or they couldn't stop themselves. In an upper middle class neighborhood of
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an upper middle class community, [Music] three unsuspecting and undeserving human
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beings were savagely beaten to death. There's blood. They're not breathing. I don't think it's safe here. By somebody
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who they knew. [Music] [Music] [Music] It was a plan, a well rehearsed, well thoughtout out plan.
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What happened in this house on a hot summer night in 1994 brought tragedy and mystery to this quiet neighborhood in
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Belleview, Washington. Just after 2:00 in the morning on July 13th, police were called to a crime that would take them
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10 years to bring to justice. Had you ever seen anything like it? Never. James Jude Conat is a senior deputy
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prosecutor in King County. He and a team of detectives have been haunted by this
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crime and the killers who got away. They think that they are smarter than other people in the world. And I know
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that sounds just kind of a broad statement, but I I really believe they believe that
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the search for the truth would lead police to another country through a web of intriguing clues. Could this
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screenplay that described a murder unlock the mystery? And in the end, would a sophisticated undercover
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operation set in a makebelieve world of crime catch the real killers? The story begins with a call for help.
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Emergency. What are you reporting? Uh uh my friend, his mom and dad, we think they're dead.
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Sebastian Burns and his friend Atifra had stumbled on a horrific scene. Aif's parents had been murdered.
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There is nothing that I can imagine about my parents that could have justified anyone to do what was done to them.
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Sultana Raf's mother was the first to be killed. Sebastian, what did you see when you
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walked through that door? I saw mom lying on the floor. Tariq Rafé was the next to be murdered.
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We could see there was blood around him and it it was clear that he had been attacked.
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Why do you think that they're dead? There's blood. They're not breathing. Uh there's blood all over his face.
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It was basically an overkill. Detective Bob Thompson has been on the case since the night it began.
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It just looked like someone had hit him 40 or 50 times. Please fast. Yes, they're on the way.
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Okay, they're on the way. We'll be outside. Okay, go ahead. As the boys waited for help to arrive, a
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third victim, Aif's autistic older sister, Bosma, was clinging to life, moaning in her bedroom.
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The third victim was autistic. It would make sense that she's murdered last because everybody knows that she can't
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make a 911 call. Bosma died a few hours later at the hospital, taking with her the secret of
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who killed the Rafé family. The Rafes had just moved to Belleview from Vancouver, Canada. Sultana had a
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doctorate in nutrition, but devoted her life to raising her gifted son and disabled daughter.
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I think she was um certainly an extraordinary person. Do you miss your mom? I do.
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What do you miss most about her? Well, the the mere presence is enough, but uh she knew me in a way that uh I
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suspect that no one ever will. Um she was always able to look right through the uh adolescent sort of pomposities
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that I might have had and remind me that uh I was just uh a silly kid at times. Tariq Rafé was a structural engineer who
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had worked on buildings around the world. In a sense, we were all like kids around him or or like my mom was too and
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we were all I guess sort of in his orbit. Um he was a brilliant person. Uh probably a far better mathematician than
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I will ever be. No one could understand who would take the lives of this quiet family and spare
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their only son. Detectives began to look more closely at the crime scene. What's the problem there? There's been
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some kind of breakin. Sebastian had used the words breakin to report what had happened.
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Is it locked? It's not locked. Unlock. Just looking at that room, you started realizing this. This looks like
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someone set it up. Boxes were tipped over, drawers were opened, but nothing appeared to have gone through.
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That night, when police asked what was missing, Aif said two things. His disc man and a VCR. Someone came in, murdered
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three people, and took his Walkman and a VCR. I mean, it makes no sense. Detectives probe deeper. Who were these
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teenage boys who reported the crime? The 1992 93 school year. Sebastian Burns and Aif Rafé had been
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best friends since high school. What' you like about high school? I liked being a kid. I liked having free
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time and I liked hanging around with other kids and I just liked being young. The boys shared a sarcastic sense of
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humor and an interest in reading and debate. What would you guys talk about? What
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were you interested in? You know, it was things like uh Shakespeare and philosophy and uh kamu
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and things like that. They had a lot in common. They became very good friends because they were both
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precocious. They were both intelligent. Sarah Isix is Sebastian's high school sweetheart.
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He went to parties. He was athletic and he became friends with a Tif and sort of
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showed a Tif how to dress. He'd introduced Tif to girls. He sort of helped Tif be a a stud like he was.
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That's going back a bit. Sebastian was raised in a loving family with English roots.
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There was a lot of respect in our household. I mean, um, you didn't talk back to my parents. You didn't swear in
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the house. Sebastian's sister, Tiffany. We both grew up playing classical cello.
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So, we had music lessons and we had to practice every day after school. All right. Thanks.
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In 2005, Tiffany was a TV reporter at the CBS station in Cleveland. She can't say enough about her little brother.
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He's very smart. I mean, he's definitely what you would call an intellectual. He's so well read. He's got so many
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fascinating things to say. Sebastian became a member of the Royal Canadian Aircadets and was given an
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award by Prince Edward. A Tif made it to the Ivy League, attending Cornell University. It was the summer of their
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freshman year in college when the murders took place. It sort of is like a jigsaw puzzle where
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you know you just take that piece and you put it here and you start you start fitting it together and pretty soon you
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get a picture. Police took Sebastian and Aif to the station and examine them for traces of
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blood. They found nothing. When asked where they had been that evening, the boys provide a full account. At 8:30
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they drove to a restaurant for a bite to eat. Then they went to a 950 showing of
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the Lion King. But why do you remember them? They were acting annoying, obnoxious.
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Everywhere they went, the people who came into contact with them remembered them.
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After the movie, they stopped at another restaurant and left the waitress a $6 tip on a $9 tab.
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They don't usually do that, especially young guys. Young guys don't tip very well.
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But something else troubled police. How could the boys remember so much detail about where they'd been that evening and
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yet not recall key moments at the murder scene? The police decided to interview Sebastian and Aif again and detectives
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recorded the conversation. I found my mom. What did you do? I I may have gone up to
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her. I I can't remember. I don't know what I did. Um I can't remember. Did you go walk over
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to your dad? Um, I don't think so. No. Did you touch your dad? I don't think so.
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Well, you'd know, though, would you? Yeah. I I don't I I I don't know if I know, but I don't I don't think I touch
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him. See, I don't understand this. Aif, your your sister is moaning. She's hurt.
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Yeah. And you don't want to help her? Detectives wanted to know why Aif didn't help his dying sister even though he
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heard her through her bedroom door. How hurt is she? I didn't know. Okay. You don't know how hurt she is?
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I don't know how hurt she is. All I know is that I can't I I I can't do anything.
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Sebastian and Aif were witnesses. By the time they left at the end of these statements, were they suspects?
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Yes, definitely sus. By the time they left, they were suspects. You know what? I I think you know who it
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is. No. I I would tell you. I would tell you if I knew who would did it. And investigators thought they not only
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knew who, they also knew why. $300 to $400,000 is about to slip through his fingers if she lives. Are you saying
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that didn't go to the aid of his sister because he didn't want to save his sister?
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Aif didn't go to the aid of his sister because unless she died, the whole plan came crumbling down on
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them. 3 days after the murders, relatives gathered in Belleview to bury the rafes
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in a traditional Muslim ceremony. But the only surviving member of the immediate family was nowhere to be
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found. They were wondering where's the teeth? Where's the where's the son? On the day of the funeral, the Rafé's
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only son was on a bus headed across the border to Canada. And with him was his best friend, Sebastian Burns.
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Sebastian and Aif were now in Vancouver, Canada, out of reach of the Belleview police and an investigation that
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targeted them for the murders of the Rafé family. Did the boys go to Vancouver or did they flee to Vancouver?
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From our perspective, they they fled back to Vancouver. He didn't flee. He went home.
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Their sudden bus trip across the border only raised more suspicion even though both boys were Canadian citizens.
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How do you flee a country getting on a Greyhound bus? In fact, a representative from the
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Canadian consulate informed the Belleview police of their trip in advance. She contacted the Belleview Police
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Department to say, "These guys are leaving. They're going home if that's okay with you." and she was told, quote,
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"Sure." Mhm. She then tells the boys, "It's okay to go and they leave." That is not fleeing.
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It is not fleeing. I think it's to ask permission. Aif and Sebastian both had my numbers.
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They knew I was even in the process of getting them a pager so we could keep in contact. And they're gone. They don't
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tell me where they're at. They know I'm investigating the murders of their parents. And they're gone.
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Detective Thompson was a veteran cop. This is the other. His gut told him that the boys were
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guilty, but he just didn't have the evidence to prove it. Investigators kept combing the house.
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Is it locked? It's not locked. They found no forced entry. There was, however, an eerie clue. A forensic tool,
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Luminol, showed blood on the shower walls. The killer had used the shower before leaving. the person was so
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comfortable and calm and collected that he or she might then decide perhaps they'll have a shower before they go.
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It is inconceivable. Could that be the reason why the boys who had discovered the bodies at that
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bloody crime scene didn't have a trace of blood on their hair, their hands, or anywhere on their bodies?
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Are you a killer, Sebastian? No, absolutely not. Did you hold that bat in your hands and kill those three
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people? No, I didn't. You're not lying to me. No. Would you have ever done anything, Aif
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to hurt your parents? No. The single most distressing thing about this entire experience is the fact
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that I would even have to speak out and say, "Yeah, no, I I did not do that." Okay. Right in here. Even without
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physical evidence, detectives were determined. They began to build a case against the boys based on their odd
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behavior following the murders. They cooperated. They did everything that was asked of them. However, when
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they did things, they they had this air or this attitude about doing it. They honed in on their demeanor at the crime
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scene and questioned why they sat in front of the house if they believed an intruder might still be there.
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He's out on the curb, you know, 20 yard away from the the front door where this supposed killer might be in the house
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and he's waiting for the police on the curb. Well, the T7 a cigarette. I'm not sure that anything that we did
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made any sense. I I was not thinking in a normal way. Police also couldn't make sense of why a
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thief would notice that his discman and VCR were missing. He's walking around the house claiming
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to discover the fact the VCR is missing. And ultimately, while his mother and father and sister lay in a state of
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carnage, let's not mince words here. It is carnage. He claims to have discovered that the
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walkman was missing from his bedroom. And they've decided that my son and his friend are the guilty parties. They've
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decided that I believe him to be totally innocent as is a teeth and they have been damned.
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Sebastian's family and friends rallied around him and a teeth. I remember sitting on those steps with
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Sebastian. I remember sitting on that field. Sebastian's former girlfriend, Sarah
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Isac, says she knows his character better than anyone. Have you ever thought to yourself, maybe
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there was something I missed about Sebastian that I just didn't see? There's nothing that anyone could tell
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me. There's never a moment when someone could tell me something that made me think, honestly, maybe he did it. I
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never had to face that moment ever. I know Sebastian. He was and is my very, very good friend.
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Did the cops investigating this just need to get home to dinner? I mean, why didn't they follow up the leads that
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came their way? And there were other compelling leads. Within days of the crime, police
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received a tip from a reliable informant that someone had offered $20,000 to kill
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an East Indian family that had recently moved from Vancouver to Belleview. There's no physical evidence that links
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Aif and Sebastian to the crime. Their alibis check out and now you get this lead from an informant in Canada that
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somebody had been bragging about a hit on an East Indian family in Belleview, Washington.
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tells me that's the direction now you should be focusing your investigation since there's no evidence against these
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boys. Well, there is evidence against those boys. There was a lot of evidence against those boys and it was all
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circumstantial. It wasn't evidence to convict them. Certainly. Is it fair to say that you didn't
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properly check out this lead in Vancouver? Um, you know, there are it may be fair
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to say that that lead was not fully checked out. You get all kinds of tips that come in
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and you have to weigh them. But the leads didn't go that direction. The leads went directly to Canada and the
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leads followed we followed those leads to Sebastian and Aif. Why don't you talk to police? But on the
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advice of a lawyer, the boys decided to stop cooperating with Belleview authorities.
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The minute we went to Canada, Burns and Rafé wouldn't talk to us at all. They were telling other people not to talk to
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us. So Thompson kept digging and found what he thought was a disturbing clue from
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their past. We started looking through their high school yearbook and Sebastian Burns was uh in a high school play
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called The Rope about two kids who commit the perfect murder. [Music] These are words that Sebastian's
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character said on stage. Do you mind reading it? An immaculate murder. I have killed. I
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have killed for the sake of danger and for the sake of killing. Ariana McGregor performed in the West Vancouver High
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School production of Rope along with Sebastian. The character in the play is somebody
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who's arrogant and um believes he's better than everybody else. And Sebastian had a quality of being
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superior. He knew he was intelligent, knew he's good-looking. What was Rope about?
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The gimmick of the play is that there's somebody is murdered at the start of the
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play and the villains put him into a box and then they invite guests over. Everybody's at this party wondering when
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the last guest is going to show up and nobody knows that actually he's in the box at the front of the play. And so,
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um, there's lots of suspenseful giggles all the way through because everybody in
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the audience knows that there's this, uh, person, this this thing in the box. He's black and white.
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Your character on stage says, "We've always said, you and I, that moral concepts of right and wrong don't hold
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for the intellectually superior. The only crime we can commit is a mistake. There's some people who believe those
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are words that the real Sebastian Burns might say. Mom, that's ridiculous. There was no time ever during any
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performance or any rehearsal that anybody was ever thinking anything serious about any of the supposed
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intellectual philosophies in this play or or anything like that. But detectives believed the fictional
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murder story did inspire the real life crime. Even more chilling, the weapon was the same, a baseball bat.
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Well, that's just a huge coincidence. I think Sebastian was actually mortified when when he realized that he was a
00:21:54
suspect in the baseball bat killings of the Rafé because he said, "Chris, what's
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going to happen when they find out about the play?" How does the play end? their superior
00:22:03
figures them out. Someone who is actually more intelligent than they are uh figures it out and they get caught.
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As the investigation continued in Belleview, the boys were living well in Vancouver.
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With some of the money Aif inherited from his parents' estate, they bought a convertible and rented an apartment
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together with another high school pal. I think I'll stay here forever. Jimmy Moshi
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behind drawn curtains, they hid from the media who were constantly in pursuit of
00:22:42
them and their story. Hello, is Aif there? 987. But while they weren't talking to
00:22:54
the police, the police were listening to them. Hello, Rafe. Oh, yeah. Every word they spoke at home or in
00:23:03
their car was being recorded. How are you doing? Um, okay. I guess the boys had no idea they were now the
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targets of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP. The RCMP applied for and ultimately uh obtained
00:23:23
authorization to do wire tabs. On April 10th, 1995, RCMP investigators intercepted this phone message.
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This is Quimper's hair salon calling for Sebastian to confirm his appointment with Gregory tomorrow, Tuesday, April
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11th. Sebastian could never have imagined that he was about to fall into a trap set by one of the most
00:23:50
sophisticated undercover operators in the world. There was no doubt in my mind that yes, Sebastian Burns was
00:23:57
responsible for this and we were in fact going to get a full confession from him.
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By April of 1995, Sebastian Burns and Aif Rafé were Canada's most famous teenage murder suspects.
00:24:22
I remember a time when we're at a bus stop and someone drove by and rolled down the window and yelled, "Murderers."
00:24:30
That was typical. They were paras. They were hated. I was uh unable to go to college. I was
00:24:37
unable to get a job. But the boys had a plan to make their fortune and live out a lifelong dream.
00:24:47
They started work on their very own screenplay about two best friends accused of murdering a family.
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The movie was going to be about Sebastian Barren and a Tifra and the injustice that was heaped upon them as a
00:25:05
result of the suspicion about their involvement in this triple aggravated murder case in Belleview.
00:25:11
They called it the Great Despisers. We were worried that it would sound a bit nerdy because having the word great
00:25:18
in the title sounds makes sound kind of nerdy. And uh if we'd called that, for example, just the despisers,
00:25:25
um that would have uh been more unimpeachably cool. However, we we decided to have the courage to stick
00:25:34
with this nerdy title. While the boys worked on what they say is their fictional story about two friends
00:25:41
falsely accused, they had no idea the real life plotline was about to take an astonishing turn.
00:25:50
This is Crimper's hair salon calling for Sebastian to confirm his appointment with Greg.
00:25:54
That simple message from a local hair salon was the moment the RCMP was waiting for.
00:26:01
I think they were very vulnerable to whatever the RCMP had in store for them. These were kids who' lived pretty
00:26:10
sheltered lives. When Sebastian was finished at Crimper Salon, a stranger was waiting. And when
00:26:19
Mr. Burns comes out of the salon, the undercover operator just approaches him, what they call the cold approach.
00:26:27
He seemed to me like some kind of an entrepreneur. He walks up to him and says, "Hey buddy,
00:26:32
can you give me a hand? I seem to have locked my keys in the car." So, uh, he asked me for a ride to his
00:26:37
hotel and I gave him a ride. The stranger took Sebastian to a bar and bought him a drink for his trouble. I
00:26:45
was impressed by that. And um I was also sort of intrigued, I guess, or or excited about the way that he seemed
00:26:56
um so ready to be interested in me. Sebastian told his new friend that he and his buddies had written a
00:27:04
screenplay, but he didn't have a job and needed financing. The friend said he knew someone who could help. Ultimately,
00:27:13
the goal was to get Sebastian to meet with the next guy up the chain, and it worked perfectly.
00:27:20
Sebastian thought he was about to meet a connected businessman, but it was this man,
00:27:28
Sergeant Hlett of the RCMP. We cannot show you his face. I don't think there's an undercover team
00:27:34
like this anywhere in the world. And I say that very seriously. The best of the best. the best.
00:27:44
The RCMP spent months preparing to manipulate their target. They had access to fancy cars, posh
00:27:54
hotel suites, weapons, false international documents, beautiful women. Posing as professional mobsters, the
00:28:05
RCMP set up the first meeting with Sebastian at a strip club. How important was this movie to
00:28:12
Sebastian Burns? It was just about his whole uh life. The crime boss told Sebastian he did
00:28:19
have cash to invest in his screenplay, but Sebastian would have to earn it. Sebastian had no idea he was being
00:28:28
offered work in a makebelieve world of crime. Jobs were also promised to Aif and their pal Jimmy Mioshi.
00:28:38
I hope these guys are solid, man. These guys are never going to betray me ever. All right. Never ever
00:28:46
Sebastian's first assignment, transport a stolen car for the crime boss. He had nothing. And then he was offered
00:28:56
something. He was offered something that was criminal, something that he probably
00:29:01
wouldn't have thought was a good idea had he had something else going on in his life.
00:29:05
He was only paid $200 for the job. And he wasn't happy. He was disgusted. He made it clear he wasn't happy. He uh
00:29:14
told us he could make more money than that stealing his videos out of stores. It was essential to the undercover
00:29:20
operation that Sebastian continue working for the organization. So the next staged crime is easier for more
00:29:28
cash. What I want you guys to do, which is no big deal. It's pretty straightforward.
00:29:32
Uh Sebastian and Jimmy Moshi go from one bank to another laundering money. Cash is here. Just take a deposit into
00:29:39
this account. 20 What are you guys running the first time? Next time a different bank.
00:29:44
This time for a day's work, they get paid $2,000. So cool. This has been a thing. I don't
00:29:56
I couldn't help but be excited about having $2,000 put in my hand and I'd hardly had to do anything for it.
00:30:02
Months go by. The undercover operators take Sebastian to posh hotels trying to build trust and draw him out.
00:30:13
Where are we going? uh went well. We haven't started filming or anything, but our script is uh can
00:30:23
Did you sense that Sebastian felt he was smarter than you? Oh, there's no doubt. He made it clear
00:30:28
and told us that on more than one occasion smart. Tell me how smart you are. I'm
00:30:36
one of the most intelligent people in the world. Slowly, the undercover operators bring
00:30:42
up the investigation in Belleview. Hlett tries to get Sebastian to confess by telling him he already knows what
00:30:50
happened. I know you did it. You know you did it. The police know you. All right. I know
00:30:56
that. Sebastian doesn't admit guilt, but he confides in the mobsters that if the
00:31:02
police did find something to tie him to the crime, he might want them to destroy
00:31:07
it. And he has a very practical theory. As one of the best known murder suspects in
00:31:14
Canada, he is confident that his movie would make millions if he is suddenly proven innocent.
00:31:22
And a film with that kind of promotion because the thing is as it is right now, it's like controversy, right? Which in
00:31:27
itself promotes, right? But this is like, oh, you're heroes. Something goes up to 25, 30 million.
00:31:35
Taking their cue again from their target, the businessmen raise the stakes. They tell Sebastian that the
00:31:42
Belleview police have physical evidence tying him to the crime. Well, I tell you,
00:31:50
they're coming to lock your ass up. Yours and your friends. To make it seem real, Haslett shows him
00:31:57
this phony memo on Belleview Policehead detailing the evidence linking Sebastian
00:32:03
to the murders. here. Just read this piece of The mobsters offer to destroy the so-called evidence, but they need
00:32:12
Sebastian to tell them exactly what happened in the Rafé house the night of the murders.
00:32:22
Well, I want your help and you need my help. So, you tell me what went on down there
00:32:29
and I'm going to tell you how I'm going to take care of your problem. Finally, on July 18th, 1995,
00:32:36
one year after the murders, Sebastian meets the crime boss, Sergeant Hlett, at the Ocean Point Resort, and the cameras
00:32:45
are rolling. He walks into this hotel room and takes off his shoes. He stretches out on a love
00:32:54
seat. It's only then that Mr. Burns lets his guard down and the dirty little secret that he's been protecting for the
00:33:00
last 12 or 13 months starts to unravel on video for the whole wide world to see.
00:33:04
It has taken 3 months of undercover work to get to this moment. Both guys are coming in and say, "Hey,
00:33:12
let's go off your family and get all their money." Basically, essentially, yeah.
00:33:23
and he uh told me the details how him and Tif Rafé did commit the murders in Belleview.
00:33:30
How did you three people at once? Uh not at extremely extremely cold individual. It's phenomenal
00:33:43
to you, man. The next day, Sebastian brings a teif to the crime boss to tell his story.
00:33:53
How does it feel when your parents must pretty rottenly? But it's tempered by the fact that I felt that necessary
00:34:06
to I guess um achieve what I wanted to achieve in this life. That's all the police needed to hear.
00:34:19
Those were solid, strong confessions that only the individuals that responsible for that murder would be
00:34:26
able to sit down and tell it like it was. Cheers. Sebastian, Aif, and Jimmy Moshi are all
00:34:37
arrested. You have anything to say? But this case is just beginning. Sebastian says he's lying, that
00:34:45
undercover officers intimidated him into making a false confession. I believe that if I'd cross them that they would
00:34:54
have me killed Sebastian Burns and Aif Rafé, best friends who once dreamed of making it
00:35:12
big in movies, were now behind bars. But no sooner were Sebastian and Aif arrested than the same Canadian
00:35:27
government that set a trap to catch them led an international battle to spare their lives.
00:35:33
We should not be sending anybody back. The case went all the way up to Canada's Supreme Court. Persons who leave the
00:35:41
country and commit offenses outside of the country should expect that they will be punished under the laws of the
00:35:47
jurisdiction in which they committed um the crime. [Music] Sending the boys back across the border
00:35:59
to Washington meant they would face the death penalty if convicted. A punishment Canada had long since
00:36:07
abolished and considered inhumane. We never knew when we were going to be leaving for the United States.
00:36:14
And every time we heard, oh, there may be a trial, you know, next year, then it became the next year. And that lasted
00:36:21
for about four years where we thought that we were a week away from extradition.
00:36:29
After 6 years of legal wrangling, the King County prosecutor in Seattle agreed to Canada's demands not to seek the
00:36:38
death penalty. Sebastian and Aif, now 25year-old men, were finally extradited to face murder
00:36:48
charges. Mr. Raf, you're charged. Mr. Burns, you're charged in the cause numbers that I just read with three
00:36:56
counts of aggravated murder in the first degree. If convicted, the penalty would now be
00:37:01
life with no parole. That goes with the motion to dismiss. They were appointed a team of attorneys.
00:37:08
Representing Sebastian was Terresa Olsen, an ardent, if eccentric, public defender who believed in the boy's
00:37:16
innocence. Of course they didn't do the killings. The the evidence is clear that
00:37:20
they didn't do the killings. Olsen worked tirelessly on the case, running down leads and witnesses.
00:37:27
But in the summer of 2002, the case took a bizarre turn. Guards at the King County Jail reported
00:37:36
seeing Olsen having sex with Sebastian during an attorney client meeting. Shut up. The well publicized scandal
00:37:44
even caught the attention of late night comic Jay Leno. A female lawyer in Seattle is in trouble
00:37:49
for having sex in jail with her client who is a murderer. How creepy is that? Huh? Sex with a lawyer
00:38:01
and brought the trial to a grinding halt. This court had no choice but to appoint new counsel. Sebastian's
00:38:11
new attorneys were a dream team. Ivy League trained Jeff Robinson and Song Richardson.
00:38:18
There is a lot at stake for Sebastian Burns and we will be fighting till the end.
00:38:24
187's a retired artist. They were among Seattle's best and most expensive criminal defense lawyers.
00:38:31
Exactly. Along with Amanda Lee, they staunchly believed in the boy's innocence and
00:38:37
agreed to take the high-profile case at a public defender's wage. They have been essentially judged and
00:38:45
treated as though they were guilty from the beginning when the evidence just isn't there.
00:38:50
What kind of pressure is on all of your shoulders as we approach this trial? nothing more or less than the rest of
00:38:59
Sebastian Burns natural life. They were up against two of the most seasoned and respected prosecutors in
00:39:07
Seattle. I want to talk to him up. Roger David Heheiser would be joining James Conat on the case.
00:39:15
It's not justice. It's the truth. What we're after here is the truth. And I would submit to you that's what
00:39:22
separates our side from theirs. By September 2003, Sebastian and Aif had been in jail for more than 8 years.
00:39:36
Charged but never convicted for the Rafé family murders. You have to recognize that these are
00:39:44
human beings and they have had their lives stolen from them. And to make it worse, they've had their lives stolen
00:39:51
from them to somehow resolve a murder that they didn't commit. The case would turn on those
00:40:01
controversial confessions. Make believe mobsters extracting confessions from teenagers.
00:40:11
Is that allowed in the state of Washington? It's not allowed in the state of Washington.
00:40:17
And I don't think it's allowed anywhere else in the United States under the circumstances that it was done in this
00:40:25
case. Are you comfortable using the results from an illegal undercover investigation
00:40:31
by US laws in your case? This investigation was not illegal because it was conducted in Canada by
00:40:38
Canadian authorities targeting Canadian citizens. It was an investigation that they undertook separate and apart from
00:40:44
the Belleview investigation. [Applause] This case, it's not only about the lives
00:40:56
of my two friends. It's about the responsibility of police and prosecutors to do their job properly and to act in
00:41:04
good faith. And they have not done that in this case. It would be up to Superior Court Judge
00:41:13
Charles Martell. Well, please be seated everyone to decide if Sebastian and Aif's
00:41:18
chilling confessions caught on tape would be allowed to damn them in an American court.
00:41:25
Other prosecutors in other cases with evidence just like that have told jurors just like the ones
00:41:32
that will sit in our case that it's a slam dunk. And those jurors very comfortably have convicted people and
00:41:39
sentenced them to die. And they've been wrong. Judge Martell was about to make the most
00:41:48
controversial ruling of his career. The boy's lives would depend on what he was about to say.
00:41:57
48 hours continues. [Music] Before we begin, just a trigger warning. The following episode contains
00:42:34
references to graphic physical violence. Please listen with care. Let's be honest. You've been portrayed
00:42:42
as a monster. Yes. Evil, maniacal, plotting, a murderer. Are you those things? No.
00:42:58
[Music] Welcome to Killer Conversation, a podcast about the criminal mind. My name
00:43:04
is Judy Ryback and I'm a longtime 48 Hours producer. So, I like to think I know a thing or three about killers. In
00:43:12
this episode, Peter Vans and I will take a deep dive into two interviews he did with convicted killers, teenagers who
00:43:20
murdered three people for money and the thrill of it back in 1994. A decade later, they agreed to be
00:43:27
interviewed exclusively by Peter for 48 hours. Did you hold that bat in your hands and
00:43:33
kill those three people? No, I didn't. Sebastian Burns has been described as the mastermind who used a metal baseball
00:43:41
bat to kill his buddy Aif Rafé's mother, father, and sister while Aif stood by. Aif, did you and Sebastian Burns
00:43:53
meticulously plan the murder of your family? Absolutely not. Hi, Peter. Good to see you again. Thanks
00:44:02
so much for joining me. So, this was such a high-profile case. You covered it twice for 48 hours and wrote a book
00:44:09
about it. Tell us how you got involved. Sometimes it's the simplest of of ways. The house where this occurred was about
00:44:19
a mile and a half from the house where I grew up in, this was in Bellev, Washington. and a great source that I'd
00:44:25
used over the years, my mother called to tell me about it and I immediately did everything I could to try to uh land
00:44:33
this assignment. So, from the very beginning, it was I had really kind of a personal stake in this.
00:44:39
I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to hear you say it. What was it about this case?
00:44:45
Oh, man. This story had everything. You've got two best friends. They're young. They're meticulous plotters.
00:44:53
vicious, heartless characters that some fiction writer could not have come up with. The two of them met in high school
00:44:59
in Vancouver, Canada. And in all the years I had lived in Belleview, there had never been an unsolved murder case.
00:45:07
So both of these boys were Canadian citizens at the time, right? I mean, the Rafes were living in Washington, but
00:45:13
they were they were Canadians. So this case drew international attention and yet you were the only journalist who
00:45:21
Sebastian and Natif agreed to interview with. How did you get that interview? Why 48 hours?
00:45:29
Well, first 48 does have a great reputation of honestly telling these stories and wanting to hear from both
00:45:35
sides and and respecting the whole process. But it has to go back to my producers on this one, Jenna Jackson,
00:45:42
Guyian Kosishian, and Nancy Kramer, uh, who lived dedicated their lives uh, this
00:45:49
six-monthlong trial. We had someone there virtually every day. And so they met the defense attorneys, they
00:45:55
developed relationships, they met Sebastian's parents, and Tifs, of course, were dead. Um, and they
00:46:01
developed some trust. And as a Seattleite, that connected with a lot of people. I was I grew up there. I knew
00:46:08
the the area. I knew Vancouver, Canada really well. And I think all of that came together and we managed to land the
00:46:14
interviews. Amazing. I I know what that's like to uh sit through long trials and and gain
00:46:21
everyone's trust. Um so they are both remorseless killers, but so different. Sebastian seems diabolical. Aif is so
00:46:32
aloof. How did you prepare for two very different interviews? Well, in both cases, you know, we had the the ability
00:46:40
to dig into these police reports. We watched the undercover videos which were haunting. We interviewed investigators,
00:46:49
prosecutors, defense attorneys. You know, they all were very open with sharing information with us, and I can't
00:46:55
can't thank them enough. Sebastian was cocky and condescending and people said he was the mastermind and he just would
00:47:03
look at you and couldn't help it but look down upon you even though he's wearing an orange jumpsuit even though
00:47:10
he's the one behind bars. Um I was the fool in the room I felt when I was talking to him and I knew I had to be
00:47:18
direct and really well prepared because he would correct me on any any fact. Aif was his devoted follower. He was a
00:47:26
very soft-spoken intellectual um who, if you believe what investigators have concluded in this
00:47:34
case, he stood by while his best friend in the world savagely beat his family to
00:47:41
death with a baseball bat. So, I honestly didn't know what to expect with him because when you first greet him,
00:47:49
he's very well-mannered, but as you get into a conversation, he loves to turn it
00:47:54
into um verbal combat and he wants to impress you with his with his array of weapons uh with the with the English
00:48:04
language. And so it's fascinating to sit with him and he found that to be almost
00:48:09
a contest, a debate in a way that he in his mind he could never lose. You talked to them separately in the
00:48:16
jail where they were awaiting sentencing. Tell me about that day. It was so weird. I It was a vibe that I
00:48:26
have never encountered in any other uh interview with a killer. Arrogance just filled the air. or no remorse, not
00:48:35
taking any responsibility for these horrors. Occasionally, they would smile in a way that was exasperating. I mean,
00:48:43
I even said at one time in the interview to Sebastian, "What do you think this is
00:48:47
funny?" Cuz he'd have a smile on his face. And so, in that way, it was a real out of body experience for me as a
00:48:54
journalist. Did you ever think to yourself that because of your superior intelligence,
00:48:59
the rules of society did not apply to you? No. And I really didn't sincerely think
00:49:06
in those terms at all. My, as you put it, my superior intelligence. I just like I said, I used to make a lot of
00:49:13
wise cracks. And um no, I I didn't think like that. How would you describe Sebastian in a
00:49:23
word? Uh, I have to use words unfortunately, but he handsome, charming when he chose to be, smart, someone who
00:49:31
could have accomplished great things in life. Sebastian, he became a member of the Royal Canadian Aircadets. And
00:49:36
there's this picture of him getting an award by Prince Edward, you know, and his parents were so proud. Uh, he
00:49:43
expected to be a lawyer in life, he said, because he loved to be so argumentative.
00:49:48
He was raised in a um in a really great home, a very sophisticated upper middle class family. Mom and dad were very well
00:49:55
educated. They lived in West Vancouver, British Columbia. It was a very, very desirable neighborhood. It was a place
00:50:02
where Sebastian and his sister Tiffany, they'd wake up the parents in the morning, uh, on Christmas morning
00:50:08
playing their cellos, you know, a Christmas song to to wake them up. Uh, Sister uh, Tiffany was was a real
00:50:17
successful woman in her own right. She was a television reporter and anchor at at the CBS station in Cleveland and
00:50:25
working her way up in a very promising career. How would you describe a Tif in in a
00:50:31
word? Compliant. That's the way he was with with Sebastian. Aif had been accepted at Cornell
00:50:40
University, which is currently ranked number 11 in the country by US News and World Report. He was impressive and he
00:50:48
knew it. And I know you've heard this many times, but the notion is two arrogant, smug,
00:50:56
self-absorbed young men who saw themselves as intellectually superior planned the perfect murder so that you
00:51:04
could financially benefit from it and achieve the things in your own words that you wanted to achieve in life.
00:51:13
Yeah, I know. It's uh such a compelling tabloid narrative, but like many tabloid
00:51:18
narratives, it's fatuous and foolish and false. And um it's uh that particular line about uh achieving
00:51:30
the things that I want to do in life. I think that if any discerning person looks at that, they will see the empty
00:51:38
abstractions of someone who is trying to come up with some kind of justification
00:51:45
for something that he didn't do and couldn't justify. My goodness, his smuggness is palpable
00:51:53
and he has a smile on his face the whole time. What made these two friends, Peter?
00:52:00
I guess there was there similarities in intellect, but they were the odd couple.
00:52:04
One was the leader, one was the follower. They were both quirky. Um they they gravitated toward each other in
00:52:12
high school. Both were fans of the German philosopher Frederick Nichze who was Hitler's favorite philosopher by the
00:52:20
way. Nietze um had this theory of uber mench, the superman who could impose his own morality, his own will upon the weak
00:52:30
through strength and dominance. Um I think they saw themselves as supermen. Were there any signs when they were in
00:52:39
high school that either of them might be capable of of a crime like this? Yeah. And when we were doing interviews
00:52:45
in in Vancouver, there was a a woman we spoke to uh who was a a good friend of Sebastian's, in fact, a girlfriend, and
00:52:55
she told authorities. Sebastian had told her that he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone.
00:53:03
Are you saying that you are incapable of committing murder? Yes, absolutely. You are. Then how do you explain what
00:53:11
you said to your friend Nazgal Shifty 6 months before these murders? I'd like to
00:53:16
kill somebody someday. I think I'd like to know what it feels like. I think I might find it rather enjoyable.
00:53:24
That was a sarcasm that I made. First of all, I want to be clear. That's not a verbatim quote. Nobody knows what the
00:53:32
verbatim quote is. That was a sarcasm that was made uh at some point when I was 17 years old. I was reminded of it
00:53:40
for the first time just this last March. Okay. Why would he even say a thing like that?
00:53:47
Like who says a thing like that? What was he testing her? Yeah. Look, this girlfriend, that quote
00:53:52
was burned into her mind. She was very bright. And I think that was maybe a word or two off. But note the note the
00:54:01
analysis he has to give us about about it's not exactly verbatim but she was absolutely certain this what it
00:54:08
what what what he said and it also sent a chill up her spine and um but also as an uber mench he could say and do
00:54:15
whatever he wanted to and get this in the high school yearbook Sebastian had described himself as a titan with
00:54:23
furious contempt for the petty strictctures of plebeians And a tif wrote, "Hearing the cries of
00:54:31
the plebs below, Aif descended through the clouds and gazed beusely at the petty struggles of those around him and
00:54:40
laughed." This again, brilliant immaturity, word play used for shock. Okay, let's let's talk about the
00:54:50
murders. According to authorities, sometime in the late evening of July 12th, 1994, Sebastian used a metal
00:54:58
baseball bat to bludgeon Aif's parents and his sister while Aif basically stood by. He may even have been watching at
00:55:07
some points. You've seen a lot of crime scene photos, Peter. We both have. How do you think these compare?
00:55:15
These crime scene pictures were among the most gruesome I had ever seen. particularly Aif's father. The first
00:55:23
picture I saw was of Sultana Rafé, Aif's mother. Um, who would have known that Sultana at that time of day would have
00:55:32
been down unpacking boxes cuz they had they had moved into this new house. Latif would know that. And it's believed
00:55:40
that she was attacked first. Her head was crushed from behind. She probably had no idea that this killer was
00:55:47
approaching her. She's lying on her stomach. Uh fascinating that too that her head was covered in a scarf. And
00:55:55
investigators will tell you that when a killer knows the victim and particularly
00:56:00
if it's someone close to them that they often cover the head because they just don't want to look at the face,
00:56:06
right? And so we move on then upstairs. The killer then moved upstairs and Tariq
00:56:12
Aif's father, 56 years old at the time, he was sleeping on his back uh and his head was pulverized by several dozen
00:56:24
blows at least um investigators believe. And this was as savage a rage killing as
00:56:31
I have ever seen. The third one was Basma. She's 20 years old. Why would they save Basma for last?
00:56:41
Well, she couldn't talk and uh she uh was autistic and the killer entered her room and this
00:56:52
uh turned into a bit of a struggle because she was physically strong and she was running and trying to get away
00:56:59
and was being being hit. And one neighbor heard, and this is so disturbing, what he described as a
00:57:07
mooing sound coming from inside the Rafé house. And we know today, and investigators believe that noise was
00:57:18
Bosma crying out as she fought for her life. When investigators got into the room, they noticed she had defensive
00:57:26
wounds all over her hands. uh her skull had been smashed in and many of her teeth had been knocked out. So this was
00:57:34
a terrifying, horrible, drawn out uh death for Bosma. So incredibly brutal. I mean, one of the
00:57:43
detectives said somebody went off the deep end and once they started killing, either enjoyed it or couldn't stop
00:57:50
themselves. Two neighbors even heard the pounding of the bat. Yeah. One thought they were must be
00:57:59
putting up big paintings because they were having to hit the wall so hard. Why would Sebastian be so brutal about
00:58:07
these killings? This is something that um I don't really have the answer for this one. People
00:58:15
have often wondered and the investigators did on this considering what Sebastian had talked about killing
00:58:21
and wondering what it was like that that this was a thrill kill, right? Uh, we know that Sebastian had
00:58:27
starred in a high school play called Rope, which was turned into a movie. One of my favorite films,
00:58:34
mine, too. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The play and his film are about two young friends, much like Sebastian and
00:58:40
Aif, who strangle a friend with a rope for the thrill of it, right? To see what it's like.
00:58:46
And so, there's similarities between what he acted out on stage and what was occurring in that house. Okay, let let's
00:58:52
take a break and when we come back we'll talk about why prosecutors think Sebastian and Aif committed these
00:58:58
horrible murders. The answer is chilling on so many levels. The senior deputy prosecutor on the case
00:59:12
against Sebastian Burns and Aifra Fay called the murders absolutely savage. What reason did they have to commit
00:59:21
these gruesome murders? Well, we know Sebastian had expressed an interest in killing someone someday to
00:59:27
see what it felt like. And in this case, um, Aif's parents, uh, had some money and they had life insurance as well. And
00:59:35
I think money did play a role in this. And uh Aif had this difficult relationship with his father who was
00:59:43
deeply religious and and he had also expressed kind of a resentment of his autistic sister Basma. He called her
00:59:50
gross and said he never really liked her and prosecutors said that he would mock
00:59:56
and he would mimic her in front of her. Um so money that that to me I think is at the heart of this.
01:00:05
I think you're right. And with a teeth saying at one point that he wanted to be able to live the life he wanted to do to
01:00:13
live and the money would would allow him to do that. Right. Right. You asked a tie about his
01:00:20
relationship with his family and his answer left me cold. How would you describe your relationship
01:00:27
with your parents? Um, I we had uh I I was close closer to my mom than probably anyone that I ever
01:00:36
have been or will ever be close to. Um uh I loved both my parents. Um I admired my father. Uh I had we had a I mean at
01:00:47
the same time we had uh all kinds of arguments uh which I enjoyed having and which I suspect they enjoyed having as
01:00:54
well. Um we had um uh I guess uh I mean it's hard to sum up the relationship that a person has with
01:01:05
one's parents because it's in one sense the closest and most basic sort of relationship that you will ever
01:01:14
have. It constitutes who you are as a human being. Um and uh I mean did you love your mom and dad?
01:01:22
Yes. Yes. Do you love your sister? I would have to say that um I didn't really have a relationship with my
01:01:31
sister. And so I think that if I were to say that I loved my sister, I would sort
01:01:35
of be demeaning the feelings that I had for my parents. That is so strange. And he was very
01:01:44
honest about not loving his sister. What were you thinking in that moment? It's it's just a coldness that u that
01:01:53
you know if you dehumanize it's easier to kill. Okay. So the these murders were very
01:01:59
well thought out. Clearly not well enough to keep them out of prison, but there was a lot of planning that went
01:02:04
into these murders. What was the plan? The idea was to be out uh for the evening in a very noticeable way cuz
01:02:12
they went to a restaurant called the Keg. By the way, Keg is, you know, five miles from where I grew up. I I went
01:02:20
there after while I was covering this case, just to have dinner there and see the place. Um, and that's in Factori,
01:02:28
Washington, which is right off the interstate near Belleview. That's where the movie complex was, where they went
01:02:33
to see The Lion King. And a waiter would later tell police that he remembered the
01:02:36
two underage Canadians trying to order wine. So, they did something that would draw attention where they'd have to show
01:02:42
ID, right? Um, and then when they get to the movie theater, when Sebastian was buying his movie tickets, he goes, "Hey,
01:02:52
you like my shirt?" And his shirt had a big cartoon character, some milkman character on it. And and the ticket
01:03:00
taker remembered Sebastian. Yeah. This odd guy said, "Hey, take a look at my t-shirt." Again, he's registering in
01:03:06
people's minds. He's creating a a memory that he was there. and a thief was wearing an army jacket. Once inside the
01:03:14
movie theater, people said that they were obnoxious. They were drawing attention to themselves. They were
01:03:18
talking loudly. At one point, one of them went up to the screen and tried to pull the movie curtains apart. Again,
01:03:25
get everyone's attention. Yeah, I remember those guys. I saw them there. Then after they snuck out, they
01:03:31
committed the crimes. Investigators believe that after the murder, the boys went out on this uh tour of eeries to
01:03:40
try to to try to draw attention to themselves as much as they could so people would remember them if
01:03:47
investigators came to question employees. And their first stop was a diner where they paid with a $10 bill
01:03:56
for basically about a $3 meal and leaving a $7 tip. and the waitress remembered them when they end up also
01:04:04
then going out to a nightclub that that was closing at 2 am and they demanded to
01:04:09
be let in but they were not again people would remember yeah those two boys they
01:04:13
were shouting at us let us into the club everywhere they went they wanted to create a memory with an employee that if
01:04:20
authorities came and remember over and over the police questioned the neighbors in the hopes that they would change
01:04:27
their timelines because for investigators this was a big problem. On one side of the Rafé house, there was a
01:04:34
woman named Julie. And she was a very meticulous woman who every night went through a routine that began at a
01:04:43
certain time where, as I recall, she put in a a load of wash and um and then put
01:04:50
it in the dryer and then she would read for a particular amount of time, usually
01:04:54
even the same amount of pages each night. and she would look at her at her clock and she would go to bed at exactly
01:05:01
the same time. And based on her story, the boys were at that movie theater at the time that she was an ear witness to
01:05:13
the murders inside the Rafé house. When she heard all of this noise coming from there, the boys weren't there. They were
01:05:20
at the movie theater and that is not disputed. So, so she heard pounding at a time when those boys were allegedly
01:05:29
spotted at the movie theater. Yeah. This is before any of the encounters with the waitresses and
01:05:34
everything else, right? She never changed her her timeline. But investigators just simply said,
01:05:41
"Well, we're going to say and we'll say in court that we just think she's wrong.
01:05:45
She just had her times wrong, even though she won't change and that that she was wrong." But it created an
01:05:50
opening for the defense. And there was another neighbor who heard it and believed it was also at the same time.
01:05:57
So Sebastian and Aif claimed they entered the Rafé family home uh at around 2:00 a.m. and that Sebastian was
01:06:05
the first to see Aif's mother lying in a pool of blood. They admit that they never touched her. They didn't even
01:06:12
bother to see if she was still alive or try to help her. How do you know she's still not
01:06:18
breathing? How do you not turn her over to check if she's breathing to see if there's something you could do?
01:06:24
I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know. And maybe that was a really cowardly thing to do. It was just
01:06:32
a reflex. I I cannot describe to you how shocking it was. Just how completely confounding it was.
01:06:50
And there was nothing sensical about my reaction at all. It's been alleged you didn't want to
01:06:57
touch the body because you didn't want to get blood on you because you that would wreck your alibi. It would wreck
01:07:06
the stage that you had set there to fool police. That's completely wrong. I mean, if you're not the killer, you're
01:07:16
you're trying to save that person, right? You don't care if you get blood on you,
01:07:20
right? Right. Absolutely. During the investigation, Sebastian was caught on tape saying that he was naked
01:07:27
when he committed the murders. What's that all about? Well, think about it. If you're wearing
01:07:32
clothes, you're going to get blood spatter on those clothing, and that can turn into evidence. Uh, and
01:07:38
investigators concluded fairly early on, this is just one of the bizarre things.
01:07:43
Never heard of this before in any murder case I've covered that the killer stepped into the shower and took a
01:07:50
shower. And what did investigators find in that in that shower stall on the drain? There were 21 hairs recovered and
01:08:00
they were all from Sebastian Burns and uh and the walls of the shower uh had blood on
01:08:11
them. It was tested and that was Tariq Rafase, Aif's dad. But what killer would step in to take a shower, particularly
01:08:21
if it was a stranger? Because that killer would have known, hm, a teeth's not here. He could come home. I better
01:08:27
get out of this house as quickly as possible. Good point. What killer would step in to take a
01:08:31
shower if that killer didn't know there wasn't anyone left to come home? Right. if if because Aif was there. He
01:08:39
was alive there and he was one of the two killers. So they discover Aif's mother and then
01:08:47
Sebastian calls 911. When the police arrived, uh Aif's sister, Bosma, was still alive. They could hear her
01:08:55
moaning. The boys would have heard her, too. And you asked them why they didn't try to save Bosma's life. Let let's
01:09:03
listen to a tif. Your sister was in the other room. You knew she was injured. You could hear her
01:09:09
moaning. How do you not go in and give first aid? You could have saved your sister's life.
01:09:15
Well, for one, I don't really know first aid. And I didn't even think of it. I didn't even
01:09:20
You're a bright guy. If someone's bleeding, you know how to stop bleeding, right?
01:09:23
You're right. You know that for the average person, it sounds terrible that you didn't go in
01:09:28
there. It sounds like you wanted her to die. Well, I suppose that if I had planned
01:09:37
these murders, I would certainly have rushed in and made heroic efforts to uh save her. Um, unfortunately, I had not
01:09:46
planned these uh murders. I didn't commit these murders, and Sebastian didn't either. And I was I acted in a
01:09:54
cowardly and shameful way, which I felt ashamed of even in the days immediately following and have never since
01:10:04
ceased feeling shameful of. But those were my reactions under pressure, I guess.
01:10:14
Oh, Peter, where to start? It was a decision. It wasn't a decision if he had planned the murders. But unfortunately,
01:10:21
he didn't plan the murders. Is this a confession of sorts? I'm not quite sure. I mean, so in other
01:10:28
words, yeah, I he uh planned it. Sebastian did. I would have done a much better job. Uh it's it's stupid that
01:10:35
that answer is so clumsy and so void of humanity. [Music] [Music] Okay. So, Peter, police focused on the
01:10:51
boys from the very beginning. Why? Well, let's go down the list. You know, they discovered the bodies. The murders
01:10:58
didn't look like a robbery gone bad. They both talked about there must have been a break-in. There were no signs of
01:11:03
any forced entry at the house. There was an overkill situation. No burglar would
01:11:09
do something like that. And cops became even more suspicious when the night after the murder, Sebastian and a thief
01:11:15
were spotted at a local video store renting movies. They didn't seem at all phased by the gruesome murder scene they
01:11:22
had they had discovered. And police were also struck by how many details they remembered about their night out on the
01:11:28
town. Remember all the waitresses and all the things, but they couldn't recall what they did when they got home and
01:11:34
found Aif's family beaten to death. Yeah, they weren't exactly acting like teenagers who were in a state of shock.
01:11:41
So, let's talk about the defense for a minute. The boys and their defense team believed that Aif's father was
01:11:47
assassinated and that his wife and daughter were collateral damage. What What can you tell us about that?
01:11:53
Well, Aif's father, Tariq, he was prominent and active in the local Muslim community and he offended more
01:12:01
conservative Muslims. And how is that? Well, as an engineer, Tariq Rafé, he calculated true east and determined that
01:12:11
all the mosques in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, were not properly facing Mecca,
01:12:18
you know, and Muslims must pray toward Mecca. And this is crucial. Uh, and so he said everyone was going to have to
01:12:27
move their prayer mats one degree. doesn't sound like a big deal, but for some, this could be blasphemous. This
01:12:35
could be how how dare you, we you're telling us that we've been praying in the wrong direction.
01:12:41
Um, and Belleview police ended up getting three tips that the murders may have been related to fundamentalists who
01:12:48
wanted Tariq and his family dead. A Canadian officer told them that an informant had warned him that there was
01:12:56
a hit out on an East Indian family in Belleview. Now, the Rafé family, they're not East Indians, they're from Pakistan,
01:13:05
but still the context and the nature of that tip is strongly suggesting that that they could have been the targets.
01:13:15
Right. Also, the Seattle Police Intelligence Division reported that they believed the family may have been killed
01:13:21
by an extremist group called Alukra. And an FBI informant told them that he knew
01:13:29
an imam who ordered the murders and knew a man who said he committed the murders.
01:13:35
He said he even saw a baseball bat in in the trunk of his car and believed that that was the murder weapon. Um, the cops
01:13:43
hadn't even publicized that the weapon was a metal baseball bat yet. I mean, all this is just so intriguing.
01:13:50
It seems like the Belleview police kind of like blew that all off. Do you think it's possible that they just didn't pay
01:13:56
attention to that at all? I believe with all that has happened in the world, this would this would be
01:14:02
checked out. And at the time, I I think it wasn't properly checked out. On the day that Aif Rafé's parents and
01:14:12
his sister were laid to rest, Aif was nowhere to be found, he and his buddy Sebastian Burns were on a bus on their
01:14:20
way to Sebastian's home in Vancouver, Canada. My dad was very worried about what the
01:14:27
Belleview police were doing. He'd called a friend of his who was a lawyer. He told his friend uh some of the things
01:14:34
that the police had been saying to him and it was pretty clear that the police were treating us as suspects. His
01:14:42
friend, who was a lawyer, said if it was my kid, I'd drive down there tonight and
01:14:47
pick him up myself. My dad asked me did I want him to come and drive down that night and pick him up myself after after
01:14:54
he told me that. And I told him, "No, it's okay. We'll catch a bus back the next day." but he was very concerned
01:15:01
that we'd come back to Canada as soon as possible. How did the Belleview police feel about
01:15:06
their prime suspects fleeing the country? This is a part of the story that really
01:15:12
drives me freaking crazy. Um, they didn't have any basis to continue holding them. They'd been interviewed
01:15:21
numerous times and the truth is they didn't flee. These boys didn't flee. A representative from the Canadian
01:15:28
consulate informed the Bellev police of their plans that the boys would be picked up by their father and taken back
01:15:34
to Vancouver, British Columbia. And they said, "Is that all right?" And they were
01:15:40
told, "Yes, it's all right." She then tells the boys, this consulate officer tells the boys, "It's okay to go." And
01:15:47
they leave. That is many things in this world, but that is not fleeing. But the media reported it as them fleeing, which
01:15:54
did not make them look good. So there wasn't enough evidence to hold them. When they got to Canada, did Sebastian's
01:16:01
family believe that the boys were innocent? Oh, absolutely. They believed they this
01:16:06
was an impossibility that it that this could have happened. They believed they were innocent and they were just being
01:16:12
set upon by a police department in a wealthy community that was under enormous pressure to solve this case.
01:16:20
But again, the boys didn't really help themselves at all. They behaved very badly. They used money from the Rafé
01:16:27
family estate to rent and then buy a Mustang convertible and go on a road trip. Yeah. And there was a memorial service
01:16:35
for the Rafé family in Vancouver. It was covered by media from around the world.
01:16:41
And the boys were there and and they decided to when they came out of the mosque to to run to a car and they were
01:16:48
laughing and covering up their faces and it was just a shocking shocking moment.
01:16:56
What was so funny? I guess, you know, it was the media that was funny and it was it was the the
01:17:04
sheer grotesqueness of I mean, these were people who were literally chasing me down to ask me, "Why won't you cooper
01:17:12
cooperate with the police?" Um, I guess the sheer gall I suppose of of being chased down at a memorial service and
01:17:22
asked questions by reporters who really cared nothing, I suspect, for my family,
01:17:29
for the murders, for anything but getting a rise essentially, out of me. Uh, it just seemed it just seemed
01:17:39
absolutely grotesque. And I I suppose I couldn't help laughing at it. You know, when I watched uh the clips of
01:17:48
of that memorial service, it looked to me like Sebastian gave the finger to one of the camera crews and they just they
01:17:56
looked like rock stars walking into some venue. It was just bizarre. But you know
01:18:01
what's interesting is to some people they actually looked like traumatized teenagers. Some people believe that if
01:18:08
they were trying to get away with murder, they would have been crying and acting, you know, upset and uh and
01:18:14
weeping at the grave sites, not acting like like the idiots that they were acting like. Do you think they were in
01:18:22
shock? Well, there was a behavioral expert who was ready to testify for the defense, but but this man was never
01:18:29
called, and he said that this goofy, bizarre behavior is actually common in extremely traumatic events with boys
01:18:38
whose brains aren't yet fully formed that you'll get that kind of behavior. So, no matter what people believed about
01:18:45
these boys, they became clearly notorious. It seems like everybody knew who they were and what they were
01:18:51
suspected of doing. I mean, Sebastian testified that he w he now is almost like the best he and Aif
01:18:58
were the best known men in British Columbia because of all the the media coverage. He couldn't get a job and he
01:19:05
couldn't go back to college and Aif couldn't get back to school due due to the attention of this case. So, they
01:19:11
ended up they rent a house in Vancouver with two high school friends, including a close friend who ends up playing an
01:19:19
important role in this case, Jimmy Moshi. Uh, and they would play loud music all night long. People would call
01:19:26
the RCMP, the the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Yeah. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
01:19:31
And and the RCMP at this point decides, you know, let's open up our own investigation,
01:19:37
right? And so they decide to bug the house that the boys were living in. They also bugged uh Sebastian's cell phone.
01:19:46
And uh yeah, and they they realized that that they were smart boys and that they
01:19:51
had to be smarter than the boys. So they used what they were what was called in Canada at that point the Mr. Big
01:19:58
operation. Detective Bob Thompson told us you had committed the perfect murder. There was
01:20:05
no evidence at the house linking you to this crime. And if you hadn't gone back to Canada and gotten involved in this
01:20:12
undercover operation, you never would have been arrested. Do you think about that?
01:20:18
Oh, I think about that often. And that sting operation would prove to be the boy's undoing. That's next time
01:20:26
on Killer Conversation. 48 hours Killer Conversation is hosted and produced by me, Judy Ryback. Our
01:20:35
story editor is Mora Walls. Alan Pang oversees recording, mixing, and sound design, fact-checking, and additional
01:20:43
production support from Rebecca Laflam. And special thanks to 48 hours executive
01:20:48
producer Judy Tyiggard and Paramount Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus. Follow and listen to Killer Conversation
01:20:56
on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. If you liked this episode, please rate and review on Apple
01:21:04
Podcasts or Spotify. Follow Killer Conversation on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:21:20
48 hours continues. I think that everyone who knew Sebastian thought that he was going on to do
01:21:38
something interesting with his life. Yeah. people expected him to be a leader to do something interesting and um
01:21:48
I hope one day he will. [Music] Sebastian Burns and Aifraf should have been celebrating at the West Vancouver
01:21:57
High School 10-year reunion. Instead, they had become the class of 93's most infamous graduates.
01:22:10
Prosecutors say just one year out of high school, these brilliant best friends tried to commit the perfect
01:22:18
murder. It was a brutal crime. There's blood all over his face that shocked the upscale suburb of
01:22:26
Belleview, Washington. Af's mother, father, and sister bludgeoned to death. The motive, insurance money.
01:22:39
The boys got away and were living in Canada until undercover police officers caught them on tape boasting about how
01:22:47
they did it. How did you three people at once? Uh once I did that now on the eve of their murder trial, a
01:22:58
judge would decide if a jury would get to hear those chilling confessions. [Music]
01:23:05
I do not find the undercover officer's conduct in this case shocking or outrageous. Although they were
01:23:11
deceitful, persistent and aggressive. They engaged in tricks but not dirty tricks.
01:23:19
It was a controversial ruling allowing the boy's own words to be used against them.
01:23:26
Which first and would set the tone for the whole trial. Just how powerful is the impact of this video of these two
01:23:37
boys confessing to murders? It's incredibly powerful. When I first saw it, I was taken aback. I was
01:23:45
shocked. There are two young men seemingly laughing about slaughtering three people and saying, "I did it."
01:23:53
And while the confessions may be shocking, the defense says they're not true. This case is about what happens
01:24:02
when a presumption of guilt, when a gut feeling that you have the right suspects
01:24:09
takes over from logical and objective evaluation of the evidence. This case is about what happens when you pursue
01:24:17
individuals as opposed to pursuing the truth. Finally, in November 2003, more than 9 years after the Rafé family
01:24:27
murders, Sebastian and Aif get their day in court. The juryy's going to finally hear the
01:24:33
story of what really happened to the Rafé family and they'll hear the story of Sebastian and innocence.
01:24:40
But prosecutors had a very different story to tell. Sebastian Burns is young, thoughtful, charismatic,
01:24:49
manipulative, and most importantly, a killer. A brutal killer. You've been portrayed
01:24:57
as a monster. Yeah. Yes. Maniacal, plotting, a murderer. Are you those things? No.
01:25:08
The state's theory is we want to make the jurors hate these two young men. Essentially, they make it a test of
01:25:15
character as opposed to a test of evidence. And character is at the heart of the
01:25:20
prosecution's case. All rise. Superior court is now in session. The defendants were two young men who
01:25:30
believed they could commit the perfect murder. Roger David Heheiser opened for the
01:25:35
state. Ladies and gentlemen, what you will hear in the end is that it was this very hubris that sealed their fate and
01:25:42
their arrogant and unrealistic belief that they were smart enough to achieve mastery over the police and their
01:25:49
investigation. He zeroed in on the piece of evidence that launched the case and for the first time revealed a startling
01:25:58
flaw in the boy's plan. There's uh I need uh an ambulance. They made that 911 call too quickly.
01:26:07
They're we think they're dead. My belief is that they just walked straight into the house and made the 911
01:26:13
call. The timing was critical. So, we asked Detective Thompson to retrace their drive home from downtown Seattle
01:26:24
where they were last seen that night. Uh 18 minutes. What does that tell you? And 18 minutes
01:26:31
would give them three minutes in the house. And three minutes, said the prosecutors,
01:26:38
was not enough time in the house to find the bodies and do all the things Sebastian and Aif told the police they
01:26:46
did. And think about what they had to do in that 3 minutes. Three minutes to arrive home, pull the
01:26:54
family car into the garage, enter the home through the garage, discover and comprehend that Sultana, Tariq, and
01:27:02
Bosma have been brutally attacked and laid dead in three different areas of that house.
01:27:09
The revelation startled the defense, but Song Richardson was thinking on her feet. asking you, how long does it take
01:27:17
to walk into a house and see these two brutally butchered bodies of a TE's family and then run downstairs and call
01:27:25
911 and turn the prosecution's argument on its head? How long is 3 minutes? Well,
01:27:35
let's see. That was about a minute and a half. But remember, it wasn't just the murders. In that 3 minutes, the boys
01:27:54
also had to figure out there'd been a burglary and that a VCR and discman were missing.
01:28:01
There's been some kind of breakin. I hear the voice of a person who has contrived a story that can only be
01:28:09
explained by somebody who knew very well what had happened in the Rafé family home. I was
01:28:17
out of my mind at the time. I was totally in shock, totally staggered and and confounded and and was
01:28:28
almost totally hysterical. In a case where every minute matters, the defense bolsters their claim of the
01:28:42
boy's innocence by playing up statements the neighbors on both sides of the Rafé
01:28:47
house gave to police in the days following the murders. The neighbors initially said that they heard pounding
01:28:54
coming from inside the Rafé house at a time when the boys have an airtight alibi. You were standing in this
01:29:01
driveway and that's Mark Sidell lived right next door to the Rafes. How loud were the bangs you were
01:29:06
hearing? Um, they're pretty hard hits a little bit harder to hang a a picture. Sidel says back then he didn't think a
01:29:18
murder was taking place next door and figured the Rafes who had just moved in were probably unpacking. I sort of
01:29:26
thought about going over and helping him so they could go to sleep, but luckily that night I didn't.
01:29:31
The Rafa's other nextoor neighbor, Julie Rackley, testified that she also heard sounds.
01:29:38
Initially, I thought it just sounded like hammering. It had sort of an odd resonance to it.
01:29:43
The neighbors who heard these sounds, described them in great detail, and verified what they were for the police
01:29:51
all heard them well before 10:00 at night. And at 10:00, Sebastian and Aif were still seen at the movie theater.
01:30:00
If the jury believes these initial reports that Mark Sidell and Judy Rackley gave to police, your case could
01:30:07
be in trouble. Absolutely. You can't be in two places at one time. There's no debating that
01:30:14
point. There are two independent neighbors who separately heard the murder happen at the end of twilight
01:30:22
before 10:00 and we were known to be on the other side of town when that happened. It was
01:30:30
impossible for us to have committed this crime. Prosecutors contend it is possible. Even
01:30:36
though the boys were seen going to the 950 movie, there's no proof that they stayed. Is there a way for these two
01:30:43
boys to exit the theater without drawing attention to themselves? Say during the
01:30:47
movie. Jose Martinez sold the boys movie tickets that night and he showed us how
01:30:53
they could sneak out from this theater. Go out this exit behind the curtain or the other one over there.
01:30:59
So if they slip through this curtain, you're not letting any light into the theater.
01:31:03
Correct. Then up these stairs and out this exit door. Two doors outside. The defense protested
01:31:11
that even though it could have happened that way, there was no proof that it did
01:31:16
and that prosecutors were grasping at straws to get a conviction. They sifted through Sebastian's history
01:31:23
and his life and a chief's history and his life and tried to find anything that would make them look like bad people. In
01:31:32
fact, months into the trial, prosecutors brought this intriguing surprise witness
01:31:38
from the boy's past who said she had evidence that could turn the case. But first, they would have to convince the
01:31:46
judge to let the jury hear what she had to say. You swear or affirm. Nazcol shift was a friend from the boy's
01:31:54
high school days who had dated Sebastian. What was this comment that Sebastian Burns made that that stood out
01:32:02
at you? He said, "I want to try to kill someone one day to see how how it would feel
01:32:11
because I think I would find it enjoyable." She claimed a late night conversation
01:32:16
she'd had years ago with the boys in her bedroom had planted the seeds for murder.
01:32:22
Did you think he was serious? He wasn't laughing and he said it in a serious tone.
01:32:28
Sebastian doesn't deny having the conversation, but emphatically says he wasn't serious.
01:32:34
It's uh a oneline paraphrase of a sarcasm from a hippie- dippy 3:00 a.m. conversation 10 years ago, and I can't
01:32:44
remember enough about it to defend myself against it. If anyone would reflect on that and think, imagine if
01:32:52
the worst parts of my personality, maybe the worst moments when I was 18 years old, that I would be reminded of them
01:33:02
for the next nine years of my life and that's that in the public's eye would be the person that I'd become. I think
01:33:10
people would really shudder. It's a nightmare. Thank you for your time and your testimony. It was certainly damning
01:33:16
testimony, but the jury would never hear it. There is no question. Had I known about
01:33:22
this last spring, I would have admitted this. Four months into this thing, I can't
01:33:28
stop this process and let everyone dash to the four winds to try and research this.
01:33:35
The judge's decision flustered prosecutors. But there's another witness more powerful and much more damning. Do
01:33:45
you swear or affirm that the testimony? The friend the boys swore would never betray them.
01:33:58
[Music] Do you recognize Mr. Burns and Mr. Rafé are in the courtroom here today?
01:34:06
Yes, I do. It had been years since Jimmy Moshi had seen his high school buddies Sebastian
01:34:15
and Aif. Jimmy had moved to Japan and was living under another name when prosecutors
01:34:24
forced him to return to Seattle and face his friends at their murder trial. He was in no uncertain terms conflicted.
01:34:33
In fact, he spent the last two or three years of his life trying to avoid the eventuality of being compelled to come
01:34:39
to court and testify about his against his two best friends. Jimmy could have easily been sitting next to his best
01:34:45
friends charged with a crime. Back in 1995 during the undercover operation, Jimmy was also a target of the RCMP.
01:34:56
The RCMP believed Mioshi helped the boys plan the murder of the Rafé family and they wanted him to give a full
01:35:04
confession on tape just like his friends had done. You know went on down there in that
01:35:09
house. What went on? Yeah. But no matter how much he was pressed for details, Moshi refused to implicate
01:35:17
his friends in the murder. Okay. You know who killed the parents? Yeah. Who is that one you want? Yeah.
01:35:23
And um I just want I just wanted you to explain to me exactly the purposes of you wanting to know is that so we can
01:35:30
establish this kind of totally for trust totally for trust. Totally. In some ways was Jimmy Moshi the
01:35:36
smartest of them all. He's not in jail. [Music] In fact, Jimmy was arrested with
01:35:46
Sebastian and a interrogated by authorities in Canada. He was told that he might face the death penalty himself.
01:35:56
He was told that his family, his job, his future would be ruined unless he said that Sebastian and confessed to
01:36:04
him. Back then, Jimmy told the police that his friends were innocent. At the time of your arrest on July 31,
01:36:12
1995, were they honest answers? They were answers that I guess the intention of a lot of those answers was to to
01:36:24
protect Sebastian and Aif at that point on July 31, 1995. Why is it that you gave answers that were to
01:36:34
designed to protect Sebastian and Aif? I guess it was also in a way to protect myself. Um, but in general because I
01:36:45
didn't want Sebastian Natif to get whatever arrested and potentially convicted. But under increasing pressure, Moshi
01:36:55
eventually agreed to cooperate. And in exchange, he was granted immunity from charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
01:37:06
Suddenly, he began to reveal more to the police about what he knew. But now the question loomed.
01:37:15
Would Moshi betray his best friends? Had this subject ever come up before, the notion of of Aif Rafé killing his
01:37:28
family? No, this was this was the first time. In a halting voice that often dropped to
01:37:35
a whisper, Jimmy told the court that it was during a drive from Seattle to Vancouver when Aif first brought up the
01:37:43
idea of killing his family. What was your response to the notion of Hatif's notion of killing his family? I
01:37:53
guess I was listening and um I I mean he was my friend at the time and I guess in a way I was neutral on
01:38:05
that notion. On the stand, Jimmy recounted a discussion about how the boys would
01:38:11
commit the crime. You remember which methods were discussed? I remember something about um
01:38:19
gassing the house and I remember discussion about um I guess using a baseball bat.
01:38:28
What do you remember about why uh why a baseball bat could or should be used? I guess a quick and
01:38:38
painless way of killing someone. I don't think there's any question that he was a sounding board for them.
01:38:45
The prosecution says Jimmy consulted on an especially chilling part of the plan.
01:38:51
Sebastian and Natif stayed here at the Rafé family home during the five days before the murders. And it was no
01:38:59
coincidence. It was part of the plan, prosecutors say, to commit the perfect crime. if they had been living in the
01:39:07
house previously that any kind of hair or whatever samples um that were collected after um wouldn't um
01:39:18
necessarily mean that they had done it by virtue of their being in the house for several days. Any fingerprint that
01:39:28
would be found or could be found could be explained as a result of there being there having been there for several
01:39:33
days. any hair evidence that might be found could be explained for them having been in the house for several days prior
01:39:40
to the murders. It's diabolical, but it's pretty clever. Damn clever. Finally, Jimmy gave the prosecution what
01:39:49
they needed. He said that a watched while Sebastian bludgeoned the family. Um, I remember hearing about how
01:40:00
um I guess a Tif was pretty distraught and that um from the moment that Sebastian had
01:40:11
struck his mother that it was kind of a there's no going back. And how hard was it to sit and listen to
01:40:19
Jimmy Moshi's testimony? It was enormously difficult. I think it was difficult for him as well. Um, as I say,
01:40:26
I I am outraged that he did it. Um, but at the same time, I I think I I reserve my
01:40:40
real outrage for the people who forced him to do it. Did you discuss a plan to murder the
01:40:46
Rafé family with Jimmy Moshi? No, we didn't. Never. Why did Jimmy Moshi testify that you
01:40:51
did? because he had a life sentence held to his head. And if he didn't say what the police and
01:41:01
the prosecution wanted him to say, that life sentence was going to go off. It's the first time in 8 years that you
01:41:07
have ever said anything like that, isn't it, sir? Um, I'm not sure. And isn't what happened?
01:41:14
The defense tried to hammer back. Jimmy once lied to save his friends, so he could be easily lying now to save
01:41:23
himself. You're making it up as you go along, sir. That's why you're saying things for
01:41:27
the first time. No, I don't believe I am. Do you believe that Jimmy Moshi is a liar?
01:41:34
Jimmy Moshi is a self-admitted liar. Jimmy Moshi acknowledges that he has lied. The question will be how many lies
01:41:44
does Jimmy Moshi get to tell? Mr. Moshi, this conversation was on. The defense needed to come back with
01:41:51
something strong and they had an arsenal of forensic evidence that flew in the face of Moshi's testimony.
01:41:59
They told the jury that there were three killers in the house that night. Experts
01:42:05
analyzed the patterns of blood on the wall and found drops everywhere except this area where there was no blood,
01:42:13
indicating another killer may have stood there during the attack. They also said
01:42:19
a pillow was moved during the bludgeoning. So we have killer number one moving the
01:42:24
pillow. We have killer number two bludgeoning Dr. Rafé with the bat. And then we have killer number three who has
01:42:32
to remain in the exact same place throughout the entire duration of the attack on Dr. Rafé.
01:42:40
And there was even more tangible evidence, a single hair on Tariq Rafé's bed. According to the police officers there,
01:42:50
this was an important hair because this hair, according to the Belleview Police Department, would tell them who
01:42:57
committed this crime. Did it match Aif? No. Sebastian? No. Sultana? No. Bosma? No.
01:43:04
Tariq? No. We don't know whether that hair originated from someone who sat in the
01:43:08
same seat uh that Sebastian Burns sat in at the movie theater or whether it was picked up by Dr. Rafé at his workplace
01:43:15
or how it got on that bed or if it was a hair from the killer or if it was a hair from the killer.
01:43:22
Prosecutors also added DNA evidence needs to fit a pattern and appear in more than one place at a crime scene.
01:43:31
That DNA profile appeared nowhere else in that house. There was absolutely no other pattern of trace evidence that
01:43:38
could even re be remotely suggested to be related to that hair. That was an isolated hair.
01:43:46
So with the forensic evidence inconclusive, the case comes down to whom the jury
01:43:52
would believe. You're saying the testimony of one of my best friends. Don't listen to that. My
01:44:01
own words on the vide tape. Don't listen to that. Just take my word for it. We didn't do it.
01:44:10
Defense call Sebastian Burns. All right for the jury. More than 100 witnesses would take the
01:44:28
stand in the state versus Burns and Rafé. Could you kill again? Circumstances are
01:44:33
right. Finally, Canada's most secret undercover operation would be exposed before the
01:44:39
jury. And so would the question that had lingered for so many years. Why would you confess to a murder you
01:44:49
didn't do? [Music] At that point, it seemed like the only safe choice. It seemed like the best
01:44:55
choice. Why on earth would anyone confess to a murder they didn't do unless they were petrified?
01:45:02
[Music] That they were actually going to be killed themselves or people they loved
01:45:08
were going to come to some type of harm. The defense set out to prove that the scales were tipped from the beginning.
01:45:18
Professional liars. 1975 I was uh first trained in undercover work against teenage boys. Have you worked as
01:45:27
the primary undercover operator before? Yes. I am frightened by the fact that this
01:45:33
kind of undercover operation can be used ostensively to search for the truth when
01:45:40
it is built in whole on lies and manipulation and threats. Mr. Burns, come on forward.
01:45:47
Sebastian would have to convince the jury to believe him now and not to believe what he said on those tapes.
01:45:54
that I was in way over my head and I did not want to be involved with these guys.
01:46:02
I was upset with myself for having agreed to drive the car. And Sebastian began his side of the story
01:46:09
with the first assignment from the crime box, transporting that stolen car. What was your reaction when you heard
01:46:16
that they wanted you to drive this stolen car? Well, pretty quickly I felt that I've
01:46:21
been tricked. Sebastian, why didn't you just look at him and say, "I am out of here. Walk away."
01:46:27
No, but there is no walking away. You want to know what I [ __ ] uh did my time for? I told the guy when it came
01:46:34
time for court. The person that could finger me, they're not around anymore. Sebastian says he couldn't walk away
01:46:42
from criminals whose power seemed to be so farreaching. I believe that if I'd cross them or if they weren't happy with
01:46:50
me or if they thought I was going to betray them that they would have me killed.
01:46:53
I just assume that you know you with your connections that if I were to you around, okay, I would just assume that I
01:47:01
would wake up one day with a bullet in my head on the stand. Song Richardson pressed
01:47:06
Sergeant Hlett about his scare tactics. Sebastian could easily, very easily have
01:47:13
believed that you and your organization would hurt people if they crossed you, right?
01:47:19
Uh, he he could have believed it. Yes. And that you would kill people if they ever crossed you, right?
01:47:26
Well, I've never said that. It goes to Sebastian Burn's imagination. Let him sit back when he goes home at
01:47:34
night and imagine whatever he chooses to. Is there any time in which your character directly threatens Sebastian
01:47:43
Burns? No, never. The idea was not to frighten Sebastian, but to make him comfortable talking
01:47:50
about murder to other murderers. I know he did that. That's why you're here. Could Sebastian Burns have walked
01:47:59
away from his relationship with you at any time he chose to do so? Without a doubt, he didn't have to
01:48:04
return our calls. Hey, it's Sebastian leaving. Message number three. Sebastian stayed, the defense argued,
01:48:12
because he believed the Belleview police were fabricating evidence against him. I'm going to show you something. You
01:48:19
never saw this from me. That phony memo detailing the evidence that the cops had against the boys.
01:48:25
Here, just read this piece of The undercover operators only offered to destroy the evidence if Sebastian
01:48:33
confessed. You don't say to Sebastian, "Look, Sebastian, if you didn't do it, just say
01:48:41
so. We'll still deal with that evidence for you. We'll deal with it so you won't
01:48:46
get convicted. But if you didn't do it, just just say so. We'll still help." You
01:48:51
never said that, right? No, I didn't say that because up until this time, Sebastian Burns had never denied the
01:48:59
involvement in the murders to me. [Music] Going into the meeting on July 18th, what was your plan?
01:49:10
My plan was to claim to be the murderer that they insisted that they believe that I was. And to be convincing,
01:49:20
Sebastian says he studied newspaper accounts, so he'd know details of the murders.
01:49:27
[Music] First, um, the mother and dad and sister. As the cameras rolled, Sebastian
01:49:41
confirmed the police theory that the weapon was a baseball bat. We use a metal or wouldn't that
01:49:48
um metal and the eerie notion that the killer had showered before leaving the sar clean
01:50:00
blood making and that wasn't the only reason why detectives found no blood on the boys.
01:50:08
How do you uh it's on Facebook and have to shower no blood on you? You do it. [Music]
01:50:17
Sebastian pointed out how he and a teeth would profit from the crime. Whatever money we get, it's like we
01:50:26
would invest it in our film, I guess. And he gave up the most soughtafter clue, the loophole in the alibi.
01:50:38
You uh do the dirty deed. uh turn away and I'm going to get you all the trouble you're in.
01:50:50
I'm flattered. Huh? I'm flattered by your attention. Aif explained that while Sebastian
01:50:57
killed his family, he staged a breakin. What did he do in the house? Ranked out of DCR. You told Hlett, am I
01:51:09
correct, that you committed these murders of the Rafé, the Rafé family during the movie. Am I right?
01:51:16
Correct. That the VCR was taken to also uh contribute to the simulation of a breaking and entering.
01:51:22
That's right. You had the alibi of the movie. The prosecution had another bombshell
01:51:28
ready to drop on the defense. It wasn't the first time Sebastian used a movie as an alibi. You got into a a a
01:51:36
a car collision, didn't you? Yes. Uh you were driving your family car at the time.
01:51:42
That's correct. Yes. I mean, you hit a pole in a parking lot. Did you own up to it at the time?
01:51:48
No, I did not. When he was 16, Sebastian staged an elaborate cover up to conceal the fact
01:51:55
that he had wrecked the family car. Mr. Burns, the reality is uh what you said about doing was very similar to
01:52:02
what you told Haslett you did in this case. Isn't that correct? I told Hlet that we committed a murder,
01:52:08
which we didn't do. Well, Mr. Burns, let me stop you there for a moment. Roger David Heiser drew a haunting
01:52:13
parallel between the accident scene and the murder scene. Back in high school, Sebastian went to great lengths to make
01:52:23
it seem like someone else did the damage while he was at the movie. But the insurance company caught him in
01:52:33
the cover up. And in March of 1992, albeit with this stupid little car crash, what you
01:52:40
decided to do was to pick up the pieces of evidence that were at the scene of this collision. Am I right?
01:52:46
Correct. You put those back in your car. Am I correct? Correct. You took them to an entirely different
01:52:52
location in North Vancouver. Am I right? Correct. And uh you staged a scene in a
01:52:59
parking lot. Am I right? Basically, you manipulated the evidence to appear as though it was something that it
01:53:06
wasn't. Am I right? Yes. And the reason you did that, sir was so that you could say
01:53:14
that this accident occurred while you were at the movies. Am I right? Correct. Sir, you weren't at the movies when that
01:53:23
accident occurred, were you? No. The difference is that the first one is a car accident and the second one is a
01:53:30
homicide. That's correct, Mr. Burns. That is a difference. And the difference is also that in the
01:53:37
first case, I was responsible for the car accident. And in the second case, I had nothing to do with this homicide.
01:53:42
David Heiser wasn't about to let that statement go in front of the jury. He had more of that damning tape.
01:53:50
Can I tell you something? like I I you know I felt like you know I was capable and
01:54:02
like you kill a person and on July 18th of 1995 after you uh told him that you had in fact killed the
01:54:12
Rafé family, you told him that you did it because you felt capable of killing. Right.
01:54:20
Correct. Yes. Did you see it happen? Yeah. All three? No, only one. Which one? My mom.
01:54:29
The demeanor with which they deliver this this message of what they accomplished that that night in
01:54:36
Belleview is chilling. Didn't even fight. Um. Uh. Yeah. Well, that's a story that hasn't really
01:54:47
been told because I think I know that. You can hear a teeth giggling in the background and and kind of going, "Oh
01:54:55
god, oh god." basically uh the father who was uh nothing and curious episode um the sister who basically um
01:55:10
yeah I was standing up and walking around and whatever [Music] your behavior on that tape when there's
01:55:19
some laughing did you think that the murder of the Rafé family was some sort of a comedy
01:55:24
no absolutely Not, but we were lying and I was not thinking about the murder of the Rafé family when I was talking.
01:55:33
To a certain extent, I had essentially put the real events out of my mind entirely so that I was really only
01:55:43
thinking of the story that I was selling to Mr. Hlett. That's not part of a story that two
01:55:54
scared individuals come up with because they think it's what two mafia characters want to hear. That's the
01:56:02
truth. That's the truth coming from the mind of a Tifer Fay and Sebastian Burns.
01:56:14
[Music] It's a challenge to sum it all up in a couple of hours. Six months of testimony
01:56:26
comes down to one final argument. There is no gray area. There is nothing in between. Either you must believe what
01:56:33
Sebastian Burn says and every single thing he says or you must convict him. James Conat will speak for the state.
01:56:41
You like your odds very much. Are you ready? Absolutely. Jeff Robinson knows this is his last
01:56:48
chance in front of the jury and he will have to counter with everything he has. How many times does the evidence have to
01:56:57
tell us it's not Sebastian and it's not a teeth before we listen? Please listen.
01:57:06
He points to the bloody scene in Tariq's bedroom and evidence of three killers. Three people went into Dr. Rafé's room
01:57:18
and there are three unknown DNA profiles. Robinson reminds them that there is no
01:57:24
forensic evidence linking the boys to the crime. And the question that you're required to ask yourselves is, what has
01:57:32
the state shown me to make me believe that he is guilty without having one reason to doubt it?
01:57:40
Mr. Konat, floor is yours, your honor. Thank you. There can be no doubt in your mind that
01:57:46
these two are the killers. The prosecution insists it is Sebastian's own words that leave no room
01:57:54
for doubt. How did you three people at once? Uh, not at one. And ultimately, the words that came out
01:58:04
of Sebastian Burns's mouth led to his demise. His hubris led to his demise. [Music]
01:58:13
What would be most compelling to the 12 jurors? Would it be the neighbors who thought they heard the murders that
01:58:20
night when the boys were spotted at the movie theater? Or would they be haunted by Jimmy
01:58:26
Moshi's words damning his two former best friends? Would the jury believe that Sebastian was scared of those
01:58:34
undercover operators? Or is this the picture of a young man who thinks he's about to get away with
01:58:41
murder? For the last time, the jury is asked to envision the last moments in the Rafé
01:58:49
family home. This is the horror that they left behind. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we must not lose sight of.
01:59:00
Finally, it is up to the jury to make its decision. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, you're retired to deliberate
01:59:06
your verdict. In the script for The Great Despisers, two boys are wrongfully convicted and
01:59:13
executed. After 4 days of deliberations, 10 years after the murders, the final act in the
01:59:23
real life plotline. All rides for the jury. We the jury find the defendant Glenn
01:59:28
Sebastian Burns guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree as charged in count one. Verdict form 1 F. We the jury
01:59:37
find the defendant uh Tif Ahmed Rafé guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree as charged in count three.
01:59:46
I did not believe that they didn't have reasonable doubt. I just didn't believe it.
01:59:53
I'm afraid of him. I think he's very scary. And I looked at him a few times and he was glaring at me personally and
01:59:59
anybody that committed a crime like that is a frightening person. I was looking at individual jurors just
02:00:05
to see if they I don't know. I guess I was looking for some kind of an answer. I wonder
02:00:12
how they sleep at night. I wonder how they came to that decision. Back over here one way or the other.
02:00:23
With the verdict that was given, can you sleep well at night now? Yes. Yes. No second thoughts.
02:00:31
No. No way. Not with anyone. Not a doubt. Nope. I personally myself to the very day of
02:00:38
the end of the trial wanted them to be innocent. And in the end, I was totally overcome by the evidence. obviously, but
02:00:44
I think all of us were wishing that some suspect would be guilty so that we could
02:00:49
not convict these two young men. [Music] On October 22nd, 2004, 5 months after the verdict,
02:01:02
good morning, Sebastian and Aif were back in court. Sebastian, anything to say before they
02:01:08
put you away? this time to hear their sentence from the judge. Send Mr. Burns a very clear message that
02:01:15
he has been found guilty. Send him to prison for the rest of his natural life times three. Three consecutive life
02:01:20
sentences. Mr. Burns. Thank you, your honor. Sebastian had his own message for the
02:01:29
court. With all due respect to the jurors, the verdict is wrong. In the audience
02:01:35
were jurors who had convicted him and the undercover operators who had sealed his fate. I
02:01:42
certainly feel sorry for the victims. I feel sorry for their surviving son. This was his only expression of
02:01:48
sympathy. Before I continue, I would just encourage you to consider in a speech that went on
02:01:53
and that's for almost two hours. our jury was made to have. I want to insist today on the truth that
02:02:06
we are innocent. Aif never took the stand during the trial. And I loved my parents. I rever memory
02:02:14
to this day. He used this moment to admit he was ashamed. Your honor, the impersonation
02:02:23
that I gave on those videootapes. Yes, there's no relation is alien to everything that I've ever felt or
02:02:32
thought. I truly admired my father. I was probably closer to my mother than to any other person than I ever will be.
02:02:42
and the memory of her wit and her charm and her keen human sympathy. [Music] They're dear to me to this day.
02:02:52
Mr. Ruffet, thank you. Unlike your colleague, I find you genuinely remorseful, Mr. Rafé. I think the
02:03:00
tragedy for you and ultimately your family was a meeting, a fateful meeting at a
02:03:08
probably a school cafeteria or a school ground. I don't know where it occurred with Mr. Burns.
02:03:14
Judge Martell saved his harshest words for Sebastian Burns. Mr. Burns, you're not immoral. You're
02:03:21
amoral. You are an arrogant, convicted killer. You are not a kid, as you so often refer
02:03:28
to yourself. You're an adult and you will be held responsible as an adult for your premeditated,
02:03:37
naked, vicious massacre of this family. It is therefore the conclusion of this court that you should be sentenced on
02:03:47
count one to life without possibility of parole, count two to life without possibility of parole, and on count
02:03:55
three to life without possibility of parole. those three sentences to run consecutively.
02:04:03
Not going to back up here. It's taken them a decade, but prosecutors will send the Rafé's only
02:04:09
son and his best friend to prison for life. We've been saying all along they thought
02:04:16
they planned the perfect murder. Justice has been done for the three victims and our community has held the
02:04:24
two individuals responsible for this accountable for their conduct. There is a great deal of satisfaction in being
02:04:30
part of that. A great deal of satisfaction. [Music] [Music] Before we begin, just a trigger warning.
02:05:25
The following episode contains references to graphic physical violence. Please listen with care.
02:05:36
Welcome to Killer Conversation, a podcast about the criminal mind. My name is Judy Ryback and I'm a longtime 48
02:05:44
hours producer. This is part two of my conversation with Peter Vans about his interviews with two
02:05:51
convicted killers, Sebastian Burns and Aif Rafé. Burns and Rafé were just teenagers when they murdered Rafé's
02:05:59
family. And they might never have been caught were it not for a Canadian sting known as the Mr. Big operation.
02:06:08
So Peter, Mr. Big, what is that? So, this was a unit within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an undercover
02:06:14
unit that would pose as a organized crime family. And they had the ability when they had a target to get that
02:06:25
person entwined in their illegal business, what the what the target thought would be illegal. One of the
02:06:32
undercover officers told me, "Peter, we have never had a target who we did not successfully pull into our organized
02:06:42
crime family." And he said, "I'm talking doctors, lawyers, bankers, they were brilliant at this." And so the there was
02:06:51
the house was bugged and an undercover officer hears that Sebastian is going to get his haircut at a salon in downtown.
02:07:01
um Vancouver and they decide this is our moment to make an approach to him. They'd also learned that Sebastian and
02:07:11
Aif had been working on a screenplay called The Great Despisers. And it's a story about two young men wrongfully
02:07:19
accused of murdering a family. Wow. Where did they get that idea, Judy? Where do you where do you think they got
02:07:24
that? And so when Sebastian came out of the the barber shop, there was a member of the Mr. Big undercover team waiting
02:07:33
who approaches him and says, "Hey, how's it going? You know, I let I I left my keys in my car here. You know, can you
02:07:40
do me a favor? Drive me down to the local hotel. I got an extra set of keys down there." And um and so the adventure
02:07:48
with the Mr. Big Team began, right? They uh they went to a bar and they started talking and forming a
02:07:56
relationship and uh and they because they knew about the screenplay, they sort of used that to to reel him in,
02:08:04
right? Like at some point he said, "I know somebody who I think can fund your movie, who can give you money to make
02:08:10
your film. Let's go meet him." And that very same night they went to go meet with Mr. Big, who they called Al. Right.
02:08:18
Yes. I've met Al. I've uh interviewed Al in Shadow. Um the all the guys on this undercover team were among the most
02:08:28
talented I have ever seen. They looked like character actors out of a Hollywood movie. And uh not long after they they
02:08:37
meet this mobster Al, Mr. Big, he asked Sebastian to drive a very expensive stolen car from Whistler Mountain
02:08:45
outside of Vancouver back to the city. And Sebastian agreed. And after the delivery, Sebastian was paid $200. That
02:08:52
made him anger angry because he wanted a lot more money than that. But instead of
02:08:57
running away from what he thought was a criminal enterprise, Sebastian told them
02:09:02
he wanted more money. Right? This is what remember I told you these guys said, "We always get somebody. They
02:09:09
once they see our world, we we're able to hook somebody." They know their audience, right?
02:09:14
So he and Jimmy Moshi, we remember his roommate. They agreed to start laundering money for this Mr. Big
02:09:22
enterprise and they were paid $2,000 for that. Oh, these are guys that can't get
02:09:27
jobs. They're suddenly raking in the dough. They're going, they're having excitement. They're living on the edge,
02:09:33
right? And Sebastian ends up working for this criminal enterprise for nearly 4 months.
02:09:38
I think we should just clarify that Jimmy Moshi was a high school friend who they were living with at the time of the
02:09:44
sting operation. So eventually Sebastian was asked if he was willing to ready for
02:09:50
this commit murder. The only reason why I'm talking like that, if you follow the whole
02:09:55
conversation, you'll see he's asking me a lot of questions about how does my conscience handle crime. And this is
02:10:00
after he's already confessed to me that he's a murderer himself and after he's also told me that he's worried that I'm
02:10:05
a threat to his organization. He's worried that I'm reluctant to work for them. And it was clear that he was
02:10:11
worried that I was going to tell them to the police. and the only conceivable purpose. I told him at this point that
02:10:18
that wouldn't bother my conscience, but I wouldn't want to do it myself. And he continued to ask me question.
02:10:24
You're saying I'd do it, but I wouldn't do it. You're saying, "Yeah, I'd kill somebody,
02:10:29
but you know, I guess I wouldn't kill somebody." Is that what you're saying we should take from that exchange?
02:10:35
Well, what you should take from that exchange is that I was trying to satisfy him that I wasn't going to tell the
02:10:40
police what he just confessed to me. And I also told him, however, that I didn't
02:10:45
want to do it. I mean, the some Are we getting a glimpse here into the real Sebastian Burns? A man who had
02:10:50
murdered a family and is now telling one of these undercover guys, you're willing
02:10:55
to do it again. No, that's completely not true. And if you read the rest of that excerpt,
02:10:59
Peter, I think that it will be more clear that what I'm telling him there is that I do not want to do that.
02:11:06
So, is it true? Did he try to walk away? Did he ever say no to anything? No, he stays. Uh he says because he was afraid
02:11:15
of what they would do to him if he didn't. But we already know that he is delighted and they've heard on these u
02:11:24
these bugging devices he's delighted by the money that's coming in. So they they tell the boys that um that
02:11:31
there's that they've heard that there's evidence against them in the case in Washington, right? They have a memo that
02:11:38
they show them that says that police found hairs and DNA and blood evidence that's going to that's going to turn the
02:11:45
whole case around. And they tell the boys that um that they can help get rid of that evidence.
02:11:52
Yeah, this is really convincing stuff. Uh this is per very persuasive to him that oh my god, they've got this they've
02:12:01
got this evidence and Mr. big with all his connections can destroy that evidence. But there but Sebastian has to
02:12:09
agree to do something. What is it, Judy? He has to confess to the murders. That's right. And this is very clever.
02:12:17
And this is where, you know, in the United States at that time, if there was an undercover operation like this, you
02:12:25
tell me, would this be admissible? No, absolutely not. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It would not be
02:12:30
admissible. And um and Sebastian is, you know, he's heading down that drain. It's
02:12:36
swirling and he's he's he's losing um control because now they're going to have to tell Mr. Big exactly what
02:12:46
happened to Mr. Big's satisfaction at a Tif's family's home. And eventually Sebastian and Aif are sitting in a room
02:12:54
with Mr. Big. They're unaware that there's a hidden video camera and it's recording every second of their
02:13:01
conversation, picture and sound. [Music] So, this is a first meeting with Mr. Big
02:13:16
and and his people. Um, what did they say? What did they tell them about about the murders? There's no doubt about it.
02:13:24
Sebastian admits to doing the murders and he details how he did it. Beginning with the mother, then the father, then
02:13:32
the daughter, all beaten with the bat. Yeah. The way he confesses on that uh undercover tape is is so matterof fact
02:13:41
and and at times he even laughs about it. You you talk to him about that. Your behavior on that tape when there's
02:13:48
some laughing, did you think that the murder of the Rafé family was some sort of a comedy? No, absolutely not. But we
02:13:56
were lying and I was not thinking about the murder of the Rafé family when I was
02:14:01
talking. I was trying to pass off a story. And for whatever reason, I guess the way that the whole ordeal affected
02:14:08
me was to get nervous and to kind of giggle a bit. And I mean, in one sense, I was trying to act casual. And in
02:14:14
another way, I was, I guess, just genuinely giggling nervously. Uh, you laugh when you say Bosman needed a
02:14:23
little extra bat work. That's sick, isn't it? Well, yes. Uh, I don't want to split
02:14:29
hairs, but the quote is actually a little more effort. Uh, I mean, not that it's much better, and I guess that is
02:14:36
just splitting hairs, but at the same time, it's a little bit different. Uh, it's not that's not any better. Effort
02:14:41
is still outrageous. You laugh when you're talking about killing Bosma. Yeah. Well, we were lying. And at that
02:14:50
point, I felt very awkward because I didn't know what to say about it to Al because we didn't do it. And I was
02:14:57
making up a story. And I was chuckling awkwardly because I didn't know what to say. And I was, we had already heard
02:15:06
some of the details in the newspaper about what supposedly happened there. And I was just in a really awkward
02:15:12
position. And I was just kind of chuckling nervously. Sebastian, aren't we looking
02:15:20
at you on this videotape? The real Sebastian Burns, the person who planned this murder, killed these people, and
02:15:28
has no conscience to the point where you can laugh about it. No, that's completely wrong. No, you are
02:15:33
never seeing the real me on any of these tapes, in my opinion. In my opinion, what an odd thing to say.
02:15:43
Sebastian claims he was forced to confess that he was afraid of what the mob boss might do to him if he didn't.
02:15:50
So Aif is there that day and he also confessed. Um they they needed both boys there, right?
02:15:59
Yeah. But Aif claims that he also felt trapped in that moment and had had no no choice that you know if they confessed
02:16:07
the mob boss was going to protect him, you know, and destroy that evidence down in Belleview. Uh, and if they didn't,
02:16:13
who knows what would have happened to them. I certainly had no way of dealing with
02:16:17
the situation other than the one that they that that was offered by the undercover operatives where they whereby
02:16:22
somehow they would essentially magically take care of all our problems. And I certainly I I can say that I almost
02:16:29
enjoyed the irony of making a false confession in order to obtain a true exoneration. I thought that was kind of
02:16:38
neat. Neat. It was neat making up a story about his murdered family. What can I say? And uh like Sebastian,
02:16:48
he laughed when he talked about the murder of his sister Bosma. You have declined to discuss the details
02:16:54
of these murders during the course of this interview. What you saw inside your own house, right?
02:16:59
And yet in front of two mobsters, you laugh about it and you give complete detail about what happened inside that
02:17:05
house. I don't get it. It's easier to talk about a fiction than it is to about the truth. I think in that way, um, I
02:17:13
didn't have any emotional feelings about the a fake story that I was telling. He doesn't ever have any emotional
02:17:22
feelings. Uh, or it doesn't appear that he's emotional. Anyway, to a lot of people, what the Canadian officers did
02:17:29
feels like entrament and coerced confessions. In fact, Sebastian's sister made a documentary about the Mr. a big
02:17:36
operation that got Innocence International to take on Aif and Sebastian's case, but all of the appeals
02:17:45
were denied. At the time when I was covering this and the way it was explained in court is
02:17:51
that this was an undercover operation that was completely legal in Canada at that time. Eventually became illegal,
02:18:00
but at that time it was legal. And here in the US, there was an exception called
02:18:05
the silver platter doctrine, which said that if an operation was legal in the country where it was conducted, it was
02:18:13
then admissible here in the United States. And defense attorneys tried to get the video thrown out, but the judge
02:18:20
in Sebastian's trial allowed jurors to watch it. And on it, the boys confess. Do you think they would have been
02:18:29
convicted without those tapes? I am not sure that they would have been convicted with what the neighbors had
02:18:35
heard of these killings going on at a time when the boys were seen in a movie theater.
02:18:43
Um I think there is hung jury was a real possibility or or an acquitt was a real
02:18:50
possibility. This this was this was the moment, right? Or there may never have been a
02:18:55
trial, right? Those of you who've been listening to all this, what do you think?
02:19:00
Right? If that tape had not been played, um would these boys have been convicted? I
02:19:06
think there's a excellent chance that they would not have been. So, a little over a year after the
02:19:13
murders, they tell these Canadian officers that they committed the murders, but it took nearly six years to
02:19:19
extradite them. Why? Well, at the heart of this was the death penalty. There is no death penalty for
02:19:24
murder in Canada. And the Canadian government said they're not going to extradite the boys until uh the judge in
02:19:31
this case agreed to take and prosecutors agreed to take the death penalty off the
02:19:36
table, which eventually happened. Right. Both boys were represented by public defenders and there's kind of a
02:19:44
crazy story about how they were pulled off the case. Is it true that Sebastian had sex with
02:19:51
one of his attorneys? Yeah. So, I'll I'll leave her name out of it. She's been through so much. But he had
02:20:00
this dynamic u woman attorney that um was considered one of the best in the public defender's
02:20:06
office. She had gone uh to Japan to see Jimmy Mioshi. Remember, he was Sebastian
02:20:12
and Natif's roommate in Vancouver, British Columbia. And uh Jimmy had been accused of conspiring in the murders.
02:20:19
And and he made a deal with the state to testify against his friends. And then he
02:20:23
moved to Japan. Well, Sebastian's lawyer flew to Japan to meet with him. And she
02:20:28
came back. She was incredibly excited because she claimed that Jimmy told her that he felt leaned on to make the deal.
02:20:35
and she was excited that that if she could present this in court, it would completely undermine him as a as a
02:20:42
witness. And I was told by the prosecutor in the case uh who talked to the guards who who watched some of this
02:20:48
unfold, she ran into his uh meeting into the meeting room. Um she gives him this
02:20:55
big hug. She tells him the news. They hug again and then the hug immediately progressed into um removal of clothing.
02:21:04
Um, a guard who was watching all of this called two other guards over and because
02:21:11
they were on a slightly second floor that they could look down and see this window on the door, this small window
02:21:16
could see inside and they said, "Do you see what I see? Okay, do you see what I see?" Yeah, we all know what that is.
02:21:22
Okay, well then let's go break this up. And it's a felony to have sex with an inmate in in jail like that. and uh she
02:21:33
uh had her law license suspended. She was taken off the case and she had a partner who was who was uh incredibly
02:21:39
bright and talented and the two of them were were taken off cuz they were a team. So when these two defense
02:21:45
attorneys come instead of having years of research behind them, they had a few months to get prepared for this and uh
02:21:54
that was devastating to Sebastian and Aif's case. So, speaking of Jimmy Moshi, he had a
02:22:10
lot to say in his deposition. Um, he said that a tie told him that he had wanted to kill his family and that he
02:22:19
was present when Sebastian killed his mother. Yeah. He said he'd been present when
02:22:25
Sebastian had discussed their plans to murder the family. And he specifically said he recall them saying that they
02:22:31
plan to stay at the Rafé home for a few days before the murder so their DNA and hair would be explainable when it was
02:22:39
discovered uh during forensic examination. Part of the plan, part of the master plan. So there was a bit of physical
02:22:48
evidence that showed that there might have been someone else involved in the murder, at least of Tariq. What was
02:22:54
that? Well, there was a hair, just a single hair, found on the body of Tariq Rafé that didn't belong to anyone in the
02:23:02
family or Sebastian. Now, of course, Tariq worked in the outside world, and being at work, if somebody had given him
02:23:08
a hug or anything else, you could see transference there. Uh, but there was also, and this was really strange, there
02:23:15
was blood in the garage that was discovered that didn't belong to anyone in the family or to Sebastian. M
02:23:23
and also then don't forget the two neighbors who testified that they heard a commotion at the house
02:23:29
at a time when the boys were in that movie theater. Right. Right. So Sebastian took the
02:23:35
witness stand which doesn't surprise me at all. What about you? It doesn't surprise me. I'll use that
02:23:42
phrase brilliantly stupid. Uh his attorney said don't do this. We have a chance. there's um some
02:23:50
reasonable doubt in here and um do not do this. And Sebastian insisted if he was anything like he was in your
02:23:59
interview, I can only imagine that the jury just hated him. Yeah, it's it he had that same attitude,
02:24:07
right? He was very put out while answering questions. Um and uh that that attitude
02:24:14
is of I'm smarter than you uh and I'm the one you should believe. So, at at his sentencing, Sebastian
02:24:22
never showed any remorse, told the jurors they were wrong, and went on for nearly 2 hours. What did he say?
02:24:31
Yeah, I was there. Um, this was a theater in the round, uh, one man performance. He talked to the judge
02:24:39
directly, but also then turned back to talk to the people in the room, all of us that were there. Um, he insisted he
02:24:45
was innocent, repeated himself over and over about why the jury was wrong. He threw his defense team under the bus,
02:24:52
called them ineffective. He claimed he didn't know he would testify until the morning of and was
02:24:57
unprepared. That's not true. Defense attorney had had told me that they had urged him not to do this. He forced them
02:25:03
to put him on the stand. He insisted that he had not had his day in court and asked that if he could have a new trial
02:25:09
and represent himself. The judge told him to wrap it up many times. This is what the judge said when he
02:25:17
sentenced Sebastian to three consecutive life sentences. Mr. Burns, you are not immoral. You are amoral. You are an
02:25:27
arrogant convicted killer. You are not a kid as you so often refer to yourself. You're an adult and you will be held
02:25:34
responsible as an adult for your premeditated naked vicious massacre of this family. Of all the mic drops I've
02:25:44
ever heard delivered from the bench, that was epic. If I may say, a touch of genius from the
02:25:51
judge. Such as Aif might say, such irony for the two geniuses whose brilliance and arrogance had turned on them and led
02:26:01
to their demise. Yes. Yes. On the other hand, Aif seemed to get choked up at his sentencing. He
02:26:09
didn't admit to his crime, but he showed remorse for his behavior for the first time. And um I had
02:26:16
interviewed him and things. Uh I saw some humanity there. Um the big question always in a situation
02:26:24
like that is is he sad for what he did or is he sad that he got caught? Right. Exactly. And was it genuine or
02:26:32
was he just terrified? [Music] So they both got three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of
02:26:42
parole. And of course they vowed to fight their wrongful conviction, but they're never getting out. Right.
02:26:49
Well, it's doubtful now. Uh Sebastian has exhausted all of his appeals. Uh T has one more to go, but I I think it is
02:27:01
very it is very doubtful that uh uh that they will ever see life outside of a prison cell. Here's an exchange I had
02:27:11
with a How would you describe what has happened to you? Um, I don't know. I guess we'd have to use
02:27:21
words like disaster and calamity and other things. Um, it's very easy to fall into the rut of self-pity and so I try
02:27:29
not to think on it too much. Um, luckily uh it's very easy to uh I guess think of other things and fall
02:27:40
into a sort of uh unmindfulness of your present situation. And here is Sebastian.
02:27:49
Do you still see the images of of their bodies when you think about the Rafé house? When you think about that Nike,
02:27:56
you still see it in your mind's eye? Is it something you live with? That memory?
02:28:05
Truly, I don't know. It was something that was very much with me for I know the first year after it happened.
02:28:24
Um especially with the first few weeks. Um it's been 10 years now and so and a lot of ways I'm over it.
02:28:38
Why do you think they never turned on each other? I still believe that they believe and
02:28:45
this is what has sustained them all these years is that one day they will outsmart the system on appeal.
02:28:53
They're down to their last one for a could ever have turned on Sebastian his his idol and his mentor.
02:29:05
Right. So today they're both 49 years old. They're still in custody in the Monroe Correctional Complex. A Tif was
02:29:15
married in in 2017, but is now divorced. Not surprisingly, he seems to have been
02:29:22
or is a model prisoner, studying and teaching and writing papers and articles. Um, all we know about
02:29:31
Sebastian is that his parents visit him once a month and according to them, he spent 10 years in solitary confinement.
02:29:40
Well, Peter, we could go on forever, but we won't. Yeah, somebody wrote a book about it.
02:29:46
Yes, you did. That my relatives bought. Perfectly executed is the book. I wrote it with
02:29:51
Janet Jackson, one of the producers. All right. Thank you again. Yeah. And thanks for reliving this with
02:29:56
me. It is It is one of the most extraordinary cases of my career and one I'll carry with me forever.
02:30:02
I can see why. 48 hours Killer Conversation is hosted and produced by me, Judy Ryback. Our
02:30:12
story editor is Mora Walls. Alan Pang oversees recording, mixing, and sound design, factchecking, and additional
02:30:20
production support from Rebecca Laflam. And special thanks to 48 hours executive
02:30:25
producer Judy Tyiggard and Paramount Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus.