Transcript of Chasing a Serial Killer [8] New

A quick warning. This podcast deals with violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

Previously on Someone's hunting us.

And then he just broke it out to me like, Oh, I'm sorry to say this, but we found her skeleton remains. She had a rope around her neck.

More of trying to get an idea of what can make this guy so angry that that he would strangle women. There has to be something in his past. The feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw that message was like, Oh, my God, I can just imagine.

On a weeknight, about a year ago, I kissed my kids good night and ran off to meet Rebecca at an IHOP about an hour away.

It's off the Jersey turnpike and perfect since it's halfway between our houses. But sadly, we weren't there for pancakes.

Which sucks because I love breakfast for dinner.

Yeah, no. Our mission for the night?

To charm a charmer, to win over a serial killer, and on his terms, or at least on his turf, an app.

In the freezing parking lot, we turned on the warmth, the smiles, the sweet voices.

We put the phone camera on selfie mode and hit record. Hi, I'm Daisy. Hi, I'm Rebecca. We just wanted to hop on here because we realized that we hadn't heard from you and that we haven't even told you what the project we're working on actually is.

So it's an in-depth podcast series. We've done these before. They get millions of listeners around the world, and we really think it's a good way for you to tell your story.

Yeah, we just wanted to make sure that we were really including you in this because we want to give you the platform to share your truth and to tell people what really happened. I hope that you'll let us go visit you. Yeah, that's us. Sending Khalil Wheeler-Wever, a man who was in prison for killing women he targeted on a social media app, a cute little videogram.

We sound casual, right? But really, I felt sick thinking of him watching this. Plus, here I am acting like a faunting schoolgirl to get a source to do an interview. I felt like a total fraud, even if he is a killer.

Would you like to include a prepaid reply? Yes. To me, it was all in a day's work. I mean, we had to try. We needed him to say yes to letting us visit him in prison. Encouraging him to share his truth might just do the trick. He's never shown remorse about his deceit, so I wasn't going to lose sleep over this. Okay, so just send? Yeah.

Yeah, let's do it, right? So we did it. We hit send and hoped for the best. But somehow, I still wasn't prepared for his reply. I'm Rebecca Everett.

And I'm Daisy Calavia Robertson. And this is the final episode of Someone's Hunting Us, a podcast by nj. Com and the Star Ledger about a serial killer you've never heard of and the women who took him down.

I'm not sure I ever expected that serial killer to respond to us, but when he did, I had no idea what I'd find when I opened the app. Here's Daisy and I talking about it. And I'm also got this rush of fear. What if he does say, Okay, you can come visit me? Then we have to go visit him.

Then we have to go home visit him.

Yeah.

But that's not how it went down, because with someone as slick as Khalil, you never know what you're going to get. Here's Rebecca reading one of his emails.

So in response to our question of, Can we come visit him? It says, No, thank you, dot, dot, dot. I'm innocent. And your company is one of the main ones that have pushed a one-sided narrative of the situation. I know it's not you guys personally. However, the company that you work for isn't for me. Thank you, but no thank you. Enjoy your day.

So nice and polite, right?

I was like, Well, there it is. He said no.

And I was like, No way. We have to keep trying.

So we did. We messaged him about our interview with his buddy, Richard Isaacs, and he seemed curious about it, so it felt like we were making progress.

But then he ghosted us. And that's when we went the video route. It was our chance to try to convince him to open up to us and do what serial killer expert Dr. White suggested, establish a rapport.

Three days after we videogrammed him, I saw the notification. He'd replied with a video of his own. I facetimed Daisy so we could watch it together. Okay, so let me turn my screen around. Okay. Yikes. I'm already so creeped out. Are you so creeped out? The thumbnail on my screen, a closeup of the lower half of his face and his very muscular chest and shoulders. He was leaning over this kiosk the inmates used to record these videos.

What's going on, Becker and Dazy? We got you all a message.

At first, I don't know.

I really wasn't thinking about replying back. I don't know why. I guess I just need to know more about the actual project itself, get to know more about it, the ins and outs. I really don't know too much about it besides what Richard told me.

So other than that, same. Talk to me, what's going on?

When I saw how he looked and heard the way he spoke to us, so confident, smooth, I thought, Is this some flex? The way he talked was so chill and normal. It almost makes you forget that you're talking to a serial killer.

And it made me think, Oh, so this is how he turns it on to fool women.

Still, it was a win. He'd replied. I figured he just wanted to keep getting videos from us, from two women.

But a big part of me wanted to never message him ever again. And I sure as hell didn't want to go to this prison just to hear him lie to us about what happened. I remember you had to give me a little pep talk about it.

I don't love this.

Trust me. I know you.

I don't like it, but I just think that we can still challenge whatever he says. But if we want to even have a shot at doing that, we have to try to get him to talk to us.

So we sent another video describing our project again.

But that was it. No more replies. Maybe he just enjoyed stringing us along. We know he gets off on power. Then, a few weeks after he ghosted, Khalil emailed us out of nowhere.

We just interviewed Ron Brown, the friend he talks to every day. And Khalil asked us how the interview went.

We pressed him again about talking, but he was still hesitant.

Here's me reading Khalil's message to Daisy. But then he says, Give me a little bit of time and maybe we can set up an in-person visit if you guys would like. Then you can explain more and we will see where we can go from there. I have visits scheduled for about the next month.

Wow.

Contact visits are on the weekends here. Let me know what you guys think.

This felt like an exciting step closer to finally meeting him face to face, to finally starting to build that rapport, and hopefully even finding some answers for the victim's families.

Right. We'd done all this to learn more about him, His relationships, his feelings towards women. How did we get here?

But then another twist. Turns out, Khalil wants to know where we live. He asked us for our home addresses. He said they'd have to match our IDs or the prison guards wouldn't let us in. Yeah, not happening, Khalil.

Now, we know he's locked up, but there was no chance we were sending our addresses to a serial killer.

So we called the prison officials directly to see if they could set a meeting. We were thinking, at least we'd sit down and talk, bring our mics just in case he'd let us record.

But in the end, after months of chasing Khalil, he turned us down. Here's his email. Administration came to me today about you and Daisy. I had declined to do the interview right now due to the legal advice from my counsel. I have things going on, and we don't want to risk anything with the interview. I apologize about this. I wanted you to hear it from me. Is this email like, It's not you, it's me?

Yeah, he's still playing the part of the smooth, nice guy. I'm guessing the things going on that he mentioned is his petition for post-conviction relief. That's a appeal.

He never responded to any other messages. We tried a few more things, including seeing if Ron Brown would do a group call, but it seems Khalil said no to that, too.

We learned Ron isn't the only person on the outside Khalil talks to.

He has people keeping him updated because we'd reached out to many of his friends, requesting interviews.

One of them had forwarded our email to Khalil.

In a message on J-Pay, Khalil quoted the email back to us as proof that we had already made up our minds about him. Here's Daisy reading it.

It says, Honestly, I am still hesitant. It comes more so from how an email was worded that went out to someone who you guys wish to interview. It in essence said something to the effect of, quote, come to terms with what he did, end quote. And when I heard that, I was like, But I didn't, and I'm innocent. That is more so where my hesitancy stems from. Then people try to twist things and so on and so forth.

Talk about twisting things. For me, this whole thing was so uncomfortable, playing this game, being nice to him, trying to gain his trust. But after all that, he clearly hadn't fallen for it.

He was always trying to stay one step ahead of us.

And to be fair, he was right about us. We had made up our minds about him.

He killed these women. He took away their chance to grow up, fall in love, have a child, or grow old with their families.

Of course, he's denied all of since day one. He says the stories about him are nothing but, quote, one-sided narratives. But lines like that are all he has. He has no counter narrative, just like he had no evidence to present at trial.

But we had to try one last time. So in December 2025, as we were completing production on this podcast, we opened up the J-Pay app to give him one final chance to come clean. Hi, Khalil. How are you? We're reaching out to you one last time because we're recording the final episode of the podcast, and we wanted to give you a chance to talk to us.

Yeah, we've tried for a while to talk to you, but we've seen all the evidence from the trial now, and that's what we have to go on, is that evidence from the trial. So that's what we're going to be reporting.

Now, we know you don't want that, and we know that you've always said that you're innocent. So if there's anything at all you want to say to us, this is your chance.

As of this recording, he still hasn't responded. Shocked today after an arrest in the infamous Gilgo Beach murder. The morning of July 14, 2023, is when I'll never forget. The day they finally caught him. Liz Lysk, the Long Island serial killer. 59-year-old Rex Huhermann from Long Island is now charged in the murders of three women. Ten years earlier, we had gone on our own hunt for Lysk, and even though we didn't find him, I had no idea how close we came. We're learning that Rex Huhermann may have called a documentary filmmaker.

Were you in my house today?

Yes. We were looking for you.

This is not a good thing to do. But as we dug deeper, we discovered the hunt for a serial killer. It was only half the story. There's no other way to describe this except explosive. Former Suffolk County Chief of Police, James Burke, was put in handcuffs. Steve, are you still denying the accusations? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster: Hunting the Long Island Seral Killer. Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Rebecca Everett here, and I want to tell you about a podcast I binged that I think you're going to like to. It's season 4 of the Unforgotten, Kill Site. Now, you know I'm a journal Journalists and my favorite podcasts are made by other journalists because they just know how to tell a great story, and they always uncover whatever the people in power are trying to cover up. This season of the Unforgotten is just like that. It's about the death of Christopher Whitelie in Texas. Five years ago, after discovering a gruesome scene, authorities tried to say this guy got killed by a mountain lion. Case closed. But experts say there's no way that's true.

So what really happened to Christopher Whited? And did police bias get in the way? The journalists on this case, Wes Ferguson and Charlie Scutter, aren't going to stop looking for the truth. So check out season 4 of the Unforgotten, Kill Site. And then you can binge all the other past seasons, just like I did. I said before that I've watched and rewatched that first press conference back in 2016 when they announced Khalil's arrest. Announced the fact that they made an arrest in the death of Sarah Butler, whose body was found December the first. I included the press conference in my original pitch to make this podcast years ago because I can't get over how badly it's aged.

There's about a dozen people on stage. Almost everyone gets a turn at the mic, and they're all patting each other on the back for the great work they've done.

And whenever any reporter asks how they caught their man, that it was around the clock police work. Literally, literally have been working around the clock. And the Homicide Task Force have been on this around the clock. They've been working day, night on this investigation. There were legions of people on it around the clock since number 5.

Yes, Sarah Butler's case was investigated right away. Everything about her disappearance set off alarm bells. There was a press conference, and the room was packed with news outlets.

But where was the round the clock police work for the other victims?

And where were we? Where were all the reporters and cameras then?

Khalil Wheeler-Riever thought most people wouldn't care about the girls he disappeared. But did all of us, police, media, their communities, have to do such a good job of proving him Right. Nobody cared. Clean and simple.

So I wondered, what if there's other girls like Mawa out there?

Other victims who disappeared, but no one cared. What if they just haven't been found or identified?

The authorities wouldn't talk about it with us, so we scoured a federal database for missing people or unidentified remains that could be related. We dug into a few cases, but they didn't seem in any way related to Khalil Wheeler favor.

Then I remembered that some years ago, my coworkers and I had created a database of New Jersey homicides. So I pulled it up just to check if there were any other murder victims who matched Khalil's MO. That's when I noticed the last name I'd entered into the database for Essex County. I stared at the screen, and I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, and I recorded a voice memo. And then I realized that the very last one in this database is Jane Doe, Black female, killed by ligature strangulation. And I realized that it's Mawa. And I don't know why that bothered me so much. It bothered me so much because I don't even have any memory of it. Didn't I wonder who Orange Jane Doe was? Why didn't Can I at least call up the prosecutor's office, request reports, see if I could get a story together about her? Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference at all in getting Mawa's case solved sooner. But what if it had Sure, the police and the system failed Mawa, but so did I.

Christopher Mogg, the columnist we heard from earlier, told me his newsroom dropped the ball, too. He said it It took him a week to realize how big this case was and start covering the trial. His colleagues hadn't been there every day either.

Yeah, I think it's pretty clear-cut that if any of the victims had been an attractive white woman, CNN, the cable news, all the radio, and all the TV stations, I believe, would have been there every day of the trial.

It happens all the time. Remember when we were looking for missing girls from Jersey in the database? There were a handful whose names I had never seen or heard. What happened to them?

Like Erica Alvarez, she was 15, disappeared from Union City in April of 2016. But what do we know about her? Almost nothing. There are no press releases about her, no articles, not even a photo.

Or Thaisherine Budale. She was 27 and disappeared from Newark in 2020. Still missing.

We did write a short story when Denasha McCullah went missing from South Jersey in 2016. But we've written nothing since. It has gotten some attention. Lots of internet slews suggest she was kidnapped, but she's never been found.

The truth is, we're not covering them consistently. Not then and not now.

Of course, it's bigger than us. Newark police have gotten better about posting about missing kids on their website. But when we write the stories, they're not read or shared widely. And in the comments, you'll see people say, Oh, this girl's just a runaway, and they just keep scrolling.

We are going missing at a disproportionate rate. When it comes to people of color going missing, the resources just aren't there.

That's Dericca Wilson, the co founder of Black and Missing, a foundation that tries to level the playing field for people of color who disappear, partly by helping them get media coverage.

What we have found with our organization is that we can't wait on anyone else. We control the narrative.

But I hate that people of color have to write these careful press releases describing missing loved ones as a college student or a star athlete, just to try to get people to see beyond just another missing Black person and see their humanity.

And even that requires family or loved ones willing to raise the alarm. Otherwise, it just isn't going to happen.

Right. That's why Sarah Butler's disappearance did get attention.

But as we saw, by the time the trial rolled around, it had become a different type of story, one about sex workers, marginalized women, Christopher said it's probably a big reason most people haven't heard of Khalil Wheeler-Wever, even though people are so fascinated with serial killers.

It's really a shame, though, that as sad as the story is and as many things as went wrong here, it probably would happen again.

I think so. Yeah. I don't think there's anything changed.

What if a sex worker was attacked today? Would police handle it any differently?

If you have someone with an established criminal record, somebody who's addicted to drugs, somebody who has a history of being a sex worker, and they call police, something's really bad. That person should not be treated with distrust. They should be treated as a canary in the coal mine because whatever is being done to them probably is being done to other people.

But the thing is, the stigma of sex work is everywhere, not just from police. Even loved ones of the victims tried to minimize it. They know the label strips away their humanity. Here's Bernisha again talking about Robin.

It was like, yeah, that's what she was doing, but that's not who she is. It's not like we were... That's something that we did all of our life. We literally had just started doing it.

Sarah Butler's family struggled with this, too. I emailed her father a request for an interview, and he declined. But it was clear I'd upset him because he felt like I suggested his daughter was like the other victims and not just a girl who made a mistake.

That made me so angry that even one of the victim's parents could, without even thinking about it, devalue the lives of some of these women.

Najay Lerree told us decriminalizing sex work could end the stigma, make them all safer. And maybe it would. But the truth is, as long as sex work exists, we know there will be violence against sex workers.

Listen, we can go on and on about what police do better, what we journalists should do more of, that when we do write stories about missing people, the general public should care. But that's just not the reality.

Which is why people of color in these situations just go out there and do it themselves.

Exactly. We're not waiting to be saved. We can't afford to. We have to take action. And when we do, usually it's with help from people in our own communities.

Right. Just look at all the things the Black women in this case did. They were searching for each other when police wouldn't, warning each other about violent men, even trying to catfish a serial killer.

Even when they were disbelived, even when they were mistreated, they still showed up for each other and for themselves.

.

It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sara Stern.

Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide?

At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts.

Last spring, I met Mawa's friends at Riverbank Park in Newark. It's a nice grassy park on the edge of the Passaic River, about six blocks from their old high school. I had texted Janisha that day to tell her I was thinking of Mawa on her birthday, May seventh. And she invited me to meet up with her, Diana and Kiki. I love how you kicked that guy out of the parking spot.

You're like, No.

I feel like he was being ignorant. You've seen her standing there.

When I saw them, Kiki's daughter was running ahead of the sidewalk, and they were carrying a collage of photos of Mawa. I brought a small bouquet of pink flowers, and a pair of giant gold balloons with the numbers two and four bobbed over their heads. It was Mawa's 24th birthday.

It isn't just that they miss Mawa. They feel separated from her in a physical way. They wish there was a memorial they could go to, a place to remember her. But they've had to make their own.

So is this a park you guys used to come to a lot?

Well, we used to go to East Side. So I remember we walked past this park before, and I know that I used to come here a lot.

These three friends don't really see each other that much anymore.

Yeah, this day releasing balloons for Mawa was the first time I saw all three of them together.

Things change, and I mean, really, Mawa was always the glue in the group.

At the park, it felt like Janisha wanted Mawa to see. They hadn't stopped showing up for her. They never would.

She may cry. Mawa, girl, I brought them out here.

You did that.

Mom, you're holding.

Oh, my gosh.

Next time I see them all together, it'll probably be at Kaleel Wheeler-Weaver's trial.

Here's Janisha at one of our interviews.

I want to be front-row seat because it's like, you didn't only hurt her family, but you hurt her friends and people that she loved. Mawa had people that cared for her. Mawwa was only 15. You killed a teenager, a kid, and you're disgusting. You're disgusting.

I know they really want to lay eyes on this guy. We do, too. And I thought we'd just see him at his hearings in court. But that didn't work because in more than a year, Khalil hasn't been in court.

As far as I can tell, it seems like he's no closer to being tried for Mahwa's death than he was a year ago. So he's probably more focused on appealing his 160-year sentence than on this new case.

I called an old source of mine, George. He'd actually just been released from the same prison. So he'd see Khalil every week without fail, working diligently in the prison's law library.

That he comes down, he works on his case. I see him in the ILA doing some type of legal work. I mean, I don't know exactly what it was. He didn't cry into that, but he was doing legal work.

I figured George would know him by reputation, but he didn't know what Khalil was in for.

Oh, wow. I had no idea.

Yeah.

Does it surprise you? It does surprise me because he's such a quiet guy, a calm, quiet, reserved guy.

Khalil's appeal was denied in 2024. Currently, he's working on his appeal for post-conviction in relief.

Apparently, he's sitting in the stacks every week and reading endless law books through his black glasses, trying to get out of this.

Well, he might be there a while. Almost nothing has happened with Mahwa's case since he was charged three years ago. Khalil got assigned a new attorney, and since then, at every court date, there's been some delay.

Buki Atatula, the lawyer representing Khalil in Mawa's case, told me the prison was making it difficult for him to even have a first meeting with his client.

Back in September, before he'd even spoken to Khalil, Buki told the judge he expected the case would, quote, resolve quickly, like a plea deal since he's already serving life.

But it seems very unlikely that Khalil will plea guilty. He'd be admitting that the MO prosecutors accused him of is, after all his denials, exactly his MO.

When we talk to Khalil's lawyer again just before the podcast release, he said he'd finally met with Khalil and talked over the case. He told us Khalil still didn't want to meet with us.

He will continue to do what he has to do to regain his freedom, and he's determined to clear his name 100 %.

I can't wait till the day I can tell Janisha all the waiting is over and the trial's finally been scheduled.

You can come. When I find out he's going to be in court, you can come to him.

No, I want to. Please, I want to go and I want to face him. I want to tell him, How could you do that to somebody so small? I know when you looked at her, you tell him you didn't feel nothing, no sympathy, nothing like, Oh, my God, let me stop.

They want to stand up in court and tell him. You extinguished every dream this little girl had.

She had plans. Diana told us about her last conversation with Mawa. Mawa said, I see you striving, fighting through foster care, getting in good grades, trying to make something of your life.

Mawa told her, I'm going to be better, too. We can do it together.

Because she talked about her future a lot. She was waiting for it. She wanted to be grown. She kept saying, I can't wait to just be on my own, have my own apartment, my own family.

Her friends are doing it now, but without her.

They're in their mid-20s building lives and families, carrying the good things Mawa taught them, but also still trying to escape the bad things that came when she disappeared, trying to shake off the feeling that they need to be always looking over their shoulders. And for Kiki, the shame she's felt for years.

I feel ashamed if I wasn't there at that moment. If she was in a bad situation, I wasn't there to protect her or be there for her. You know what I mean?

You did the best that you could. And knowing what I know about Mawa from other interviews with the people that have shared about her, she was really craving love. And you and Janisha and Diana, you guys gave her so much love. I think that you should feel proud of that.

When we first sat down to interview Kiki that day in 2024, she was so quiet, nervous, and shaking. But by the end of that interview, she seemed a little different.

I feel a little bit better that I'm finally talking about it because I held it. Everything changed. I'm a mother now. Everybody drifted apart. But It's for the best, but it's for the best. But we still have that strong love for Mawa.

It means everything to me that we're finally telling this story we should have told back then. That Janisha, Diana, and Kiki feel listened to the way they should have on day one.

And I'm very grateful that you all care about us and care about what happened to her because her story needed to be told.

Janisha thinks Mawwa will be at peace after Khalil's next sentencing, when her loved ones can finally stand up and be her voice.

She was just a little 15-year-old girl who was just trying to make it out here. She It was just like everybody, every other teenager out here who wanted to have fun, live life, work, who had dreams. So that's who Mawa Dunbiya was.

For now, they'll just keep finding her in all of life's small and big moments, like that day at Riverbank Park. The girls joked and shared memories about Mawa, and we took turns writing sweet messages to her on soft balloons. Pink, her favorite color.

What happened to the music?

Finally, we stood by the river with the sun setting behind us and said a few words for her. Here's Kiki.

I know God is up here right now making sure that you're okay, you're safe. And I know he got a nice room up there for you too. But I'm saying, Kiki, no. Kiki love you, okay? The whole gang is out here. We never forget about you. We never...

Kiki said it was a happy, sad day. We all had tears in our eyes, but her little daughter kept us smiling, too. Just before releasing the balloons, Kiki called her over and put the string of one of them into her little hand to send it up for Mawa, the beautiful Auntie she never got to meet.

One, two, three. Happy birthday, Mawa.

Let her go. Let her go. Yeah.

Happy birthday, girl.

Happy birthday, Mawa.

This has been Someone's Hunting Us. Follow the podcast for updates on the case and coverage of Khalil Wheeler-Riever's trial in the death of Mawa Doumbia. Someone's Hunting Us is a production of NJ Advanced Media.

The podcast is reported and produced by me, Daisy Kalavia Robertson and Rebecca Everett. Our executive producers are Christopher Kelly, Jessica Beam, Jeff Roberts, and Jess Mazola.

This podcast is recorded and mixed by Alex Graves at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey. Our composer is Blake Maples. James Shapiro is our associate audio engineer. Our website is designed by Alaa Salim.

Special thanks to each and every person who shared their story with us.

If you want to see photos, videos, timelines, and other extras from the story, check out our website, someoneshuntingus. Com. You can contact us at Inbox@ someoneshuntingus. Com.

Follow Someone's Hunting Us, and if you're enjoying it, please rate and review it. Word of mouth is huge, so please help spread the word. Okay, Nikola, quizfrage.

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