Rotten Mango - #264: Bollywood Actress’s Mysterious Death & Her Diary That Exposed Secret Relationship With Elite Family Son
Episode Date: May 28, 2023Kavita was on a flight from London to Mumbai, India to visit her older sister and mom. Her sister was a successful actress in Bollywood but she managed to carve out time in her schedule to celebrate K...avita’s birthday. When she landed - she connected to the airport wifi and all the text messages, DM’s, calls, that she had missed while in the air kept flooding in. She collapsed on the airport floor. Her sister had died while she was in the air. She was found mysteriously hanging from her ceiling fan. The police rules out foul play but there were too many suspicious conditions - like the fact that there wasn’t a single fingerprint in key parts of the room. Not a single print. Not even her own. A few days later - Bollywood went up in flames when 6 pages of her personal diary were leaked. Her death would now be connected to a powerful family in Bollywood. How much involvement did they play in her death? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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There was a 21 year old by the name of Kavita.
She was on a flight from London to Mumbai, India.
And it's about a nine hour flight to get from one point to the other.
She slept through most of the flight.
And now it's
landed, she's patiently waiting in her seat for that little seatbelt ding to go off so she can hop
about, grab her little luggage from the overhead bin and start de-boarding the plane. She unlocks
her phone as she's waiting. And it's a little strange, her data's not working, she's not too
worried about it, she tries turning off the airplane mode, turning it back on, turning it off again. She's still not getting any signal. Okay, that's fine.
Her older sister, Gea, actually lives in Mumbai and her sister, Gea, was going to pick her
up at this airport. Even though it's way past midnight, she didn't have to worry about getting
a taxi, getting an Uber. Her sister was going to meet her. They even texted right before
Kavita got on this plane from London.
She said, I'm boarding now. See you on the other side. Okay, can't wait to see you.
Like this was a very exciting trip for the family. Kavita's birthday was coming up. She's
going to turn 21 and she wanted to spend it with her older sister, Gia and her mom who were in
Mumbai. So she's in school in London. she's coming in Mumbai, India, and the
sisters, the family, they were super, super close. So India is her home country. No. Oh,
it's very complicated. Okay. So her sister was born in the US. I don't know if Kavita was born
in the US or in the UK, but they immigrated to the UK from the United States and then just the
sister moved back to Mumbai, but even though she was never born or raised in Mumbai,
so I guess not moved back to but moved to Mumbai.
So she's only meeting sister?
And her mom goes back and forth between London and Mumbai.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so her mom is in Mumbai right now, right?
And they were all really close,
but it was rare to see Gia these days,
because after she moved to Mumbai,
it's a nine hour plane ride.
Gia was actually an actress in Bollywood, the Indian version of Hollywood.
Like think of it as Hollywood meets K-Dramas.
They produce over a thousand movies per year.
Like this is Hollywood on steroids.
That is double what Hollywood puts out in terms of volume.
Their audience is over 3 billion people,
and in 2020 alone, they were valued at 1.7 billion US dollars.
Kavita's sister, Gia, used to live in London,
but she moved to Mumbai with her mom
so that she could pursue her dreams in Bollywood,
to become an actress.
She worked hard.
It's that the Gia's discipline was unmatched,
like this girl put in the work. Everyone her not just for her talents, but just for her sheer unthinkable work ethic
So yeah a Bollywood famous actress was gonna pick up Kavita from the airport like a personal show for
But that's what sisters do right so Kavita gets off the plane. She's waiting for her suitcase at baggage claim
She's trying to get some internet, some signal to pick back up, but eventually she gives
up and connects to the airport Wi-Fi.
She just wants to let her sister know, hey I've landed, I'm gonna wait for you at like
gate D.
Immediately, every text message, every call that she had missed while she was flying was
coming into her phone.
Text after text call after call, missed calls from her mom aunt cousins random
family friends Instagram DMs Facebook notifications even her email inbox was
overflowing some from people she knew some from complete strangers and her eyes
are just like wildly scanning through these notifications she has no idea why
these people want to reach out to her so badly.
And then she collapses on the airport floor, just sobbing.
Passerbyes asked her what was wrong. They tried to offer her help, but she just pulled herself together and ran straight out of the airport. She needed to figure out if it was true.
Was her sister Gea really dead? She was just 25 years old and Geia Khan, the Bollywood actress, the daughter, the beloved sister,
was found in the guest bedroom just an hour before she was due to pick up her sister from
the airport.
She was found dangling from the ceiling fan.
It was originally presumed that the stress of Bollywood became too much for her.
But when you really look into this case, there are so many unanswered questions,
so many little mysteries that don't make sense that don't add up, she was found wearing a completely
different outfit from what she was seen leaving the house in. She was inches away from two twin
beds, meaning if her survival instinct had kicked in, which most people's do, she would have easily,
she could have easily changed her mind. Every single light was on in the house, every door was closed,
which is very uncharacteristic of Gia's home, and the most confusing part about this case,
was that the marks on her neck didn't match up with the crime scene. Her body was allegedly
covered in cuts and bruises. She had reportedly gotten into a very big fight with someone just
hours before her death, and the window to that room that she was found in,
wide open, meaning anyone could have been in and out.
The police immediately ruled out foul play.
When there were so many fingers pointed to foul play,
it wasn't until a couple days later
when six pages of Gia's personal diary
were leaked to the press.
And that G.S.
death would be connected to a very powerful family slash nepotism baby in
Bollywood and it culminated in one of the biggest scandals and mysteries in
Bollywood and in India in the world to date. As always full show notes are
available at Rodminglepodcast.com. This case was a really really big back in
2013-2014 when it started happening especially since some of the players in notes are available at rodmangopodcast.com. This case was a really, really big back in 2013, 2014
when it started happening, especially since some of the
players in this scene or in this case are very big names
in Bollywood.
The court process actually lasted 10 whole years,
one whole decade, and just at the end of April of this year
was when the courts came to their final decision on this case.
Wow.
Yeah. So case. Wow. Yeah.
So cases finally close now.
Finally, like a month or two ago.
But you know, the court of public opinion is never closed and it's still very divided.
There's a couple of main theories about this case.
Either she chose to end things or she was murdered and I'm going to present both sides
of the argument as well as other pertinent background information and details.
But I'm going to leave it up to you.
Like, what do you really think happened to Geokhan?
Since this did take place in India, I did get two Indian researchers to help me with the
research.
I tried to get as much as the social and cultural factors that played into this, but as
always, if there's any information that I missed or any details that I left out, please
feel free to let me know in the comments.
With that being said, let's get into the story.
So after the death of a beloved and controversial star, which side note about the word controversial,
GiaConn wasn't controversial as a person or even as an actress really, but the media
loved to portray her as a controversial figure because it would be a lot more consumable
for the general public than being like, oh, this really nice wholesome actress.
So controversial due to no fault of her own.
When she passed every magazine, every person, every news outlet that had originally been
making false headlines at her expense, they are scrambling to shower and clutter the internet
with their heartfelt sympathies.
There were conversations, open dialogues about the pressures, the stress the public scrutiny
that comes with being this massive figure in Bollywood.
Maybe it's too much, it can't be good for mental health.
You know the drill.
They go through the hole.
Guys, let's not forget celebrities are real people too.
And then they forget about it the next time someone gets canceled.
And then it won't be brought up again until somebody is dead.
It was that phase.
So four days of this, just non-stop.
Oh my god, we need to be more careful about celebrities.
And then boom, the whole story changed.
The headlines instantly took a 180.
An explosive document, a piece of evidence was released by Gia's
mom. Six pages torn from her personal diary that detailed her secret relationship with
the son of one of Bollywood's most influential families. The diary entry went into great
detail about the torture, essay, degradation, physical abuse that was inflicted upon her by him, the nepo baby.
One of the worst and most traumatic instances being that he forced her to terminate a pregnancy.
And when the med stopped working halfway through, it was a medical termination.
He with no regard to her safety, no regard to her while being prevented her from going to the hospital,
even though she was profusely bleeding, and physically removed the remnants of the tissue matter from her himself.
Oh my goodness.
Now this secret boyfriend was named in this letter, and it was Surage Penteaux Lee, and
all eyes were on Surage.
Everyone wanted to know if the allegations were true.
Gia's doctor came out to confirm that, yes,
she in fact did terminate a pregnancy.
It said that Gia never wanted to terminate,
but Surridge took her to the doctor,
demanded the medication himself.
He forced Gia to take it, and as she's pleading,
so much, she calls the doctor,
and he advised both of them,
you need to go to the hospital immediately.
Like this is a serious matter,
this is not a joke, go to the hospital immediately. This is a serious matter. This is not a joke. Go to the hospital.
Surridge did not let her.
Instead, he waited three days to call the doctor back.
He said, Gio is sitting on the toilet with, and I quote,
have the fetus still stuck inside of her.
The doctor freaked out and told him, what the hell are you doing?
Take her to the hospital.
This is life threatening.
Life threatening, she could die.
Do you understand me?
This is not a joke.
This is very serious.
Take her now.
He did not care.
Like this sounds like a character.
If I had to write the most evil villain boyfriend,
that's something that he would do.
That's some shit that he would do.
It's almost too evil to even sound real, but it's real.
He called his housekeeper into the bathroom and asked her to help pull the rest of the
tissues out.
It's not like they didn't have the money to visit the hospital.
He had wealthy parents.
He had a great job that his parents got him.
And on top of that, he had borrowed tons of money from Gia at this point.
Even if he didn't want to pay the bills, I am absolutely positive that Gia and her family would have paid the bills.
By some miracle, Gia survives.
Surridge said that he didn't want this baby because he was too young and his career
wasn't stable enough. He said that he'd rather spend his time working than spending his time
being a father. Gia was devastated. I mean, she was willing to sacrifice everything,
to sacrifice her career to have this baby
and he just ripped it away from her.
He didn't let her have a say in what happened to her own body.
And now, now she was dead.
Now this letter blew up in the case immediately
because remember, like I said, right after she passed,
the whole narrative, the whole media, the whole world was saying, oh my gosh, the pressures
of being a celebrity, it's so hard being a woman in the industry, that was what the conversation
was about.
Now, this is in the news and the tabloids that used to write about G.S. sex appeal were now
writing articles about her suspicious death, because it's not even a matter of murder
anymore.
There is a law in India that criminalizes aiding and abetting in someone's death whether
even if someone chooses to unalive themselves.
So if you were aiding and abetting in that process, you could be held criminally liable as if
you were the one committing murder.
Now it's obviously not as black and white white even murder is not as black and white,
but we've seen it with cases here in the US. It's gotta be there's gotta be a lot of strong
ties. Now this letter was damaging. If Sue Ridge had tortured her assaulted her, be
little to her forced her to terminate her pregnancy against her will risked her life
during that termination, that would be enough to drive someone into having very dark thoughts. So it was enough at least to bring in sewage to be investigated.
Creating one of the biggest?
I don't know if you can even call it a scandal, I don't know what to call it.
One of the biggest mysteries in Bollywood.
But unfortunately, the case gets really, really, really messy, really quickly.
Even the letter's validity comes into question later.
Less about the contents of the letter, but it's a question of who actually wrote this letter.
There's a whole thing about it, okay?
Potentially, Gia did not write the letter herself.
What was in the letter was most likely true, but you know, it's complicated.
But before we can get to that, let's start from the beginning.
I think we can all think whatever we want,
but I would just hope that Gia's family knew her the best.
And Gia's family was adamant that Gia would absolutely
never, ever make this decision to end things herself.
She was the type of person that went after what she wanted
in life.
She was always known to be so determined and ambitious
and goal driven and things just were not adding up.
So a bit about her upbringing, which is very pertinent to the story later, because people start going on saying crazy things about her childhood.
Now, Gia was born in the US in Staten Island. Her whole family were small-time actors and actresses.
So her aunts were small film stars in Pakistan, and her mom did a few roles in Bollywood
But retired when she gave birth to Gea her first and eldest daughter
She would go on to have two more daughters out of the three daughters. Gea the oldest was like mom
I'm gonna do what you did
But better no offense, okay?
I want to be the best actress in Bollywood and you would think that her mom would be excited
But she was not excited her Her mom said, I was very worried, you know, she told me she wanted to be a film
actress, and it's not talent-based in Bollywood. It's luck, it's connections. That's when I
had the one-on-one conversation with her, and I said, baby, you have to understand what
this industry is really all about. But my daughter had a clear mind, You know, I told her, you know, you're very young,
you can always do movies later when you're older,
I want you to finish college first.
You know, I wanted her to go into medical sciences,
but she said, mom, I've already decided.
And what can you do?
So I told her, if that's what you want to do,
then you need to study at the top university
in the world to enter the business you want to get into.
The family ends up moving to London. And when Gea turns 15 to 16 years old, she moves
all the way back to New York City by herself, to attend the Lee Strasbourg Film Institute
in Manhattan.
This is a huge, huge deal.
Some of the biggest names just of all time have walked those very halls.
Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga, Chris Evans,
they all went to that school.
Gia's mom was worried, but she also was very proud of her daughter.
It's like a double-edged sword.
You know, I mean, you're so scared because that's your child,
but then at the same time, you're like, man,
how did I raise this girl?
She's crazy. She's just going after what she wants.
Nothing's getting in her way. It's insane.
Gia's sister said, oh yeah, it was wild.
Like she's a teenager living in New York City
and you would imagine that most 16 year old kids,
they're alone in New York City, no parental guidance,
they're gonna be out having a frickin' blast,
partying, being crazy.
All she did was work, just work, go to school,
work, go to school.
And then Gia's first job was actually through a friend of her mom's, okay?
Her mom is Rabia, and Rabia's friend had gotten her lead female role, which is a huge deal
considering Gia was only 16 years old.
She took the offer, and she's got to move to Mumbai with her mom to get this deal done,
to film this whole movie.
She gets on set and yikes.
Okay, that's all I can describe at yikes.
She felt so off about this movie.
Her mom felt so off about this movie.
Her mom's friend who is the producer was like,
oh yikes.
So the role, I don't know if there were revisions
to the script, I don't know what was going on,
but the role just kept getting increasingly more sexual.
And she's 16.
Wow.
So everyone is like, yikes, this is not what we wanna do.
And even though she signed a contract in Bollywood
and really in any industry like this,
signing a contract for something like this,
you get punished as the lead or any actor in a film
if you decide to drop out.
Like there's not even just being blacklisted
from the industry, which can happen,
but there's contractual reasons.
Like, you might have to pay a sum, you might have to do this,
you might have to do that.
It's really complicated.
But the director let her off without any consequences
because it was just a, it was truly a weird
and unfortunate situation.
I guess originally the script wasn't supposed to be sexual,
but maybe the studio houses were like, yeah
We need some sex scenes and stuff and she's like, okay, I'm 16. I gotta go and so for the next three years
Gea had no new roles being offered her
But she's in Mumbai and she's just trying to take whatever job she can get in the industry
She's just trying to pay the bills. She doesn't want fast fame. I mean, there were methods where you could date a producer, you could date a director, and
first of all, nothing is wrong with that.
You know, it's a cut-thorn industry, especially for women.
Everyone knows what both parties are getting out of the relationship, but Gia just um,
she just really wanted to make a name for herself the right way in her eyes.
She's like, I just want it to be
about me. And finally, the call comes. She's casted as the lead female role in the movie called Speechless.
She's 18 years old, and let me read you the movie blurb, just so you have an idea about what this
movie is about. He's 60. She's 18. Some love stories are never meant to be understood.
She's 18. Some love stories are never meant to be understood.
Okay, this is like a horror film.
The movie was about a girl that brings her friend
to her parents vacation destination, like a vacation home.
And the girl and the parents are all there together.
And then one day, the dad is spying on his daughter's friend,
Gea, and she's in the backyard alone.
And for whatever reason, she's watering herself with the water hose
While wearing nothing but a white oversized button-down shirt and things just escalate from there
This movie is based on a Hollywood film called American Beauty. It's just a remake
Okay, it's the same premise, same movie plot, same everything
No shame on the lead woman of any of these movies
that take this role because it's already hard enough
to pay the bills as a woman in the industry.
This is a massive role.
She should be proud of it.
The movie itself ended up being a flop,
but Gia did get really good reviews for her acting.
Critics said, she's impressive.
She's got attitude.
She's got incredible sex appeal.
She got role after role, but as her her career progressed critics and the public started focusing more on her sex appeal
than they did her actual acting which is what happens to a lot a lot of great actresses
like it happened to Margot Robbie after the Wolf of Wall Street and it takes so much for these women to
Do different films to let people know hey, I actually have talent. Thanks. If you
could stop just calling me like a bombshell goddess blonde bombshell like guys, I've got
a skill set. I mean, she was a great actress obviously, but people just were not interested
in that. They just only talked about her looks and how sexy she was and who she was dating
and oh, did she sleep with a producer for this role?
Now the audience, other producers and even her casting crew all paid more attention to
how she looked than she acts at.
The looks and whispers and online articles start getting more real, more scary, more dangerous.
One night Gea comes home and her sister Kavita, the one from the start of the story, she
was visiting Geia in Mumbai.
So she's staying at Gia's apartment,
and Gia comes bursting through the door after work in tears.
And Gia was telling her that this producer ordered her
to strip naked in front of him during a reading session,
like during the round table, like readings or whatever.
Kavita said, you know, it was rehearsal,
and Gia said that they were reading the scripts
and he asked her to take her top off, along with her bra.
She didn't know what to do, she hesitated, she came home and tears and Geo was telling
me the filming hasn't even begun yet and this is what's happening.
Like I can't even imagine what it's gonna be like on set.
When she was asked by the producer to take her top off, she came home and cried.
The problem is I have a contract that I've signed up for.
So if I leave they consume me and slander my name. If I stay then I'm
going to be sexually harassed the whole time. It's a loose-lose situation. In
another movie the producer put his armor on Gia's shoulders as if he was
trying to look all chummy-chummy with her and the photos were released and
netizens were quickly alarmed because she looks incredibly uncomfortable. She
just looks so uncomfortable. She was probably too afraid to make him angry
to tell him to give her some space.
In another shocking instance,
Gio was invited to one of the producer's houses
while they were in the process of filming a movie.
So he's like, hey, cast crew, come on over, I'm throwing a party.
She politely declined,
because she knows what goes on in these parties.
She gave the reason that her little sister was visiting from London.
Her other little sister, Karishma, was visiting from London. And he's like, okay, well that's perfect. Bring your sister along too.
I think it just got to the point where both parties knew that she was trying to politely decline, but because he kept pushing it, she couldn't give an appropriate rejection.
Like she was saying everything but the words no, and come on. He's not freaking dumb. He's an accomplished producer. He knows
So for the sake of her career and this movie that all of her fans were waiting on she ends up showing up with her sister
And she's thinking you know the whole cast and crew are gonna be there. My little sister's gonna be there
Maybe things will be better with her there. How is he gonna sexually harass me and find my sister?
She's 16. She's a literal minor. So they get to the producer's house and everyone's standing around the kitchen table and her
little sister is wearing like a tank top and you know how everyone's standing
around the kitchen table? Your bell starts getting tired. Like you're kind of
tired of standing so you want to lean on something. So her sister just leans on
the kitchen counter like on her elbows as she's listening to people talk
This is so normal. I mean just think of a group of people standing around a kitchen table
Someone's gonna be leaning on the island like that. The producer takes one like at her and announces in front of everyone
Oh that one once sex
At the little sister? Yeah
Immediately jumped her defense and was like, what are you talking about?
She's 16, she doesn't want sex.
What are you saying right now?
Well, just look at the way she's standing.
Wow.
That has nothing to do with anything.
She does not want sex.
So they very shortly after this leave,
and it turns out that this producer has a history
of whipping out his penis at parties in front of
unconcenting parties, asking female
actresses to send nudes and stating that it was part of the casting call, verbally degrading
women at his parties and watching pornographic materials in front of his female staff members
at parties.
Geo is so taken aback, but she also felt so backed into a corner.
I mean, her dreams, her career, her entire livelihood was on the line if she didn't do
with these men at asked of her.
She was very open with her family about how dark Bollywood was.
She never tried to hide it, it's not like something that she did wrong.
She wasn't ashamed, and I think it was a good reminder to her younger sisters like,
don't let these types of industries fool you.
It's not glamour, it's not sparkles.
But instead of writing about these shady producers, the media focused on the actresses who were
all busy spending their energy trying not to be essayed.
For example, Gia was cut from a movie literally in the middle of filming she was replaced.
The headlines read, producer cuts Gia Khan for flirting so much with the staff that she
couldn't focus on her work. The truth was, a big name Bollywood family star suddenly decided that his Nepo Baby daughter
was perfect for the role in the middle of filming and because his family was so influential,
Geo was cut and incomes Nepo Baby girl.
But if people found out that's the truth, nobody will want to support the film or support
the daughter and the Nepo Baby daughter will be a laughing stock, so this is what they did
instead.
So, for the first time ever, after everything that she had gone through, after everything
that she had tried to accomplish, she decides she needs a break from Bollywood.
Her and her mom go back to London and she spends about a year just healing from everything,
and her mom can reassuring her, you know, there's so many opportunities in London.
Like, you don't have to be in Bollywood,
but you could be a part of show business.
You could be a brand manager, a brand ambassador,
or there's gotta be other roles, you know?
And it worked.
In London, Gia booked a bunch of brand deals,
including working with Formula One.
She spent a lot of time with her two younger sisters
who loved to hear stories about Bollywood. But then Gea runs into a man named Kumar. Kumar was a producer
in Bollywood. He said he wanted to take Gea in. He wanted to help her grow. He told her,
don't let people get in your way. Don't let them waste your talent. He promised that as long
as he was her mentor, she would not be essayed by any producers
She believed him and I know what you're thinking Kumar is gonna turn out to be super shady
Actually, no he really was one of the good ones even G.S. Family have nothing but nice things to say about Kumar
And because of him January of 2012
Gia makes it back to Mumbai with her mom
So at this point her mom has decided that she's gonna stand Mumbai for a few months, go to London with her other two daughters, stand London for a while,
come back to Mumbai, and Gia is gonna take her one last shot at Bollywood. And I believe Gia's,
okay, suicide note, I believe Gia's father was out of the pictures and she was like a young girl,
so he's not in the picture, it's just mom and three girls. September of 2012. This is when things start
going down and it all starts with an innocent Facebook request. A friend request from a man
named Sue Ridge Pinchole. Now by all means, nothing about this was creepy. Sue Ridge was not
someone that Gia had personally met, I don't think, but you know, if they did, it was just
in passing. But the guy was as vetted as he could be. His parents were both very well-known
in Bollywood.
His mom was a famous actress.
His dad was a big shot producer,
and he himself was an actor-slash production assistant,
or a producer's assistant.
And it's completely an illusion,
but I feel like this would be much more comfortable
accepting a friend request like that
than like a complete stranger.
Because you work in the industry,
your parents work in the industry,
like rumors run fast, you must at least be somewhat stable.
But in this situation, sewage was someone that would slither into Gea's life and just
tear it apart.
Peace, by peace, by peace.
His family was actually known to be filled with scandals.
And they seemed like the type of family that wasn't shy about using nepotism to get their son into places. For example, at the age of 19, he was already an assistant
producer and multiple big budget films. Okay, little shady. Gia was a few years older than him,
she was 22, 23 years old at the time. And from the moment that she accepted his run request,
this guy is showering her with attention and compliments. He would non-stop message telling her how beautiful she was, how talented she was, which like, yeah, we know.
But he would also send chocolates, flowers, food, Christian Louboutin, shoes to her house to woo her.
I mean, it was flattering. Like, it's really hard to not feel like a princess being showered with attention and gifts like that. It feels like you're in a movie. Like the son of this wealthy family wants to woo you, even if you don't care about the money,
it's like a main character moment.
And she would tell her family all of this and they were all super chill about it.
They said, we all kind of giggled about it.
Like she never took it seriously. It's like this young kid who's sending her a lube atons.
She just thought it was funny. but that's how she got trapped.
He added her as a friend, September of 2012. By end of October, beginning of November 2012,
they were practically living together. Sew Ridge would spend most nights at G.S.
place, and even though G.A. told her family, no, like we're just friends, we're just friends.
Her mom knew that things were changing, so her mom was in London with her other two daughters and Geo was like,
Hey mom, do you want a video chat and um, meets your rich?
Of course her mom wanted to talk to Sue Rich.
This is the man that has been impressing her daughter for the past few months.
She hops on a Skype call.
The energy is weird.
He's like hiding in the corner, like in the shadow where it's dimly lit.
He wouldn't show his face completely.
He's not that energetic.
He's not what you would imagine someone would behave
when they're meeting their partner's parents
for the first time.
Gia's mom was very taken by surprise,
but of course when she brought it up to Gia,
like all of her concerns,
Gia's just reassuring her,
mom, he's just super, super shy.
Like, he just woke up from a nap and he was super shy.
Okay, but her mom just fell all these red flags.
He had moved into her house.
Gia is the one playing all the bills.
They weren't even splitting the rent nor did they get
a new place together, but because Gia's an adult,
you know, what can Gia's mom do?
And I think Gia's mom, I don't want it to sound like
she's this helicopter mom and, I mean, there is a debate about that later, but I don't want it to sound like she's this helicopter mom and I mean
there is a debate about that later, but I don't want to make it sound like she is.
I think that Gia's mom, she really just focused on women having a life outside of their
relationship.
Not just women, but everyone.
So she always told Gia, if you're going to be in a relationship, that's fine.
You're literally an adult, but no matter what, don't you ever let a man or anyone take you away from all the hobbies
that you have like you cannot lose yourself in a relationship you need to keep playing the piano
you need to keep taking your Hindi lessons classical dance lesson do the things that you've already
like to do do not neglect yourself to spend time with someone else. But Gia just told her, Mom, I'm really happy, okay?
You don't need to worry.
I'm really happy with him."
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The next time Gea comes to visit her mom and sisters in London, she was in a full-blown
relationship with Surage, and they did notice some interesting changes in Gea. Her phone
was buzzing constantly, just non-stop text calls video chats everything.
And Gia would never let it ring or sit for too long.
Meaning she would stop whatever it was she was doing and answer it.
In hindsight, the family realized that
sewage was probably trying to isolate Gia.
Even when Gia was spending time with her family,
she wasn't able to be mentally and emotionally present like before.
So this is something that abusers do do, which is when you are forced to spend time with
other people, they will bombard you with text messages and make you feel like if you don't
answer, they're going to explode on you.
So you can't even be in the present moment.
And even if you are around your family, you're being isolated.
So he's constantly just drawing her closer into him and nobody else.
And when it was happening, the whole family just chocked it up to being in the
honeymoon phase because it's hard to differentiate.
You know, it's not that your partner is an abuser because a lot of times in the
beginning of a relationship, everyone goes through like the school girl,
school boy crush, where you're just so excited to talk to them.
Nothing else is as exciting as getting to know them.
They thought it was that. So they were annoyed, but they weren't suspicious.
That is until December.
Gio is back in Mumbai and her mom was still in London and her mom gets a text message from Surage.
That is so strange. She opens it up and it's this lengthy paragraph about how sorry he is.
She's like, what?
Okay, she's confused.
She has no idea what he's apologizing for.
And through the context of the text message,
she was able to gather that he had gotten into
a physically violent altercation with Gia,
and now he was begging her, her, Gia's mother,
the one who birthed Gia, to convince Gia to come back to him.
Basically, can you talk to your daughter for me?
She hates me because I hit her.
That's crazy, because that's only been
the what, two, three months.
Yeah.
That escalated so quickly.
Yeah, very quickly.
Yeah, I don't know the statistics on this,
on when it escalates.
I thought it was a bit slower than this,
because I read statistics that sometimes a lot
of domestic violence actually originates
when the woman gets pregnant, or at least in male to women abusive situations, yeah. So he's saying things like, I was drunk, I lost control, we are fighting. Now, Gia's mom is disgusted. She said,
if this happened in London, he would already be in jail right now for domestic violence.
Rabia, the mom, said that she was so infuriated.
She took a picture of this text message,
sent it to Gia and was like,
I need to talk to you immediately.
What is going on?
What is this?
You need to call me right now.
Gia calls her and explains to her mom.
No, you don't get it.
Like, he truly was sorry.
He was crying the entire night.
He was begging me at my feet, begging me not to leave.
His face was so swollen from all the crying.
Rabia did not feel as sympathetic as Gia did. She took these text messages and handed them
directly to India's CBI, basically the Indian version of the FBI. Now, I'm not too familiar
with the Indian legal system, but domestic violence cases go to family court and not the CBI.
But I think that she went to the CBI because Surridge was a high profile person from a high profile influential wealthy
family. So it's not going to be your typical family court case. But for many reasons,
the CBI was not interested in investigating. So like what I gather is the mom already
felt alarming enough. Yeah. Like this is not something. Oh, couple five, turn violent, they're working it out.
She wants a investigation.
She wants things to be done already at that point.
She wants them to be locked up.
Okay, so it's like, she's really alarmed.
Like the bell's going off like crazy.
And I know people are gonna be like,
well, why did she let them continue to date?
I think that is a big misconception.
And I'm not a parent, so I can't really answer
wholeheartedly,
but I would imagine just being a teenager
or being an adult that had fallen in love with people.
I feel like if my parents just were like,
no, you can't see that person anymore,
it would push me more towards that person.
Whereas maybe if they're in jail, you would hate me,
but you can't really be pushed towards that person
when they're in jail.
I mean, I think that's better than what most people are doing already.
Like, she's reaching out to Legos and authorities to Interven, right? That's better.
This mom, yes, just you listen. Okay, so first of all, she goes to the Indian CBI,
like the FBI, and they're like, oh, well, sorry, we're not going to do anything about it.
It was just crazy. The laws are definitely one-sided in India where you have to be married and a husband has
to inflict damage on the wife or the wife's mother and sister.
This is a really weird law, but domestic violence cannot be a charge if the husband beats up
the wife's dad.
That's just being mean, I guess.
Like it has to be a woman, so it's one-sided in that respect.
But it's also very similar to the US, where regardless of the gender of the victim, domestic
violence is not taken seriously, and it's a big problem, and not enough gets done about
it.
To give you perspective, India's biggest anti-domestic abuse law was passed in 2005.
2005!
I mean, better late than never, but still. And it gets worse. Men still
cannot legally essay their wives in India. They obviously, of course, can, but legally,
legally, they cannot. It's not recognized because they're married, so it cannot be essay.
And I just want to clarify, a thousand percent it is essay, like you need consent each and every
time you engage in these activities and everyone must be of age.
Each and every single time, doesn't matter.
If you've been married for one day, 2,000 years,
it doesn't matter.
So the CBI is kind of relaxed about the whole thing.
They did nothing and Rabia was very confused
on what she even do now.
She felt like her hands were tied.
It's not like Gia is a teenager.
She's an adult. She's 24.
She's scared of pushing her closer into sewage.
She's in a very tricky situation.
So what does she do? She goes to the British Embassy in London.
She goes to the Embassy.
And then they're like, hey, because your daughter is a US citizen,
because she was born in the US,
you need to go to the US Embassy.
So she goes to the American Embassy in London,
and it's like, you need to do something.
My daughter is being abused. Yeah, you need to do something my daughter is being abused
Yeah, you need to do something she's a victim of domestic violence and she's a US citizen
So you are responsible and the the US was like okay, we can try
They reached out to the Indian CBI and the CBI told them what I'm sure the FBI would have told India
Which is hey leave us alone, this isn't your jurisdiction.
So Rabia was stuck, she had no idea how to handle this situation, and Gio was getting sucked deeper
and deeper into this relationship. Gio's friends saw her less and less, and when they did,
they said that she wasn't even Gia anymore. I mean, she was just someone that loved making people
laugh, and now she barely laughed herself. She had less energy. I mean, there were just no words to describe the change in her personality.
She only wore long sleeves and pants, speculated she did to hide the bruises. And originally
she loved to make people laugh. And now she just, she was just so miserable. January of 2014,
Gia went to a hairdresser who had been noticing the same
changes in Gia, but because she had so up close in personal contact with her, she actually
saw a glimpse of underneath the neckline of Gia's shirt. There were bruises and scratches,
and she asked her, Gia, what happened to you? Gia hesitated before asking, do all Indian men hit women?
So we can assume that Suraj probably gaslit her
into believing that this was a cultural difference,
that she just needs to get used to it
because this is what loving couples do
that all Indian men hit women.
That could not be further from the truth,
like could not be, but you know how gaslighting
manipulators are.
The hairdresser could not really do anything to protect Jia.
I mean, look at Jia's mom, who's trying everything,
and nobody could do anything.
So, Syridge was set to have a very, very, very abusive relationship with Jia.
Not just physically, but people who knew the couple said that
he would drag Jia to these parties
and these get-togethers with all his wealthy friends,
all of his very elite
Bollywood actors and actresses and producers, and he would physically and verbally degrade her in
front of them. Maybe it made him feel more like a man when he dragged her down. Maybe he felt
threatened by the fact that he was handed a career and she actually had talent and skill and was
respected for her craft. But he would literally flirt with other women in front of her, call them beautiful in front
of her, degrade her verbally in front of these other women he would belittle her work, call
her degrading names in front of people.
She didn't even hide these things from her family either.
She told them and they were so confused on what to do.
She would say, sometimes he would hit me until I bled.
And Rabia was going, crazy.
I mean, from being unable to help her own daughter,
all she could do was try and tell her daughter,
that's not love, Jaya, that will never be love,
that is not love.
I don't think that we should ever question
why anybody stays, okay?
I think that's just toxic.
I think it's just victim blaming,
just disguised as something else.
I understand that we might not be able to understand
certain things,
but you really can't understand everything
unless you've been in those situations.
Now, I do think in this case,
there were maybe some indicators of why she might have stayed.
I do think that there was an element of Gia believing
that she could change Zuriich potentially.
So let me explain.
It's said that she would talk about how she believes Surridge was abusive because his father was abusive and his father was this
very kind of evil man. He would constantly cheat on Surridge's mom with
minors. He never even tried to hide it from the mom, the industry, literally
nobody. Surridge's mom knew and Surridge knew even at an early age that his dad
would bring home
miners and sleep with them.
Literally nobody was safe from Sewage's dad.
Underage housekeepers, underage actresses on set, underage friends daughters, truly anyone
young and beautiful would be a target of Sewage's father.
Now, in order to cope with this, Sewage's mom would just throw herself into her work.
She would put her everything into her roles. She was never home.
Her whole life was being a successful actress, and Rij was raised in this tough, confusing,
lonely conditions, and I can imagine maybe the abuse and the sprinkling of the, you know,
he would abuse Gia and then sprinkle in these little childhood trauma stories.
I imagine for someone that seemed as incredibly graceful and compassionate
as Gea, she probably felt that for him. Maybe she thought that she could help him break
this cycle. But I don't think that that would have been possible.
Because Wall Street Ridge grew up hearing all these allegations against his dad, he also
saw his dad use power money and influence to silence the victims. He would slam these
victims with defamation lawsuits and the deeply patriarchal society
would always back him up.
The victims would be left with nothing, not even their careers anymore.
The biggest consequence that sewages dad ever faced was a tiny little fine.
You know what he was in court for?
For essaying and blackmailing a girl that was decades younger than him, and he was slapped with a fine that was so minute compared to his earnings,
it can only be described as comical, as laughable.
But maybe someone out there is more cynical than I am, okay?
And I'm sure the thought of, well, maybe she was also with him for money and fame, right?
That's fine, you can think that, but that's not true. She wasn't.
They kept their entire relationship a secret. He didn't even seem to pull any strings for her, you can think that, but that's not true. She wasn't. They kept their entire relationship a secret.
He didn't even seem to pull any strings for her, and as for finances, he mooched off of
her.
It seemed like a situation of sewage had to constantly ask his parents for money.
His parents were the breadwinners, in order to get the money he had to tell them why he
wanted the money, he had to please his parents in order to get his next allowance.
He's just a nepo baby. But for
Gia, she made her own money. She's an adult. She can do whatever she wants with her own money.
So he's like, okay, maybe it's easier to take Gia's money than my parents' money.
He lived in Gia's house that she fully paid for. She paid all the rent and bills he never
chipped in when they would go out to eat Gia would pay. When sewage would occasionally,
occasionally buy things for the house like groceries, he would do eat, Gia would pay. When Surridge would occasionally, occasionally, buy things for the house like groceries,
he would do it on Gia's card.
And even when he wanted to buy her a present,
he would pay for it using her card.
He would pay for it using her card, not their card.
Because I know some married couples
are like fully joint finances, that's different.
Her card.
Like he's got his own separate bank account,
he would use her bank account that he never puts money into. He once asked for a lot of money. And she's like,
what do you need all this money for? Oh, because I want to buy you jewelry. He would also come up with
these lengthy stories of how his family was in trouble and desperately needed to borrow money
or his friends were in trouble. And she would lend the money with the promise that she would get it fully paid back.
She would never get the money back and also kind of find out that friend never needed the money,
never got the money, so what is he doing with the money?
Sometimes he would say I'm trying to buy you jewelry, give me money,
she would give him the money and she would never get jewelry.
So sometime between January and early spring of 2014, Gia kicks him out of the
house. She's so fed up. Surid ends up getting his own place in Mumbai and Gia invited her mom to
stay in Mumbai. She's like, I am over him mom. He's out of the house because her mom typically would
come to Mumbai more often. But because Surid was in the house, she's like, I'll just stay in London,
right? And the relationship wasn't entirely over.
It takes a water break up when you've lived together
and thought at one point that this was your soulmate.
But regardless, Rabia was super, super proud of her daughter.
Rabia made sure to keep Gia busy the whole time,
keep her mind off of that scummy man.
Gia was focusing on work again.
And through May and June, her sister, Kavita, was coming.
So she's got schedules lined up.
She's got a ton of busy future plans
and that fateful day.
June 3rd, this is the big day that they'd been gearing up for.
Gia's sister was gonna arrive from London after midnight.
It was also her birthday week.
So Gia and her mom were super excitedly planning
everything decorating the place.
Kavita's birthday? Yeah. She's flying in from London and it's the big 21. I don't know the drinking age. So, Jia and her mom were super excitedly planning everything decorating the place.
Kavita's birthday?
Yeah.
She's flying in from London and it's the big 21.
I don't know the drinking age.
I think in the UK is 18, but you know, there are US citizens, like 21's a big age.
So, Jia's telling her mom, okay, don't tell Kavita, but I placed an order for her birthday,
for jewelry, like we're gonna decorate.
I've got the cake all picked out.
It's gonna be so good.
And they were both so happy.
They went out shopping all day, they get home 6.30 PM.
They both rest a bit and Gia's mom is like,
wait, okay, do you want me to come with you to pick her up?
She's like, no mom, it's fine.
Like it's gonna be after midnight.
I'm gonna pick her up from the airport and I already told her.
Okay, sounds good.
Now, whilst they're having this conversation,
Gia's phone buzzed and she excuses herself.
She comes back and her mom doesn't really think anything of it.
Now in hindsight, she thinks that it was probably sewage that called her.
She comes back into the room and both of them decide,
well, it's not like we can go to sleep tonight, right?
So, why don't we just do something else?
So they were both going to go to their friends' places for gatherings.
They walked out of the apartment together and the plan was that Gia's mom would go to
her friend's house for a little party and come back home before Gia came home with Kavita
from the airport. Gia, I'm not sure if she planned to stay out the whole night at her
friend's house until she left for the airport, which I feel like, yeah, that's on smart
to do, but you know, that was kind of the plan. Regardless, Gia left in a blue track suit.
A blue matching set.
This is so important.
They were caught on CCTV wearing a blue track suit.
Leaving their own house.
Yes.
Okay.
Then they went their separate ways.
Now, we can assume the person that called Gia was su-rich.
And it's possible that they made up in Gia,
didn't tell her mom because her mom would have been very upset.
She didn't want to ruin the week.
Or it's possible that maybe they hadn't fully made up, but he
was just constantly reaching out to her. Because recently, she had signed two new contracts
for two new movies, and he had sent flowers. I don't know if they were as a congratulatory
gift or as like an apology, I'm so sorry for giving me gift, we don't know, but she didn't
accept it. She asked the door man to throw it away for her,
and this is where things get very, very shady.
Sewridge told Gia this night, he's texting her.
I'm gonna have dinner with a friend Naomi,
that's a fake name, and then I'm gonna meet with the jeweler.
I'm gonna get you your jewelry piece.
I think he's like trying to get back into her life.
He's like, I'm gonna get you your jewelry.
And it seemed to like Gia was like, okay, whatever.
She goes to her friend's house
and Sue Rich calls Gia again and he's telling her,
okay, I'm still waiting for the jeweler right now
to get to my place.
She's like, okay, this is weird.
Why are you telling me this?
In second of all, it's 10 p.m.
You're meeting your jeweler.
Like what kind of jeweler meets you at 10 p.m.
She actually knew his jeweler.
So just as, I think there's a lot
of trauma here and even if they were broken up, I think it's so fresh and I think he had cheated
on her so many times. It's that you know what, I'm just gonna freaking catch him and be like,
yeah, this is why I'm not getting back together with you. So she calls up the ruler and he's
like, what are you talking about? I'm not meeting him tonight. I'm meeting him next week.
So she just caught him in a lie. And she just seemed so done with his shit.
She calls to tell him, like, I know you're lying, okay?
And he's like, no, no, no, you've completely misunderstood.
The jeweler lied to you because I told him
he was a surprise for you.
So he doesn't want you to know that we're meeting tonight.
The jeweler even called back suspiciously
to be like, sorry I lied to you.
I just wanted it to be like, sorry I lied to you, I just wanted
it to be a surprise.
What surprise?
He took the money to buy the jewelry.
He was like literally, I'm gonna get you your jewelry.
I'm meeting with the jewel.
What surprise?
What is she gonna be surprised about?
But maybe sensing he couldn't come up with a better lie.
Sue Rich just turns off his phone after this call.
He stops responding to her, stops picking up any calls from Gia's phone.
Her best guess is the guy is lying and is cheating right now. So again, it seemed like they were on bad terms. He had moved out, but maybe he is like trying to do all these things to get her back and
she's like, look, you're never going to change. So what does she do? She leaves her friend's house
to catch him in his lies. She goes all the way to his place and his housekeeper opens up the door.
Okay, so this part, I'm trying to be very careful with my wording here.
Surridge claims that when Gio arrives, she sounded manic.
She's screaming, she's yelling, accusing him of cheating and demanding to see him.
Do I encourage that kind of response when someone is cheating on you?
Or when you think someone is cheating on you? No.
But do I think that it's a completely normal human response? Yeah. I mean, but the use of the word manic almost
implies that she was dealing with some sort of mental health battle at that point in time,
which she might have been. But again, it's a pretty normal response to when you think
that you've caught in your partner actively cheating on you. It's giving, she was acting
all crazy because I was in bed with another girl.
Like, that's the energy Sue Ridge is giving.
Anyways, Jee is demanding to see him,
but the housekeeper is like, oh no, you can't,
he's in a meeting, she's covering for her boss,
and he comes out to see what the commotion is about,
the two of them get into a very heated argument
while the housekeeper is just awkwardly standing there.
This is 1048 PM.
Jee is seen on CCTV storming off.
So there's CCTV footage of her entering
and leaving the building, but there is no footage of the fight.
Now, Sue Ridge turns his phone back on
and sends Gia 10 text messages,
which I don't know, I guess you could all
so-called that acting crazy or manic.
But in this span of 20 minutes,
he sends her 10 text messages.
Call me if you want to talk.
Leave.
You made my life a prison.
I really just wanted to eat food with Naomi, meet the jeweler, and give her your new
order.
You fucking creep.
You spy on me, shady fucking person.
How will we ever work if you do this shit?
I always trust you blindly.
Please leave me alone.
You fucked it up.
You did.
I am very unhappy.
You think I'm fucking jealous of your success?
Ha ha ha ha, you unfucking grateful person.
Talk to Naomi and find out for yourself what happened.
I wanted to surprise you on Thursday.
Thanks for fucking it up.
When you find out the truth, then talk to me.
Before that, don't even think about it.
How could you spy on me with Naomi?
This is fucked up.
Call me ASAP, it's urgent.
Last text message. Call me now. I wanna talk Call me ASAP, it's urgent. Last text message.
Call me now.
I want to talk to you ASAP.
Minwa.
Kusnai Omi.
Naomi is like the friend that he said he was going to eat dinner with and then meet with
the jeweler.
Yeah.
Now, Minwa, Rabia, she loses track of time while she's hanging out with her friends.
She comes out of the friends apartment at around 1120, takes a taxi home, and she said,
when I opened the door and I walked into the house, all the lights were on.
The kitchen lights were on, the hallway lights were on, all the bathroom lights were on,
the bedroom lights were on.
I'm so sorry, what time did the daughter leave the boyfriend's house?
1048.
1048, and she got home at 1120.
So it's a 30 minute.
30 minutes, okay.
Yeah.
And, she said, you know, I was calling for Gia's name because it's a 30 minute. 30 minutes, okay. Yeah. And Dash said, you know, I was calling for Gia's name
because it's a little weird.
They never leave all the, I mean,
no one just goes around leaving all their house lights
on at this hour.
It's just bizarre.
Okay, and every single door in the house was shut.
Again, weird.
Gia was not known for closing her bathroom door,
her bedroom door.
Like they were very an open door house.
It's just a house full of girls, you know?
Okay, very strange.
Okay, so just kind of a layout of this place.
The primary bedroom is where Gia's mom was staying.
She, it's always reserved for Gia's mom.
Gia took one of the smaller rooms
and this is, she's got all of her stuff in there.
It's got a bathroom that's connected to this room,
but on the other side of the bathroom,
there is another room connected.
So in the US, we would call this a Jack and Jill setup.
Now, that other room was the smallest of the three rooms,
and all it could fit were two twin-sized beds
in a small little nightstand in between.
So that's it.
But it works because G.S. two sisters,
if they were visiting Mumbai at the same time from London,
they would be in that guest room together.
So, this is very pertinent to the story.
The bedroom is very, very, very small.
The two beds and the nightstand, they take up the whole room.
There is not much else in that room.
G.S. mom walks into G.S. bedroom.
She's not there.
She walks into the shared bathroom.
She's not there, and it's also strange because the lights are all on.
And she said, so I I think then where is she?
I slide the door to the other room the guest room
Geo was dangling from the ceiling fan by a du pada
This is like a decorative shawl slash scarf that Indian woman typically wear with traditional dresses
Rabia screamed and ran to her daughter
She tried her best to hug Ge G around the ankles to support her weight.
She used her other hand to call emergency services,
her friend, and then a doctor.
Because emergency services were already on their way,
but just in case, she's calling for backup.
She's screaming, G is body is still warm, her body is still warm.
So the friend she called were still at the gathering
that she had just left from.
So a few of them make their way over,
and they actually get there before G is doctor arrives and before emergency services arrive. But also caught on
CCTV. Very interesting, but Suridh's father was also seen loitering around the apartment building.
He looks like he's contemplating whether or not to go inside. It is strange. Now there are a few
reasons of maybe why he could be there right now. Maybe he was at the party and either dropped off Rabia,
Rabia, and dropped off the other friends who were rushing to meet with Rabia,
or he was at the party and happened to hear what had happened and rushed over.
But G.S. mom never mentioned him being at the party,
and the father of your daughter's shady boyfriend seems like a big detail.
Wait, wait.
You were saying the father was outside?
Yeah.
Never came in?
No.
Okay, then if following that thought, if he came to drop off everyone or came with the
friends, why would you not come in?
Exactly.
Everyone would expect you to come in.
No one would think it's weird if you don't come in.
In fact, it's weirder if you don't come in.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that theory of, oh, I'm just coming with everyone,
doesn't make sense.
And I would be more inclined to go in
if I'm like, oh my God, this is my child's partner.
Yes.
I'd be like, I feel like I have more right being in there
than these random friends.
Yes, I mean, the reason for him not coming,
either he doesn't know what's going on,
then why are you here or he knows what's going on
and deciding not to come in.
In no instance, can I think of a reason why he is there and doesn't go in, unless he's
meeting someone else, but that kind of information has not come forward, like information that
he knew someone else in this apartment building.
So instead, he just wandered around the lobby and left.
Before he was completely out of range, CCTV did catch him, reach into his pocket, pull out his phone and make a phone call. It was strange, but
it's about to get stranger. Unfortunately, even though her body was warm, Gia was pronounced
dead at the scene. Gia's mom immediately went into detective mode as most mothers would
do in this position. She felt it was off, the whole thing was off from the get-go. First of all, she saw what her daughter was wearing. She was not wearing that blue jumpsuit right now.
Which fine, okay, you could argue that she came home and changed, but that blue jumpsuit was
nowhere in the house, nowhere, not in the laundry bin, not back in the closet. It had vanished.
Someone took it. Yeah, so she came home, changed, walked right back out and through her clothes somewhere
that nobody could find, and then came back home to do all of this.
But you said there's CCTV for the building?
So she was seen coming in, and she was not seen ever leaving again.
However, that guest bedroom has a big window and their ground floor apartment, and there
is no CCTV around there because it leads
directly to the street. So I guess you could argue that she came home changed, jumped out of her
guest bedroom window to dispose of her blue jumpsuit and then jumped back in through the window,
but why on earth would she do that? That is so weird. So she came home in the blue jumpsuit and then
30 minutes later she changed and the jumpsuit is completely gone. That is so weird.
So the speculation about this jumpsuit
is that someone else climbed in through that window,
hurt her, and there was evidence on the jumpsuit,
so they framed the whole setup,
and then took that jumpsuit with them.
Just doesn't make sense.
Okay, and then you have the smaller things that are,
you know, these I don't think we can really argue as much,
like, Gia never leaves the lights on and closes all the doors.
Also, the window was never open, but it was wide open this time.
These are things that I think are harder to have a discussion about.
It's just, but all of it together.
I think one strange thing is fine, but all of these strange things, it's weird.
Now experts also argue that, yeah, people do do some very strange and pulsive things when
they're in this desperate state of mind.
But statistically, women do not like to end things where they know that people they love
will find them very quickly.
Women often also die less of gunshot wounds because they don't want to traumatize the people
that find their bodies. So, it's, I just find it hard to believe that Geo would do this the day her sister lands
on her birthday week.
But let's just say we don't know because everyone is different and people do weird things,
right?
It just all feels abnormal, not to say that it can't happen, but abnormal.
Now, add to that, Geo's face and neck had some cuts and bruises.
Rabia did not believe that these cuts could have come from the duperta, which is almost
like a silky fabric, it's like a soft fabric. Moreover, allegedly, the ligature marks
did not match with the markings of that type of fabric. The police tested the room for
fingerprints and they came back, get this completely, completely, no trace of
anyone's fingerprints, not hers, not her mom's, not anybody that lives in this
apartment, no one. The light switch, the door handle, the ceiling fan, no
fingerprints at all, the complete absence of fingerprints. There were also blood stains on the bed. Not a lot, but a little bit.
For some reason, the police did not take this into evidence. They didn't even take photos of it.
They also never recreated this crime scene to see if it was even possible for Gia to do this to herself.
So this whole situation is strange. Another thing that experts argue is that,
you know, people only make decisions like this when they feel desperate, when
there is no other option.
But you cannot fight human biology.
And one of the things is, in the end, the reason that people end up using certain methods
to make this decision, it's because you can't back out.
Because humans have a tendency, no matter how dark you are at your survival instinct kicks in. And that's biological.
G.S. feet weren't touching the ground, but beside her, very close to her, were the two
twin mattresses. That's why I said it's very pertinent. She could easily just like lean
on them. So it's not a situation where there's a knock chair and she has no other option.
I guess again, for something like that, we can argue, we don't know, it's abnormal, but it does happen,
but I'm just saying all these abnormal things, adding up,
but back to the missing track suit,
because that's really abnormal.
The track suit was just missing.
So like I said, CCTV showed her leaving sewages place
and there was only a 30 minute time window
between the time that she left
and the time that Rabia found her.
It takes at least a few minutes for someone to die in this method.
Let's say it took at least 10 minutes to set everything up.
That leaves just 20 minutes.
She could definitely have changed clothes, gotten rid of the blue track suit, but still.
Another thing that people are arguing is that if someone had killed Gia, they could have
used that window.
What was going on?
Is it murder?
Is it not?
The police are called to the scene and they rule out foul play in just two hours.
I'm not saying it's a hundred percent murder, but like how can you rule it out with all
these things?
The added problem of this is that since murder was ruled out, the police were unwilling to
spend resources to perform an autopsy.
All of this is happening while Kavita was in the air.
She had no idea of any of this.
She was on the plane thinking about how her sister would be waiting for her when she got
off the plane and what they would eat because she was hungry.
She got off the plane and when her phone, this is literally, I have such an anxiety about
this.
Anytime I'm not traveling with my whole family, I always buy the Wi-Fi out of plane even
if it's pricey because I don't know why anytime I don't
plane, I feel like something's gonna happen to someone and I won't know. And she
gets off the plane and all these mixed-missed calls text messages start
bombarding her. Friends giving condolences and it I mean in the middle of this
airport her entire life collapsed.
Why would you break into these apartments?
For money, for drugs, whatever was in them.
Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this?
No. Who's gonna catch us?
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I'm not a big guy man but I love being that dirty mother f***er.
And for the first few days, I think the family just...
They were in grief, you know. I think that Gia's mom had some suspicions, but they just were grieving.
It wasn't until a few days later, Kavita wanted to feel closer to her sister Gia.
She remembered this poem that Gia had read her.
So she goes into Gia's room looking for a copy of that poem
because it was from like a book that Gia really loved.
And in a box, she finds six torn pages of Gia's diary.
This is the one that was released.
Gia had written about the abuse, the sexual assault,
the breaks that she went through
and how horrible the relationship with Sue Ridge made her feel about the termination of her pregnancy.
And when Kavita showed her mom, the family made it a decision to release it to the public.
You know, it's very painful for them.
I think it's, this is a cultural difference.
You know, in Asia, it's very common that you should never air out dirty laundry even
if you are a victim.
You would think that you're exposing a crime,
but they're like, no, you're like being messy. So the fact that they made this letter public,
it seemed like the family was very desperate for justice. Gia's mom said, I've decided to make
this public so everyone will know the truth behind my daughter's tragedy. Now the letter is
quite long, you can find it in our show notes, but the important parts. Again, Gia mentions that
she lost everything because of sewage. She felt like she had nothing else in this world she was completely broken.
She said in the process of loving him, she had lost herself. Yet he tortured her every
single day.
She devastatingly wrote, it didn't matter how many gifts I gave you or how beautiful
I looked for you. He just always treated on her. It was revealed that she was forced to terminate her pregnancy.
She was scared, but she was completely giving herself to that pain because she wanted a family,
but he destroyed it.
He destroyed her.
He destroyed her soul.
She said her career is not even worth chasing anymore.
She said, when I met you, I was a different person.
I was ambitious, driven, disciplined, and then I fell in love with you and I thought that you would bring out the best in me. But I didn't see any love or
any commitment for you. She talks about how every day she's scared that he's going to
hit her. She says her whole life is just about him and work. And his whole life is about
partying and women. She writes, all you want in your life is partying, your woman and
your selfish motives.
All I wanted was you and my happiness.
You took both away from me.
I wish you had loved me like I loved you.
I dreamt of our future, I dreamt of our success.
I felt so alone, even while with you.
You made me feel so alone and vulnerable.
I am so much more than this.
So this letter is huge.
It blows the case open.
Everyone's talking about it.
The CBI suddenly wants to help Gia's mom in the quest for justice.
Because they're like, oh no, if we don't do something, people are going to get mad at us.
So act like we helped you.
So they start investigating Sue Ridge.
And during the interrogation, he seemed a little nervous.
Yeah, he was reiterating the same things.
He was restarting the same sentences over
and over again. But being nervous does not mean you're being guilty. He was also later
called on CCTV that night at a hotel nearby. So technically, he had an alibi, but not really.
So they're like, he has an alibi. He was at a hotel. But not really. The hotel was on
Gia's side of the city. So he was nearby Gia's house. There was a 30 minute window between
when Gia left his house and Rabia found her. So the theory is he went there after Gia left angry. He
basically followed her to her side of town and if he's innocent, you could argue that he
wanted to stay at this hotel to see if he could meet with Gia at the hotel to talk.
Because he probably knew that her mom was staying with her so they couldn't talk at her
place. But if he's not innocent, then he's got a 30 minute window to follow Gia home, wiggle
open the window, murder her, frame her murder to be her choice, and then be at the host
held CCTV cameras before Rabia finds her body to get an alibi.
If Suridh did kill Gia, then he would have had to follow her sneak in, abuse her, strangle
her, stay to her death, and then be at the hotel CCTV camera in less than 30 minutes.
It is tight, unless he had help.
Also another thing to add, when the police went through his phone, they found no evidence
of those text messages that he had sent to Gia's phone immediately after she left.
The aggressive ones of like, you fucking ruined everything.
Gia's phone had them, but Sui Rijas' phone didn't.
People speculate remember how his dad was leaving on the phone? His dad had called and was like, Hey, I got the gist of what's going on.
She has debt you need to delete any incriminating evidence from your phone. That's the presumption
for now. So he's deleted all of those text messages. But again, being shady during an interview,
deleting text messages, not illegal. The CBI said they investigated Sue Ridge, but they
were going to release him due to his alibi.
Rabia felt cheated of justice. Like, how can they just release him like that? Is it because his parents are wealthy, powerful, and well connected?
She was not going to let him get away with this. She paid for four out of pocket separate medical examiners to conduct autopsy on her daughter.
Almost all of them wrote that manual strangulation was a possible cause of death.
Basically saying, we can't rule it out.
We can't say that's what happened,
but there's no evidence to rule it out.
Other suspicious things that they discovered,
they found marks on her lips that could be bruises.
They could have been made by a blunt force object
or they could happen when someone roughly places their hand
over another's mouth.
As far as the ligature marks on her neck and chin,
they have doubts that the fabric as soft as the dupera
could leave these marks.
Also, they found human tissue underneath
G.S. nails and they encouraged the police to run the DNA,
but the police refused.
They said because the autopsies were not ordered by us,
the judge could easily throw these out as evidence.
So they were just like, we don't even want to spend the resources to run DNA because DNA
testing is expensive.
And also, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that if they ran DNA, if they found
an uncovered more evidence that went against the CBI theory, the CBI would be a laughing
stock.
And most government entities all over the world, They like to protect their egos over justice.
So it looked like these autopsy reports were just going to get brushed away.
So Rabia, she wants to give the public pieces of evidence that the CBI can't sweep under the rug.
She wants the public to get as angry as her so that the CBI will freaking do something.
She released Gia's autopsy photos.
There were pictures of Gia's bruises and in the picture her daughter is dead laying on a medical examiner's table with a blanket covering her up to just below her shoulders.
You can clearly see bruises and swelling on her face and neck.
I'm not going to attach the photos here out of respect for Gia, but they are available online if you search for them. Gia had a big bruise on the bottom of her chin.
The part on the bottom of her face
between the top of her neck and the bottom of her chin,
like this part, right below the mouth.
It's like one big black bruise here.
Netizens agreed that the bruise looked more
like a result of a fist than the result of soft fabric.
So it's really hard for the family to release
these pictures, but they wanted to get justice. Now, before we get into that, there is something that you
should know about Bollywood. Bollywood is run by a few rich influential families
that have been in the business for decades. Not only can they heavily sway the
industry, but on who gets fired, who gets hired, what does well, what doesn't,
but they can actually sway media, politics, and even the whole economy as a whole.
Big Bollywood actors have ties with ministers, politicians, they can sway the entire judicial
system in India.
On the rare case that they are arrested, they're immediately bailed out in the media
silenced.
And if someone raises accusations against them, the victims are either bribed, threatened
into silence, and this little collection of families are commonly known as the Bollywood
Mafia.
They've been surrounded by suspicious deaths and suicides for as long as anyone can remember.
Surridge has a mentor.
The toxic boyfriend has a mentor named Salomon Khan.
He's a member of one of the families of the Bollywood Mafia.
He has no relation to Geocon, by the way.
But once these allegations start surfacing, he signs Sue Ridge in one of his upcoming films.
Now, the media doesn't want to get on his bad side
by shit talking the new lead of his movie,
so they start publishing the suspicions against Sue Ridge.
He had so much political sway that even the police
start backing off the investigation
and the CBI toned it down to.
And once it's off mainstream media,
the netizens, they kind of slowly lost interest.
So once Suraj was brought under his ring,
Suraj is untouchable.
He was being protected by the Bollywood mafia.
And this happens a lot in Bollywood
because big name producers and actors,
they have so much power that the industry is just filled
with evil, evil people, okay?
And we know this because a lot of actresses came forward during the Me Too movement to
talk about how they were told over and over again that producers told them in order to be
successful, if you are not a nepotbaby, you must be excited, willing, and enjoy sex with
producers.
Many anonymous actresses came forward to say how they were grobbed, assaulted, and full-on
essayed on-site or after work.
If they rejected, they were told, you know, I don't know if you have the right attitude
to make it in this industry.
One producer told an actress, I saw your pictures, I think you have great assets, but I don't
see it right now.
So can you please remove your clothes?
She declined and he said, for an actress, you should be happy to have sex.
Embrace your sexuality.
Use it.
This is your biggest weapon.
This victim actually went to the police with this and they told her that he was just being
friendly.
She later went on to say, if someone speaks up, the netizens trash the girl and they say
that the girl is publicity hungry, that she has no talent, nothing to do.
She's not famous, so she's upset.
Probably just wants money and fame.
Inside note, again, just in case anyone thinks it's a Bollywood problem, I mean look at Hollywood.
That should tell you enough, sex crimes are a global problem that affect every single person on this planet.
There are a lot of people in Bollywood that have now come together to fight for the punishment of predators.
It was actually started by a man.
So yeah, there are good people fighting for safety in Bollywood. But as
of right now, there's also a lot of scary people. So for a while, after he gets that Bollywood
mafia protection, nothing happens to sue rich because even just trying to get justice
is a very long process. But in June of 2020, seven years after Gia's death, so like three
years ago, a man that is often referred to as SSR in this case, Shoshant, I believe,
is how you say it.
He was a Bollywood actor and he was found dangling from a ceiling fan.
He was over six feet tall.
The ceiling fan was over his bed so his knees were bent and his feet were resting on
the mattress.
No.
A week before he died, he was googling obsessively of a coworker that had also died very mysteriously,
another Bollywood actor. His father has since come out to accuse his secret girlfriend,
slash nepotbaby of one of the family members of the Bollywood Mafia, of torturing him to the point
where he had dark thoughts. She stole from him cheated on him, mishandled his property.
There was an investigation and autopsy this time, but the authorities ruled it off as him
not being able to cope with the pressures of Bollywood.
Netizens were not convinced.
Netizens suspect the Bollywood mafia was behind this, and Geokhan's death.
One actress said, they killed Geokhan, they tried to kill me, but they roamed free, having full support of the mafia growing stronger and more successful
every single day. Know that the world is not ideal. You are either the prey or the predator.
No one will save you, you have to save yourself." Another actress anonymously said, there is
no law in Bollywood. They do whatever they want. So Gia's mom, she believes it's also
the Bollywood mafia that got to him, but nothing is being done about his case. Now, late would. They do whatever they want. So Gia's mom, she believes it's also the
Bollywood mafia that got to him, but nothing is being done about his case. Now, late April
of this year, the Indian court officially acquitted su-ridge on all charges related to Gia's
death. So let's acquit it. So let's talk about su-ridge's side of the story. Nobody's
arguing that su-ridge is a good person. There is evidence that he did abuse Gia. There
is not, however, evidence that he killed her.
Look, I said I was gonna present both sides,
so I'm gonna do that.
While Rabia posted YouTube videos,
when on talk shows and went onto these national platforms
to promote her daughter's case,
Sue Ridge did his own little press tour,
his own little explaining.
Sue Ridge told the court and the media
that Rabia was only telling half the story.
He said Rabia hid vital information about Gia's disturbed childhood and her multiple attempts
at her own life.
He said, and this part I hate, I hate.
Okay, I hate that he aired her dirty laundry to the world and I'm sure that there was some
narrative spinning done in order to be in his favor or otherwise he wouldn't have said it.
But I also really hate when people allude to daddy issues in any situation.
Surveillance told the world that she as father abandoned her when she was just two years old,
and for that she was always depressed.
Now, she didn't admit that it was hard for her, but still some netizens took this and was like,
oh my god, maybe she even did all these sexy movies because she has daddy issues and wants male attention.
I don't believe that specific argument.
That she looked for sexual attention because her father left her, but I do believe that
Gia had a rough time in childhood because she didn't have her dad to be there for her.
She said so herself, but that doesn't mean anything.
And then C. Ridge went on to tell the entire world, Gia's most deepest, most intimate secrets,
the ones that she trusted with him in private, allegedly.
He told everyone that she always had him in private allegedly. He told everyone
that she always had body images shoot. She has a very, very hard ED. She had horrible boyfriend,
her first essay happened when she was only 14 years old. This was never public information.
Gea was actually quite private prior to her death. Zirij also said that Rabia was the main cause
of Gea's mental health issues. Rabia was a small-time actress who quit after having Gia.
She lived vicariously through her daughter.
She forced her daughter to be perfect in every aspect so that Gia could become the actress
that Rabia had always wanted to be.
He made it seem like Gia was more anxious, more depressed because of her mom.
I think most people were getting pretty upset when he started going on about this.
Because first of all, did you didn't even treat her well?
And now you're gonna come for people
that you really, you don't have evidence of this.
The only evidence you have are other cases
of moms being tiger moms.
That's it.
And now you act like you were the only one supporting her.
And now you're being accused.
It just felt really icky, but then something a little less dismissible came to light.
During the brief CBI investigation, they ran a handwriting analysis on G.S. Note.
Well, the analysis came back and the note did not match with G.S. handwriting.
Do you know who it matched with?
The mom.
Yeah.
Now, handwriting analysis are not completely reliable, and we could always mention that the
CBI could have been bribed, or a member of the CBI could have been bribed.
But according to research articles published by scientists at Harvard and Cambridge, there's
about a 4% margin of error for handwriting analysis.
That's pretty big for science.
But considering the circumstances, you know, the note not being found until three days
after G.S. death.
And during those three days,
Rabia watched as the CBI labeled her daughter's death
as no val play,
let's do-rich walk out of the investigation room.
I think,
I think that people could understand,
I'm not saying that Rabia definitely
without a doubt faked her daughter's note.
That's where you decide.
But Netizens including me can understand how a frustrated mom,
with no way out who's watching helplessly on the side for months as her daughter's boyfriend beat her mistreated her.
And now potentially killed her would want to do something.
The contents of the letter though though, were not lies.
She did have to terminate her pregnancy.
She was being abused.
They just weren't according to the court's handwriting analysis experts.
They just weren't written by Gia.
But it's not made up stuff.
Which, you know, to me, I know people are really upset about this,
and it's hard to trust her after that.
But the contents of the letter are still true, and I think that's what we should focus on.
Because her writing that letter...
It doesn't make the guy less evil, right?
Like, if it were lies, then I'm like, ooooh, okay, now I need to rethink my opinion on
this man.
But if the contents of the letter are still true, I'm like, well, you still did that.
No one forced you to do that.
Now after this news came out suddenly, netizens were not well, you still did that. No one forced you to do that. Now, after this news came out, suddenly,
netizens were not so passionate in supporting Rabia.
If she lied about this, they're thinking,
what other things could she not be telling us?
And then some journalists thought it would be a great idea
for views to bring in Rabia and Sue Ridge's famous actress
mother at separate times to talk about the case
and put the video side by side.
Zarina, Sue Ridge's mom, went on to state about Gia.
I heard she used to smoke a lot.
Zarina would bring cigarettes for her, and that is where their friendship started.
They didn't even date until December.
She also went on to alleged that once Gia came over to their family home,
because she had gotten into a fight with her mom and she had blood on her face.
She said Gia was crying hysterically and allegedly,
Zarina confronted Rabia about how she could do this to her own daughter and allegedly Rabia said
my daughter is an attention-seeker and is always super dramatic. The family accused
Rabia of trying to get money from her death. His mom also went on and this
completely discredited her in my eyes. His mom went on to say the classic line.
Sewage has always been a bit of a naughty child,
but he's innocent at heart.
Yeah.
So back to the criminal trial.
Surridge's alibi played a huge role in the acquittal.
Rabia's theory was that Surridge followed her daughter home,
snuck through the window, strangled her,
then staged her death to look like something else,
and it takes a lot of time and strength to do this.
It is theoretically possible, but potentially not that realistic.
But what if he didn't murder her?
What if he just pushed her to the point
where she couldn't take it anymore, that is still a crime?
But there is still no irrefutable evidence
that he continuously tortured her
throughout the relationship.
And that's not me saying saying I don't believe it.
That's what the court is saying.
And in the end, Rabia did admit that Gia struggled with depression, that she had anxiety.
She was self-harming and struggled with an eating disorder and she was under a lot of pressure.
She did confirm that Gia had previously...and made attempts before.
Okay, this is where I stand on this.
I don't think it matters.
Because I think just because you go through
one dark period in your life, does that mean
that 20 years later, you are still more likely
to do something than anybody else that is happy and adjusted?
I don't think so, and I think it's a very
cop out way of overlooking clues of foul play. I think it's unfair. I think it's a very cop-out way of overlooking clues of foul play.
I think it's unfair.
I think it's literally being like
destigmatized mental health,
but at the same time, if you have mental health,
then I'm just gonna consider any suspicious death
as you losing your mind and doing this to yourself.
Then you're not destigmatizing mental health.
Like, yeah, so I can understand why she hid it
from the national lens, because society is accustomed to being like, oh, well now
This is a mom who can't come to terms with the truth. This is a mom who is just so sad and so in grief that she's just coping in a weird way
So he was acquitted and he went on to tweet immediately afterwards and his tweet made a lot of people mad
He talked about how Jio was under a lot of pressure. She was the only one supporting the entire family. She
wasn't getting enough work. He said that in 2012 she had self-harmed and he called
Rabia to tell her everything and she did not show up to Mumbai for months. He
said, and I quote, is this a normal parent child relationship? I was there for her
and during that time we fell in love.
She was a wonderful person, but my love for her wasn't enough.
She needed familial love.
He went on to claim that Rabia's helicopter parenting
and pressure led her to do this.
He thinks that Rabia is the one that pushed her.
Rabia believes that sewage is the one that's responsible.
Now there are multiple theories, the internet is divided.
Some people think that Rabia had part of the truth because she knew people would just
dismiss the case.
Others believe that Rabia is pushing so hard because she just can't accept her daughter's
death.
Some people think that Rabia is pushing hard because she wants money.
Few people believe that Sewridge killed Geo with his own two hands.
That's not to say that Geo wasn't murdered, maybe somebody else had done it, but most people believe that he was somehow involved, whether
he pushed her to the point, to this dark place, whether he had someone else do it, he's
definitely involved in some way, is what people think. I can't give you a definite answer.
The court's acquitted storage, so in the eyes of the law he is technically innocent,
but Gia's family is adamant that the eyes of the law are wrong, which they have been before.
But one thing that I guess I'm reminded of when we cover the cases like this is if I know
my family member more than anyone on the internet who has never met my family member.
If I know them, and I know that they would never do this, and a bunch of people online told
me that I just can't come to terms with the truth, I would probably lose my mind. Just I think
the one thing that keeps getting me is her sister was coming over. And the relationship
she had with her sister, I just can't imagine she would do it in her sister's room and wait for her sister and mom to find her.
It just feels selfish and everything I've seen so far, and I am just another person on
the internet that knows nothing too, but from what I've seen so far, she does not strike
me as someone who is selfish and statistically it doesn't make sense either.
That's just the part that I get to hang up on even more than the blue track suit.
What are your thoughts?
But I don't know.
I guess in the end all we can say is, I think that Bollywood lost a very genuine and compassionate
soul.
Let me know your thoughts.
Please stay safe, and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode.
Bye!
one's day for the main episode. Bye!