110\. The Spa Day Murder - Sabina Rosas
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Hey everyone and welcome back to the Into the Dark podcast. I am your host Peyton Moreland. Thank you so much for being here. If you're listening on audio, you can leave a five-star review. That would be great. And if you are watching on video, subscribe to the channel, give this video a thumbs up, even leave a comment. I don't know.

Maybe leave a comment of your favorite food using an emoji. Okay, leave that in the comments below. It just helps the podcast out. It gives it some interaction. But either way, I'm just glad you're here and I'm glad you're listening. Well, for my 10 seconds, I'm a little sad because right now I'm actually supposed to be at

a hair appointment. I got it all scheduled and then I showed up and they were like, oh, we see that it went through on your end and you have the confirmation and everything, but it didn't come through on our end and we don't have a spot for you. So that made me sad, but you know what that means? I could come home and record it into the dark episode. So good for you.

pretty good for me too, to be honest. But yeah, that happened and that made me a little bit sad. But you know what? Everything happens for a reason. Maybe I really needed to record this episode today. I also did just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me on Instagram after I posted some stories, a little bit about my mental health journey. I didn't plan on

doing that, but I don't know. The stories kind of just led into that that night, and I received so many responses. I haven't gotten back to everyone, but yeah, I mean, sometimes it's hard to talk about things like that because I know there are people out there who are going to think of me differently no matter what.

How much I want to think that everyone has an open mind and is accepting. But I also am trying to just let shame go in my life. I don't want to be shameful of who I am or experiences that I've had. And so I'm also sometimes really grateful that that happened because these experiences in my life have honestly, I feel like, made me just a kinder, more soft-hearted person for other people because...

I just have no room left to, like, judge anyone. I just feel like you never know. You never know why people do the things they do. Okay, crossing out murder. Okay, I understand that I'm getting people talking about murder. But you guys know, even then, sometimes I will talk about how mental health, you know. But anyways, what am I even saying? I just...

I just think that life is so hard. And honestly, like every single person listening to this episode has gone through or is going through something that is so extremely painful and hurtful and just devastating. And so who am I to do anything other than just be accepting and understanding? Like, I just, I think sometimes going through things like that humbles you.

Because you just realize, wow, life's tough and we're really just all trying to get through it and enjoy it. Not just get through it, but also enjoy it. And that's majority of the battle. And so if you don't relate to what I'm talking about, thank you for being understanding and listening anyways. And if you do relate, just know you are not alone and I'm here for you. And I just want to say thank you for all of the messages that I got. It kind of feels like a quick jump, but let's get into the episode.

I do just want to give a trigger warning that this episode includes discussions of suicide and murder, so please listen with care. Now, I'm sure you have all been in this situation. You are out walking down the street or at work, going about your day, and something unexpected catches your attention.

It might be a really striking piece of art on a wall or a delicious smell and the sound of something sizzling on a stove in the next room. You may find yourself paying attention to someone who's very attractive. The point is, it really doesn't take much for something to draw your focus somewhere new. This can be a good thing. I mean, we all have our squirrel moments. Artists, marketers, advertisers, and lots of other people put a ton of energy into trying to get you to notice their work.

But sometimes the thing that's drawing your attention can actually be a big red flag. Like how on Monday, October 28th, 2024, so not too long ago, an Uber driver named Ozan Musulu got an unusual request. Someone needed a ride from a high-end spa in Watermill, New York.

to their home in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. This was a roughly 200-mile drive. It would take four hours, a four-hour-long Uber ride. This is an extremely long trip to ask an Uber driver to make, but a job was a job.

So at around 8 a.m., Ozan pulled up to the very fancy and very expensive Shu Sugi Ban House. It was a resort tucked away in the Hamptons, which was known for blending Japanese and Western relaxation techniques. There were only 13 rooms, but the rooms were spacious. Each one had a private patio and its own entrance.

They cost over $1,000 a night and that was just the price for a room. If you wanted a massage or a facial or any other kind of spa treatment, that would cost extra. So this was kind of the sort of place where celebrities and other wealthy people went to just get away from it all.

But that day, Buzan wasn't giving a ride to a famous movie star or businessman. When he pulled up, he picked up someone from this super fancy spa retreat that just introduced himself as Tom. He was in a long black coat. He was tall, thin, and fair-skinned. And honestly, he seemed a little nervous. Remember, I mean, this is about to be a four-hour car ride.

Besides that, though, there was nothing alarming about his appearance. He didn't seem intoxicated. He didn't have blood on his clothes. There were no red flags. So Uzon invited him into the car and they hit the road. Then the next four hours of this Uber drive were intensely awkward.

Tom sat in the back in complete silence. He didn't say a word to Uzon. And it's one thing to not be in a talking mood or to be lost in your thoughts during a quick Uber ride, but he literally didn't speak out loud for hours. And even though Tom wasn't saying anything, Uzon could tell that his passenger in the back was clearly upset.

Later on, he actually told a reporter that Tom seemed miserable. He spent the first part of the ride staring out the window, seemingly just lost in thought. Eventually, Tom dozed off in the back seat. And Uzon might have breathed a sigh of relief, not to have to deal with Tom's bad mood and sulky silence anymore. Eventually, they made it to Tom's home in Pennsylvania. It was a rustic-looking cabin, and it was out of the way in a remote area.

Tom woke up long enough to give Uzan some instructions about where to pull over. It was the only thing he actually said for the whole ride. While Uzan did what he asked, he dropped him off and unlocked the door. And as Tom climbed out of the car, he muttered, thank you, under his breath. The words were soft enough that Uzan could barely hear them.

In total, Tom had given up $370 in fare and he didn't even tip Uzon for this four-hour ride. So Uzon rolled his eyes and tried to put the weirdness out of his mind as he began the lengthy four-hour trip back home. So the very next day, Uzon was on the road working another shift when he had another wild ride with a client.

But this was a very different situation. See, this time, the person he picked up was feeling talkative. She wasn't sitting in silence. In fact, she got into his Uber and then said she was a reporter with the Daily Mail. And her destination was the Shu Sugi Ban House, the same exclusive spa where Uzan had picked Tom up the day before.

It was such a bizarre coincidence. So Uzon started telling his new passenger about the strange ride from earlier. And for her part, she seemed really interested in the story. And before long, Uzon learned why. See, the day before, a murder had happened at this exclusive resort.

And that's why the reporter was booking a ride there now. She was actually doing research for a news story on the crime. And of course, she's now very curious to hear about Ouzan's passenger's strange behavior from the morning of the homicide.

Now, it's possible it was a coincidence that Uzan just happened to pick someone who was socially awkward but unrelated to the crime. But the details were just too eerie for the reporter to ignore. I mean, imagine this. You get in the car and she's like, I'm going here because of a murder. And he's like, whoa, I picked someone up here yesterday that was acting so weird. It's just eerie. It's hard to ignore, especially in light of what the reporter already knew about the case.

So the victim had been a woman named Sabina Rosas. She was born in Tajikistan, which is a country in Central Asia.

When Sabina was young, her nation was ripped apart in the Civil War. So she spent several years moving from place to place, looking for a safe home, until she actually ended up in the United States in 2009. Now, at that time, she was 17 years old, and she had big dreams of becoming a visual artist. Luckily, she got into a good school in New York City and then graduated with a degree in film and media studies.

From there, she had to do the hard work of finding a way to make a living in a very competitive field. It took a long time, but eventually Sabina developed a style all her own. Her work incorporated a lot of Sabina's beliefs about intuition and spiritualism. On her website, she called herself an ambassador of belonging. She was very into breaking boundaries and trying new things that no one else was doing.

Now, many of the victim's paintings were inspired by dreams or by imagery she'd seen during meditation sessions. Sometimes she'd actually paint with her eyes closed. That way, she'd resist the impulse to overthink about what her work looked like. She'd just trust the brush to know where to go.

I mean, Sabina was a free spirit, which could get her into trouble at times. According to the Hindustan Times, Sabina was arrested at least once in 2023 after she got into a fight in Miami. The brawl left her with a black eye and she was charged with battery after the incident. However, I want to be clear that the victim Sabina was still a hard worker. She co-founded a journal that prompted and highlighted Central Asian artists like herself,

By the 2020s, Sabina was still very early in her career, but she felt good about the direction things were going.

On her 33rd birthday, she posted online saying, I can't help but chuckle at the fact that 33 is often associated with the age of Jesus when he made his ultimate sacrifice. She said, while I'm not planning anything dramatic, I see this year as a turning point in my life. Now those words would feel bitterly ironic later that year when she was killed at the resort.

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But at the time when she posted, it was reasonable for her to feel optimistic because she was just starting to get traction in her career. That year, so 2024, she got accepted into a residency program in Portugal. It was a big deal because she had never done a residency before. She was thrilled to travel there in November and keep developing her skills.

But she actually needed to set up a GoFundMe to help pay for the program. She wasn't making the kind of income that would let her cover everything out of pocket. So it seemed unlikely when we learned this about the victim that Sabina could have afforded to stay at a place like the Shusugi Ban House, especially when you look at the bill she ran up while she was there.

So I mentioned before that the rooms at this resort where she was murdered cost $1,000 a night. That's the price for the cheapest room. Sabina was actually staying somewhere even nicer and even more expensive than that.

So it's hard to say how she managed the expense, but Sabina and a male companion had checked into the spa one day in late October. And then on October 28th, the same day when Tom took that bizarre, tense four-hour Uber ride,

A staff member had let themselves into Sabina's room at 12.30 p.m. They probably expected it to be empty because Tom had already checked out hours before. Instead, they were shocked and stunned to find Sabina's body in Tom's room. She was already dead and had been for hours.

Since earlier that morning, actually, before Tom had even called that Uber and left. So you're hearing me right. Tom has Sabina dead in his room. He then calls an Uber and leaves. And then this journalist gets in an Uber to head to the place of the murder and ends up getting the same Uber driver as the Uber driver who drove the man who checked out of the room Sabina was found in.

So obviously Tom is the number one suspect, or at least he would have been if the police knew who he was. But so far they hadn't identified him. For the first 24 hours or so after Sabina's body was found, investigators swarmed over the spa looking for clues, talking to witnesses, but they hadn't generated any leads yet.

During that same time, Sabina's family posted about the murder online, begging people to come forward with information. And that's where things stood when Uzan, the Uber driver, told his story to the reporter in his car. Now, as soon as the reporter was done with her ride, she actually called 911 to pass the news along. And it's pretty rare that a journalist ends up being an important player in a story that they're covering, right?

But in this case, the information she shared was key for the police. It broke the case right open. The detectives still didn't know Tom's full name or if Tom was even his real name, but they did know where he had been dropped off, supposedly where he lived, and they knew that he had been at the resort with Sabina around the time she was killed. The investigators also learned from some of Sabina's loved ones

that she had been at the spa with her boyfriend. But others insisted that the man in the spa was not her boyfriend, just a friend. So police are like, okay, we know where Tom has dropped off, but is Tom the boyfriend and he's the friend? We need to figure it out. Turns out, Sabina's love life was complicated because she didn't have a boyfriend and she was married. Sabina was formally separated from her husband, waiting for their divorce to finalize, but it wasn't settled yet.

For the record, it sounds like the husband was not a person of interest and had nothing to do with Sabina's murder, according to the police. The marriage was basically over in all but name. For eight years, since 2016, Sabina had been reportedly dating someone named Ryder Iwata. When they'd first met, they had been students at the same college,

And like Sabina, Ryder also worked in an artistic field, but he was a fashion designer. In fact, that was one of the reasons they connected right away as soon as they met. Sabina loved art and creativity, and she was constantly pushing Ryder to work harder and explore his craft.

So sometimes they'd go out to parties and spend the night drinking and dancing. Early in the morning, when Ryder was exhausted and just wanted to crawl into bed, Sabina would drag him to her studio instead. And there they'd spend hours experimenting with different styles and way of doing things. Even when Ryder wasn't feeling inspired or motivated, Sabina always knew exactly what to say to make him feel enthusiastic about his work.

He actually told a reporter that his career would have never taken off without Sabina's encouragement and support. In another press interview, he also described Sabina as the greatest love of his life, someone he would never hurt.

Their relationship was serious, despite the fact she was married. They had been living together since 2022, and around that time, they'd gotten engaged, too, according to a statement Ryder gave the press. Well, as it turned out, though, Sabina's fiancé, Ryder, not her husband, but her boyfriend, fiancé, was not the man who'd checked into the Shusugi band house with her.

Instead, she was there with someone named Thomas Cannon.

So this is our mysterious Tom. Thomas was a 56-year-old flooring expert. He made a living by building and remodeling homes and other buildings. His specialty was actually in designing and then making escape rooms. Thomas was a father with one son and he was also newly divorced. He and his wife Karen had first split up in the summer of 2022 when Sabina and Ryder got engaged.

But it took until January of 2024 for him to finalize everything and officially become single. And you might be wondering, how does a 56-year-old flooring contractor end up at a spa with a 33-year-old visual artist who's engaged to someone else and also separated from a husband? Well, the truth is, nobody is actually entirely sure how Sabina and Thomas knew one another.

The police said after investigating that their relationship was, quote, domestic in nature.

but they haven't elaborated on exactly what that meant. Since the investigators were so vague, lots of reporters and true crime enthusiasts tried to fill in the gaps. They came up with a lot of theories. So I'm going to start with the facts we do know and then talk about some of the speculation that went around online. I know that Sabina and Thomas knew one another for about four years. And during those years, they had become close.

At one point, Thomas even flew back to Sabina's home country to design and build a house for her there. He was always doing favors for her, helping her haul heavy furniture around when she was moving, treating her to dinner at expensive restaurants and going on flashy trips. The whole nine yards.

So from the sound of it, Sabina loved yoga retreats and resorts, places just like where she was murdered. But she couldn't afford to go to those kinds of places on her own. But Thomas had cash to spare and he was always finding these getaways for the two of them.

Now, this hasn't been confirmed, but many people believe Thomas was the one who paid for that very expensive trip to the resort she was murdered at. It was a reasonable assumption since Thomas was apparently always footing the bill for Sabina in their friendship, domestic relationship. I don't know. He was also financially supporting her art.

And apparently, he told their mutual acquaintances that Sabina was his muse. Now, I mentioned before that Sabina set up a GoFundMe so she could be able to attend that residency in Portugal. Well, Thomas actually chipped in $1,000. He was the biggest contributor in the whole fundraiser. And when he gave the money, he wrote, quote, You have an amazing gift, and soon all the world will see. I love you.

and he ended the post with a heart emoji. Now, between all the favors, the gifts, and the public declaration of love,

it sounds like there was something romantic between them. And that's not just my speculation. So Sabina reportedly had a very close relationship with one of her college professors, a woman named Elizabeth Phillips. Elizabeth claimed that she was a mentor to Sabina even after she graduated. After Sabina's murder, Elizabeth also publicly announced that she knew Thomas,

was Sabina's boyfriend, so not her fiancé and not her husband she separated from. According to her, they had been dating for three years since 2021. That was a year before his divorce. And Elizabeth really didn't like Thomas, so her college professor mentor doesn't like him.

She met him twice and both times he came across as overly obsessive and possessive of Sabina. It was so concerning that Elizabeth actually pulled Sabina aside at one point. She told Sabina that there were plenty of other ways to make money for her art. She didn't need Thomas to support her. Instead, Elizabeth was willing to help Sabina apply for grants and financial assistance programs. She also asked her mentee if she felt safe around Thomas and if she had a plan for how to get away from him in a hurry.

if she ever felt like she was in danger. Now, at the time, Sabina didn't come right out and say...

She wanted to break up with Thomas, but according to Elizabeth, who is supposedly really close to Sabina, she got the sense that Sabina took her words to heart. Especially when Sabina started texting Elizabeth around October 26th and 27th. For context, this is the weekend right before she was killed. In those texts, Sabina said she wanted to come stay with Elizabeth for a while.

She made a point of saying she would not have Thomas with her for this visit. So if you take Elizabeth at her word, it sounds like Sabina was dating Thomas and she wanted to leave him. But when she tried, maybe he killed her in a jealous rage. However, some people don't take Elizabeth at her word. They think she got some of the facts wrong. Because remember, Sabina was engaged to Ryder.

She'd been with him the whole time that she was allegedly dating Thomas. And Ryder told a reporter that there was nothing going on between Thomas and Sabina. He knew Thomas. He knew of Thomas. And he said they were acquaintances. And that was all. Ryder did come out and say publicly that he believed Thomas gave Sabina money because he liked her work and he wanted to help her professionally.

Ryder also explained he'd met Thomas one time in person, and during that encounter, he did find Thomas to be awkward and a bit off-putting.

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But still, it seemed possible that that attraction went only one way, that Thomas liked Sabina and Sabina did not return the affection. Therefore, Thomas is saying they were not dating.

Apparently, at one point, Thomas pulled Ryder aside and announced that he thought Sabina was using him for his money, which is an odd thing to say to Sabina's own fiancé. Either way, Ryder just couldn't see Sabina being interested in someone like that, so he didn't think there was any possibility that Sabina could be cheating on him, at least not with Thomas. In an interview, he did acknowledge that she had intense relationships with lots of other men.

Besides Ryder, Thomas, and her husband, Sabina apparently co-owned some property with at least one other guy who has not been linked to the case. So given what we do know, Sabina might have been cheating on Ryder with Thomas, and it's possible that Ryder did not think there was an affair even though he knew Thomas and suspected that Thomas was obsessed with Sabina.

But another possibility was that Sabina wasn't interested in Thomas that way, writers telling the truth. But she may have led him on or encouraged his romantic interest. After all, he was giving her money so she could pursue her professional goals.

Maybe this created pressure. She might have felt like she had to keep him interested to keep him paying. Even if he was a little violent and possessive, which several people, including Elizabeth Ann Ryder, said was true, Sabina might have been afraid to reject him directly. So maybe she said and did whatever she needed to in order to avoid offending him or making him angry, etc.

Maybe Thomas kept buying her things and taking her on trips because he thought he had a chance with her. And Sabina might not have done anything to discourage that impression. Since we don't know exactly what Sabina's relationship with Thomas was like, we only know what people in her life have said, we also don't know what happened between them at the resort.

So to be very clear, for the next discussion, I am going to be speculating. This has not been verified as true. This is alleged. A lot of people assume.

that Thomas went to the resort with Sabina and then killed her out of jealousy. Maybe when they checked into the resort, he was hoping that something romantic or sexual would happen. From the sound of things, he could have even believed Sabina was single when he planned this getaway.

According to her fiance, Ryder, Sabrina had been hiding the fact that she was engaged to him from Thomas. And if you pair that with Elizabeth's statement that Sabrina was afraid of Thomas and was trying to get away from him, she might have went to this resort and tried to call things off while they were at the spa.

Maybe she revealed that she was with Ryder, engaged to him, or maybe she just told Thomas she wasn't into him like that. Whatever she said, there is a possibility it could have led to her murder. That theory does fit with a lot of the evidence, but like I said, it is still just speculation. And it's also possible that Thomas lashed out for another reason. Maybe he was under a lot of stress and financial pressure, enough to make him snap.

After all, from what I can tell, he might not have had a stable job. He'd actually put his last position about a year earlier in 2023. And at that time, he wasn't an ordinary employee. He co-owned the company with at least one other person. So when he left his job,

It wasn't as simple as giving two weeks notice and starting somewhere new. He needed to sell off his share of the business and make all kinds of arrangements for someone to take over Port Hood. And then after this, he stopped talking to his former co-workers entirely. Jumping ahead to right before the murder, Thomas had actually begun the process of trying to sell his home, but he hadn't found a buyer yet.

But his cabin was listed for $550,000. So maybe he was selling his business and his home in a desperate effort to keep funding all of these extravagant trips. And perhaps he felt like she didn't appreciate this enough. That could have made him angry. I mean, there is plenty of motives here. All the way from premeditated to snapping in a fit of rage.

Again, this is all speculation and we don't know much of anything for sure. We just know that Thomas and Sabina went to the resort together and then he left and she was dead. It's also possible that this was all a coincidence. Maybe he changed his job, sold his house, and killed Sabina for something we don't even understand. I'll also say if Thomas really was under financial pressure, it's unclear why he'd turn around and blow thousands of dollars taking Sabina to a high-end spa.

The point is, there's a lot in this case we don't know. In fact, to this day, the police haven't publicly announced Sabina's cause of death, which is why I can't even get into an autopsy with you. All they've said so far is that it was violent. Granted, this case did happen in October of 2024, so not that long ago, but we don't even know how she died. But there was one person who could explain everything that went down.

Thomas himself. And the police knew exactly where to find Thomas thanks to his Uber driver. So after the investigators took Uzon's statement, they rushed to Pennsylvania right to Thomas's cabin where he had been dropped off. By this time, it was about 11 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29th. So a day and a half had gone by since Sabina's death and police had been doing all they could to learn about Thomas and Sabina's relationship. When the police got inside Thomas's home,

They learned that it was still too late. Thomas would never be charged with Sabina's murder because he had taken his own life. It was clear by this point that Thomas had been dead for a while when police arrived. To all appearances, it seems like he must have killed himself right after Uzon had dropped him off after the Uber ride, meaning he left the hotel with Sabina dead inside, got home, and immediately took his life.

He had died before he had the chance to see Sabina's murder become a major news story. Before the police even knew to suspect him or even knew that Sabina had been killed. When the police searched Thomas' phone, they actually found a confession. Just before taking his own life, Thomas had typed out a suicide note. And in the note, he explained that he had killed Sabina. Now, we don't know if in the note he explained his motives or not.

The police haven't released the full text of the letter or commented on any specifics. All I do know is that he'd texted everything he'd written to a family member right before he ended it all. Now, with Thomas's suicide, the police also announced that Sabina's murder case was closed. The evidence was clear and there was no question that Thomas had killed her, but he couldn't be charged with a crime or brought to trial.

So there just wasn't any more reason to investigate any further, which is why I can't say that legally he's been charged. But there are still a lot of questions about this crime that we haven't answered. The biggest one being, how does something so senseless like this happen? Why did Sabina die? What happened between her and Thomas in her final days and hours? And if anyone is entitled to answers, it's Sabina's friends and family, the people who loved her the most.

But since her murder, many of her relatives have avoided the press and tried to maintain their privacy. They've even complained that there are online trolls who have been pretending to be Sabina's friends, fiancé, and family members.

Literally, people were going on the internet impersonating Sabina's grief-stricken loved ones and spreading lies about her when this case hit social media. So her relatives begged people to be cautious about what they read on the web. And as for her fiancé Ryder, he told reporters with the Daily Mail that he was furious with Thomas. Not only for the murder itself, but because Thomas took his own life without ever explaining the truth to people.

It meant Ryder would have to live out the rest of his days with no sense of closure. He would never understand how his fiancée, the woman that he called his greatest love, ended up staying in a high-end resort with another man, let alone how she ended up getting murdered during that trip.

In an interview, he said, "...it is shrouded in mystery why Sabina is no longer with us. We will never know what happened." Ryder's grief was immense and he wasn't alone. Some of Sabina's colleagues wrote a beautiful memorial that highlighted the truth about who she was as a person. It said, "...driven by her incredible energy and vision, Sabina moved walls so that gardens could flourish, inviting everyone seeking light."

She shared everything she had and supported all of us. A beautiful soul and gifted artist, she left an impactful legacy in the arts of Central Asia. The world feels empty without her.

I think it is easy to be quick to judge in this case, so I want us to be wary about no matter what happened, Sabina did not deserve to be murdered. I don't know if we'll ever learn the truth about how or why Thomas killed Sabina beyond the broad strokes. It's safe to say that before her death, Sabina caught his attention. Maybe it was romantic, maybe it was professional admiration, maybe it was something else.

Either way, it is great to be recognized and renowned for your hard work and your achievements. But in Sabina's case, Thomas's attention was deadly. And that is the case of Sabina Rosas. Thank you so much for catching this episode of Into the Dark. And I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye. Goodbye.

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