Season 36, Episode 13 of our Serial Killers in History series. This episode examines one of North Africa's most notorious crimes and the execution that shocked the world.

In the spring of 1906, authorities in Marrakesh make a discovery that will reverberate across continents. Beneath the packed-earth floor of a modest shoemaker's workshop, they uncover the remains of twenty-six women. Ten more bodies lie buried in a garden nearby. Thirty-six victims in total—women who came to a trusted craftsman for help and never walked out alive. What follows is a story of community betrayal, colonial politics, and a punishment so brutal that diplomats from New York to London demanded intervention. But the screaming from inside the marketplace walls continued for two days before...

VICTIM PROFILE:

The thirty-six women murdered by Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi remain largely unnamed in historical records—a final cruelty in a case dominated by its killer's infamy. They were working-class women from Marrakesh's medina, women who needed help with everyday tasks in a society where female literacy was rare. Some came to dictate letters to relatives in distant cities. Others needed shoes repaired. They were mothers, daughters, sisters who trusted a man their community trusted. They walked into his shop for legitimate business and vanished into the earth beneath his floor, their identities lost to time while their murderer's name lives in infamy.

THE CRIME:

Between 1902 and 1906, Mesfewi operated his shop near one of Marrakesh's public bathhouses, positioning himself perfectly to encounter women conducting business without male accompaniment. His method was consistent across all victims: he offered tea laced with narcotics, likely opium, rendering women unconscious. Once incapacitated, he killed them with a dagger and buried them beneath his workshop floor or in a garden he owned, using quicklime to accelerate decomposition. His seventy-year-old accomplice, a woman named Annah, assisted in the crimes until her capture in April 1906.

KEY CASE DETAILS:

The murders unraveled when families noticed a pattern—women who mentioned visiting Mesfewi's shop were never seen again. One young woman named Fatima escaped after growing dizzy from drugged tea, providing the first direct testimony against the shoemaker. When Annah was captured by a victim's family and forced to confess, she revealed the burial sites before dying from her injuries. Authorities excavating Mesfewi's workshop found twenty-six bodies, methodically buried with layers of quicklime. A second property yielded ten more victims. Forensic science in 1906 Morocco was rudimentary—no fingerprinting, no crime scene photography—so investigators relied on shovels, sketches, and eyewitness accounts to document the horror.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND SOURCES:

Mesfewi's crimes occurred during Morocco's final years of independence before European colonization. As his victims were being discovered in April 1906, diplomats gathered in Algeciras, Spain, carving up Morocco's future at an international conference. Within six years, the Treaty of Fez would establish the French Protectorate, ending twelve centuries of Moroccan sovereignty. European powers seized on Mesfewi's execution—he was sealed alive inside a wall in the Marrakesh marketplace—as evidence of "barbaric" Moroccan justice requiring European oversight. Contemporary newspapers from The Times and Democrat to the St. John Sun published detailed accounts and illustrations, framing the case within colonial narratives that justified intervention.

RESOURCES AND FURTHER READING:

For those who want to explore further:

• Wikipedia article on Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi provides comprehensive case details and contemporary source citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadj_Mohammed_Mesfewi
• Murderpedia entry includes execution details and victim count documentation: https://murderpedia.org/male.M/m/mesfewi-hadj-mohammed.htm
• Yabiladi article examines the case from a Moroccan historical perspective: https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/94637/hadj-mohammed-mesfewi-morocco-serial.html

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