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Episode: Bad Magic | The Man in the Linen Pants | S4-E1
Author: Wondery
Duration: 00:41:46
Episode Shownotes
When a filmmaker hears about a secret trial of a new HIV treatment, he begins to wonder about the mysterious doctor behind it. Meanwhile, two podcasters are invited to an unusual birthday party...Need more Dr. Death? With Wondery+, you can listen to all episodes, unlock exclusive content, get early access
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Summary
In the first episode of Season 4 titled 'Bad Magic | The Man in the Linen Pants,' the chilling story of Greg Davis's arrest and mysterious death intertwines with the narrative of Dr. Serhat Gumrukcu, a controversial figure in HIV treatment trials. Filmmaker Zeb's documentation of his friend Jeffrey's participation in an experimental trial reveals ethical dilemmas and concerns about exploitation in the medical field. As Zeb navigates the complexities of trust and deception, he confronts the stark contrasts between patients' struggles and the glamorous lifestyle of those overseeing such trials, setting the stage for unanswered questions about medical integrity and the implications of groundbreaking treatments.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Bad Magic | The Man in the Linen Pants | S4-E1) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:12 Speaker_13
It was late on a freezing Saturday night in Northern Vermont. Greg Davis was in his bedroom with his wife, Melissa, when they heard someone outside.
00:00:28 Speaker_13
Greg opened the door and saw a man standing there wearing a jacket and mask with the emblem of the U.S. Marshal. He was holding a rifle. Behind him in the driveway was a white Ford Explorer with emergency lights flashing in its dash.
00:00:46 Speaker_13
The marshal said he had a warrant for Greg's arrest on racketeering charges. He'd been instructed to take him into custody and transport him to Virginia. Greg couldn't have known what this was all about. He was working in waste management.
00:01:00 Speaker_13
His friends and family knew him as a father of six, a businessman, and a devout Christian. He went to his bedroom and told his pregnant wife what was happening, then packed a bag of clothes and walked out.
00:01:18 Speaker_13
Davis' 12-year-old son watched from the upstairs window as the car pulled away. It was the last time he saw his father alive. The next afternoon, a car made its way along a quiet stretch of Peachum Road, about 15 miles from Greg Davis's farmhouse.
00:01:42 Speaker_13
It was another brutally cold day, barely cracking 10 degrees. Just off the side of the road, the driver saw something out of place. It was a shape jutting out of the snowbank. There on the ground, partially covered by snow, was a man's body.
00:02:04 Speaker_13
His wrists were shackled, .22 caliber bullet wounds in his head and torso with bullet casings speckling the snowbank. Greg Davis was dead. How had all this happened?
00:02:19 Speaker_13
Prosecutors would later claim it all traced back to a man whose life had long been cloaked in mystery and who was nowhere near Vermont that night.
00:02:30 Speaker_00
Well, good afternoon, everyone. It is truly my great pleasure to welcome Enochian Biosciences.
00:02:36 Speaker_13
Less than a year after Greg Davis's body was found in the Vermont snow, the CEO of an emerging biotech company stood at a sleek white lectern in Times Square.
00:02:47 Speaker_11
The very first time I met René Sidleve, our chairman, he told me we'll be a NASDAQ-listed company.
00:02:54 Speaker_13
Enochian Biosciences now traded alongside tech giants like Apple and Microsoft. But the CEO wasn't taking the credit. The success of the company was largely thanks to a man who was standing just off stage.
00:03:08 Speaker_13
The man with the ideas that drove Enochian Biosciences to its $600 million valuation. A man with short dyed blonde hair, stubble, and an impish smile.
00:03:21 Speaker_11
The very first time I met Serab Gumruku, our scientific founder, he told me we'll be the company that will put an end to HIV AIDS.
00:03:35 Speaker_13
Dr. Serhat Gumrukcu. At just 36 years old, Dr. Serhat was leading a mission to end HIV-AIDS forever. He was also working on cures for cancer, hepatitis B, and a host of other diseases. His patients saw him as a miracle worker.
00:03:53 Speaker_13
His colleagues compared him to Leonardo da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, and Einstein in one and the same person. But in a few years, he wouldn't be known for world-changing treatments. He would be known as a fraud and a key suspect in a grisly murder.
00:04:17 Speaker_01
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00:04:31 Speaker_01
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00:04:51 Speaker_13
From Wondery, I'm Laura Beal, and this is the fourth season of Dr. Death, Bad Magic. Imagine you're sick, very sick, and you have been for a long time.
00:05:14 Speaker_13
You've seen so many doctors over the years, so many tests, and now everyone is telling you the same thing. We've done all we can. This is the point when you may be willing to try anything to get better, turn to anyone who says they have the answer.
00:05:31 Speaker_13
Sometimes experimental or alternative treatments can help, but often it is this moment when you're most vulnerable to being fooled, exploited, or worse.
00:05:43 Speaker_13
I've been a health and science reporter for nearly three decades and interviewed dozens and dozens of patients. I'm often amazed by people's capacity for faith.
00:05:54 Speaker_13
It can be a wonderful thing, helping patients get through some of the toughest moments of their lives.
00:05:59 Speaker_13
But faith in cures can also lead patients to the far edges of medicine, which can be a murky and confusing place filled with unproven treatments, big promises, and questionable practitioners.
00:06:15 Speaker_13
This is a five-episode season about a man who was known as a doctor, an inventor, and ultimately, a suspect in a murder. This is episode one, The Man in the Linen Pants. It was fall in Palm Springs, and Jeffrey Drew was running late to a dinner party.
00:06:42 Speaker_06
I think he still had like makeup on from doing some drag event or something and like, you know, he just like sat down next to me.
00:06:50 Speaker_13
Zebariah Newman and Jeffrey had been friends for a few years. Jeffrey was known in the tight-knit gay community of Los Angeles for his drag alter ego.
00:06:59 Speaker_06
He has this character, Latta Slots, who is a drag queen that is from Vegas and has won the Best in Drag competition show. He's got a short bob. He's got mascara running down his face. He might be a little drunk.
00:07:16 Speaker_06
Definitely telling you the tea on the family. A lot of fun, a little naughty.
00:07:22 Speaker_13
He'd been dressed as Lotta Slots at an earlier charity event. And Zeb was glad to run into him.
00:07:29 Speaker_06
I'm a former smoker. Smoking was one of the greatest loves of my life, and Jeffrey still smokes, and so anytime I'm around him, I just want to smell the secondhand smoke.
00:07:39 Speaker_13
As the cigarette smoke curled around them in the desert air, they caught up with each other. Both of them worked in the entertainment industry, Zeb as a TV producer on late night TV and Jeffrey as a casting director.
00:07:54 Speaker_13
But it was a piece of personal news from Jeffrey that caught Zeb's attention.
00:07:59 Speaker_06
He just casually mentioned that he was going to participate in this, as he called it, like an underground secret HIV cure trial.
00:08:09 Speaker_13
Zeb knew that Jeffrey was HIV positive, had been first diagnosed in 1987, and had been on medication for many years. But this underground secret trial was something new.
00:08:23 Speaker_06
And, you know, Jeffrey was just very flippant about it. I'm going to help try to cure HIV. I'm going to take the next few weeks or month off, and I will maybe get sick, maybe I won't get sick. And, you know, and maybe they'll find a cure.
00:08:37 Speaker_06
And he was just so... I mean, it's so classic Jeffrey because he was missing the gravity of what he was, like, doing, what he was saying. Like, he just was this, like, you know, usual, lighthearted, lovely self floating through the world.
00:08:58 Speaker_13
There were risks. Jeffrey would go off his regular meds for the trial, which meant that if it didn't work, there was a chance his HIV infection could develop into AIDS. But he didn't seem to care. He was ready for a cure to HIV, not more meds.
00:09:16 Speaker_13
He'd been on over 50 different treatments since he was diagnosed. And over the years, he'd grown suspicious of the big pharmaceutical companies. It seemed like they were making a lot of money off the medication.
00:09:31 Speaker_06
Jeffrey is from a generation of men that literally lost so much. I mean, the trauma from those years in the 80s and 90s is still very much alive. He's just, he's 24-7 hooked into helping people.
00:09:50 Speaker_06
And I think that that is a direct manifestation of watching all of his friends die and his lovers die and being devastated by that.
00:10:00 Speaker_13
So that was why Jeffrey was willing to sign up for such an experimental treatment. This wasn't a clinical trial being run by a flagship university or a well-known drug company. Instead, it was linked to a doctor named Serhat Gemrupcu.
00:10:16 Speaker_13
He was carrying out the testing in a private clinic. While a new biotech business had co-founded, Enochian held the rights to the treatment. Zeb recognized the doctor's name.
00:10:28 Speaker_06
It wasn't like some anonymous nurse, some anonymous doctor that none of us knew. Like, I don't know Dr. Serhat, but everyone I know knows him.
00:10:36 Speaker_13
Serhat was often out at parties and sometimes hosted big ones of his own. Zeb had also heard about patients the doctor had really helped.
00:10:47 Speaker_06
I was at a dinner party and suddenly his name came up because he helped someone's father live like six or nine months longer than he was supposed to.
00:10:56 Speaker_13
It was clear to Zeb that Jeffrey was really excited about the possibilities of this treatment. And Zeb, well, he was a TV producer, and he knew a good story when he saw one.
00:11:08 Speaker_13
Jeffrey was risking his own health to find a cure, a cure that, if it worked, could replace the expensive medical cocktails that HIV patients had to accept as the price to stay alive.
00:11:21 Speaker_06
And I just said to him, can I film this?
00:11:26 Speaker_13
Jeffrey didn't even blink.
00:11:29 Speaker_06
Oh, he was 100% in from the very beginning. It was playful, hopeful. Our intentions were really pure. Neither one of us really had any idea what this would turn into.
00:11:43 Speaker_13
To really follow Jeffrey's journey, Zeb also needed to talk to the people running the trial.
00:11:49 Speaker_06
And so, you know, very naively, I was like, let me just call the office and see if I can talk to someone. So Zeb calls and asks, Can you help me get a meeting with Sirhot? I'm filming Jeffrey.
00:12:01 Speaker_06
And I remember it was at that moment that all of these sort of like sirens went off. Like they didn't put a stop to it right away, but they were incredibly cautious.
00:12:13 Speaker_13
They told him Dr. Serhat would not be giving an interview. That wasn't necessarily unusual. Zeb figured the doctor could just be busy. But they also wanted to set another ground rule.
00:12:25 Speaker_13
There would be no mention in the film of Dr. Serhat's name or the clinic where the trial was being conducted.
00:12:32 Speaker_06
There was such a clear and like, do not cross this line that was being messaged to us, to me. Do not cross this line. Do not name him. Do not involve him.
00:12:45 Speaker_13
That gave Zeb pause.
00:12:47 Speaker_06
I wasn't even allowed to film him giving himself shots. They said, you can't film him putting a needle in his body. You can't film him at an office.
00:12:57 Speaker_13
Zeb couldn't understand why Serhat wanted to stay so anonymous. But even without him, he still thought Jeffrey's story was worth telling.
00:13:07 Speaker_06
The other thing is, like, I didn't want to get sued, you know? Like, that's the absolute last thing I wanted to deal with was, like, a lawsuit from these people.
00:13:17 Speaker_13
Zeb came up with a different plan to follow Jeffrey's journey. On the nights after Jeffrey was done, Zeb would head over to his friend's house to hear what happened.
00:13:27 Speaker_06
I'm getting the recap from Jeffrey, what had happened during the day. And Jeffrey's telling me about the different nurses he's talking to, the visits, the shots that he's having.
00:13:38 Speaker_13
But Zeb wasn't expecting what came next.
00:13:42 Speaker_06
Very quickly, he just got super, super sick.
00:13:48 Speaker_13
For the first part of the trial, Jeffrey had stopped taking his anti-HIV drugs and started chemotherapy.
00:13:55 Speaker_06
And it scared me. I just did not even, I had never seen someone be super sick from something like this. I had never witnessed the absolute total devastation on a human body from this type of experiment.
00:14:11 Speaker_13
Zeb wasn't a doctor and he didn't have access to his friend's medical records, but he could see how sick he was getting. Still, Jeffrey told Zeb he was determined to keep going.
00:14:23 Speaker_06
My commitment to this trial, Yeah, it is worth dying for.
00:14:31 Speaker_13
The thinking behind the treatment, at least as they understood it, was that first the chemo would weaken his immune system, which would then allow cells transplanted from an HIV negative donor to go in and attack the virus.
00:14:49 Speaker_13
As Zeb filmed his friend suffering for a cure, the stakes became clear. He decided to reach out to an HIV nonprofit for guidance.
00:14:58 Speaker_06
I wanted their help. These guys were sort of like the grandfathers of the HIV movement, and I wanted their validation.
00:15:09 Speaker_13
Zeb spoke to the head of the organization.
00:15:12 Speaker_06
And I'm like, I'm making a movie, and it's about an underground secret cure trial. And he literally says to me, what is the name of the company that's doing this underground cure trial?
00:15:26 Speaker_06
And I did not give him Dr. Serhat's name, but I said the name of the company. And he went off on me. He basically said that this company was exploiting Jeffrey.
00:15:39 Speaker_06
He explained that there had been decades worth of work to protect long-term survivors with HIV so they would not be exploited in this way by scientists and doctors because HIV is such a lucrative disease that, you know, these men and women have been, you know, asked to participate in these things that have been really detrimental to their health just so that these companies can make a ton of money.
00:16:04 Speaker_13
Zeb thought this new treatment was a way of fighting against exploitation of people with HIV. And now this person was telling him that it just might be the opposite.
00:16:15 Speaker_13
By the way, we should say that the non-profit director didn't want to comment for this story. But Zeb says one thing really stayed with him. The director knew exactly which doctor they were talking about, even though Zeb had never mentioned a name.
00:16:33 Speaker_13
The message was clear. Do not trust Dr. Serhat. Zeb was left reeling.
00:16:42 Speaker_06
I was so thrown by being yelled at by this guy that I was like hoping that he was going to help me and instead he was like totally burying me and like accusing me of just awful things. It really shook me.
00:16:55 Speaker_13
Here he was trying to tell Jeffrey's story and was being told that the whole thing might be taking advantage of his friend.
00:17:02 Speaker_06
And suddenly other people that I was talking to at the time started to pull away. It quickly turned into this, like, Zeb is part of the problem. This project is part of the problem. And I was embarrassed. God, I was so embarrassed.
00:17:21 Speaker_13
But then, Zeb got angry. He made a decision.
00:17:25 Speaker_06
At that point, I was like, you know what? I'm not here to protect you, and I'm not protecting these non-profit HIV guys in New York. I'm here to tell Jeffrey's story and f*** everyone.
00:17:38 Speaker_13
He kept his head down and focused on telling the story of his friend. But the film was about to take them to places neither he nor his critics ever expected.
00:17:56 Speaker_09
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00:21:39 Speaker_13
Jeffrey Drew continued the experimental trial. And on many nights, his friend Zeb would come over to film Jeffrey at his home in Beachwood Canyon, the Hollywood sign looming on the hills above them.
00:21:53 Speaker_13
Zeb would never know from one day to the next what state Jeffrey would be in. Often he'd find Jeffrey overcome with uncontrollable vomiting and constant diarrhea.
00:22:04 Speaker_13
The symptoms were so bad, there were times Jeffrey wasn't able to make it to the bathroom.
00:22:10 Speaker_06
Shitting on himself, puking on himself.
00:22:13 Speaker_13
Zeb just wanted his friend's suffering to stop. And he couldn't believe that aside from the trauma he was putting his body through, Jeffrey was doing it all for free.
00:22:24 Speaker_06
It was like, God, this guy is like, he is going through it and he's got absolutely no compensation. You know, Jeffrey is not a rich man. He grew up in the AIDS crisis and did not plan for the future.
00:22:41 Speaker_06
So he does not live his life with like a lot of savings or, you know, plans for what he's going to do when he's 65, because he just, you know, he'll say he did not believe he would make it to that point.
00:22:52 Speaker_13
Jeffrey even had to stop working, so he had no source of income. It seemed to Zeb that his friend was sacrificing everything for this trial. Meanwhile, Zeb never once saw Dr. Serhat during the filming.
00:23:10 Speaker_13
But he did see him on social media, popping up in pictures with his husband.
00:23:15 Speaker_06
We are seeing on Facebook these trips, places like Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York, even Las Vegas. And, you know, to them, they're posting like these expensive dinners and flying private and fancy hotels and beaches.
00:23:31 Speaker_06
And they are just showcasing their life of extravagance.
00:23:36 Speaker_13
On Instagram, his handle was Doc Serhat. While his account was peppered with stock images of Serhat wearing his white lab coat, it seemed like medicine was only one part of this man's life. There were photos of Serhat on a yacht.
00:23:53 Speaker_13
Serhat with the singer Boy George. In 2021, Serhat with Helen Mirren. And he seemed to like taking pictures with his shirt off. In every photo, his face was the same. Dr. Serhat had a warm, confident smile and friendly blue eyes.
00:24:13 Speaker_13
Zeb remembers one photo in particular that jumped out at him.
00:24:16 Speaker_06
There was a photo of him on Facebook that he had these braids that were like down to his ass that seemed like a Burning Man leftover, just like someone who was still, you know, hanging out at Burning Man like three months later.
00:24:34 Speaker_06
Like that's how he was kind of presenting himself. But then he's also like a major scientist and he's, you know, taking his company public and he's, you know, trying to come up with a cure for HIV.
00:24:46 Speaker_06
And meanwhile, I'm with Jeffrey and we're counting coins for him to get McDonald's. He was contemplating death. He was feeling so sick that he was feeling like it could potentially, he could just not wake up.
00:25:06 Speaker_06
There were many nights where I would say, should I call an ambulance? And he would always say, no, no, no, no, no.
00:25:17 Speaker_13
And then day by day, Jeffrey began to feel better and better. Soon, he was back to feeling like himself. And that continued for months and months. The treatment seemed to be working as they'd hoped.
00:25:34 Speaker_13
According to Serhat's clinic, after an initial spike, the levels of HIV in Jeffrey's blood began to drop.
00:25:42 Speaker_06
And at that time, he was not on any antiviral. He was not on any HIV medication. He was testing negative. He was undetectable.
00:25:50 Speaker_06
So we were not saying he was cured, but we were getting very close to saying that he was on his way to being verified as cured.
00:26:03 Speaker_13
We have not been able to verify Jeffrey's test results, but another source close to him confirmed Zeb's account. It seemed like the experimental treatment was working, and it had all been captured on film.
00:26:21 Speaker_13
As Zeb rushed to finish the documentary, he got a phone call. It was Dr. Serhat's office. He wanted to see the film. So Zeb headed over there, feeling apprehensive.
00:26:34 Speaker_06
I remember there was a nurse there, a woman who was like so excited to watch the movie. I take my laptop, they hook it up to some wire and it's playing on a big screen TV in like a conference room.
00:26:48 Speaker_13
Dr. Serhat and a few others walked in.
00:26:51 Speaker_06
It's very clinical. There's no chit-chat about how I'm doing or what's going on.
00:26:57 Speaker_13
Zeb pressed play, and they all watched the film in silence.
00:27:02 Speaker_06
Between the chills and the fever and throwing up and everything else, just saying, what have I done? Is it worth me dying for this? About how many dollars do you think this is worth? Thousands, I would say.
00:27:15 Speaker_13
As the credits rolled, Zeb turned to see the doctor's reaction.
00:27:20 Speaker_06
Dr. Serhat said, can you blur the numbers on the door?
00:27:25 Speaker_13
there'd been one scene which showed the outside of his offices and the door number.
00:27:30 Speaker_06
And I was like, yeah, totally.
00:27:33 Speaker_13
And that was that. The meeting was over. Serhat didn't have any other feedback. He didn't seem concerned that he was passing up the chance to be seen as a hero in this life-saving discovery. His only concern was keeping his address out of it.
00:27:54 Speaker_13
By the summer of 2021, Jeffrey was feeling great, and Zeb had finished the documentary. He called the film Right to Try. It wasn't just a chronicle of Jeffrey's story.
00:28:07 Speaker_12
The cost of these drug regimens today is $40,000 to $50,000 per person per year.
00:28:13 Speaker_13
It also cast a skeptical light on traditional pharma and traditional HIV medication, which, for the record, has saved millions of lives. But Zeb was still looking for a way to get the film in front of audiences.
00:28:29 Speaker_13
In June, Variety magazine published an article about Zeb's documentary. That article caught someone's attention.
00:28:39 Speaker_10
Let's meet our guest tonight. She is a talented actress, producer, Oscar winner, you know from The Help, Hidden Figures, The Shape of Water, and so much more. The absolute dynamite that is Octavia Spencer is here tonight.
00:28:53 Speaker_13
On December 1, 2021, the actress Octavia Spencer appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
00:29:01 Speaker_02
Well, it follows the story of Jeffrey Drew, who tested positive for HIV nearly 30 years ago.
00:29:11 Speaker_13
Octavia had been so moved that she asked to be a part of it.
00:29:16 Speaker_02
He decides that he was done taking all the medications and he wanted to help find a cure. And he took part in a very dangerous experiment to try to find that cure. And we think he just might be the very first person to be cured of HIV AIDS.
00:29:37 Speaker_13
To be clear, a very small number of people had already been cured of HIV-AIDS before this, but only after extensive bone marrow transplants. Jeffrey's treatment, if it ended up getting through clinical trials, would be available to many more people.
00:29:56 Speaker_13
A few days later, Octavia was telling the same story to Ellen DeGeneres.
00:30:01 Speaker_17
So let's talk, before we run out of time, I want to talk about the documentary.
00:30:05 Speaker_02
I'm really grateful we got to be a part of Jeffrey Drew's story.
00:30:13 Speaker_16
It's getting Oscar buzz already, so congratulations to you on that. Thank you, thank you. And Katy Perry, Katy Perry's song in it. Yeah, it's fantastic.
00:30:22 Speaker_13
Zeb was pinching himself. His no-budget short film that he'd done on a whim was getting noticed by some big people.
00:30:30 Speaker_06
You know, it won some big awards. It got Oscar qualified. Like Jeffrey and I were doing these like Oscar Zoom Q&A things. The film got licensed by Peacock. This is also my first film. And so I'm, you know, I can't believe it.
00:30:48 Speaker_06
And I mean, the level of excitement and attention that this little tiny movie got for about two, three months was shocking.
00:31:01 Speaker_13
Zeb felt like Jeffrey was finally getting his due for all the sacrifices he'd made. He loved going to screenings. He loved giving back to his community. It was like something out of a movie.
00:31:17 Speaker_07
So, who's wearing our fancy lab coat today? Dr. Surhat.
00:31:23 Speaker_13
He's the co-founder of Enochian Biosciences, a biotech company... Around this time, the secretive man behind the trial did give an extensive interview. But it wasn't to Zeb.
00:31:34 Speaker_07
Guy Rokin and his co-host Ali Dashti welcomed Serhat into their tiny recording studio in East Hollywood.
00:31:49 Speaker_13
Ali was excited for his guest. Their podcast, The Fancy Lab Coat Guild, was pretty new, and Ali was still working on his PhD, so landing someone with Serhat's pedigree seemed like kind of a big deal.
00:32:05 Speaker_13
On the day of the interview, they waited outside on the street. Then, Guy remembers seeing a black Cadillac Escalade.
00:32:15 Speaker_07
And he comes out of his car and he is wearing these linen-y harem pants and this other linen-y shirt or like a t-shirt of some kind. And out of the car comes this bodyguard who's just kind of silent.
00:32:34 Speaker_13
Guy showed him to the recording room and offered him some water.
00:32:38 Speaker_05
He arrived to the studio, took his shoes off, and just crossed his legs on the chair and sat without his shoes. And he looks like a yoga instructor. He's dressed like a guru.
00:32:49 Speaker_05
Then we realized that, wow, this person has, like, he's not, he's just not a regular scientist.
00:32:58 Speaker_04
So, Serhat, I want to start by asking you, how really are you today?
00:33:04 Speaker_15
I am amazing.
00:33:07 Speaker_04
Why are you amazing?
00:33:09 Speaker_15
Why am I amazing? Well, I mean, it's life. You have to appreciate every single moment you're in. It's my attitude of gratitude.
00:33:20 Speaker_13
As the interview went on, Dr. Serhat told them he spoke nine languages.
00:33:25 Speaker_15
Turkish, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, a little bit of English, Russian. I'm conversant in Arabic and I can get by in Hebrew.
00:33:38 Speaker_07
Oh, my God. Oh, wow.
00:33:39 Speaker_13
He talked about his photographic memory.
00:33:42 Speaker_15
It's more than photographic. I remember dates and conversations. I mean, pretty much everything. It's not an instant.
00:33:49 Speaker_13
And how he had come up with his treatment for HIV.
00:33:52 Speaker_15
When I met Tony Fauci first time, I explained him the mechanism of my treatment. And it took 10 minutes for him to understand, of course. And his first question was like, How old are you again?
00:34:08 Speaker_15
And his comment was like, why didn't we think about this 20 years ago?
00:34:13 Speaker_05
So simple. I was in awe with the way he was speaking. I'm like a scientist in training, still working on my PhD. In front of me is this guy who has this enormous CV, made millions out of it, and talks about science being art.
00:34:31 Speaker_05
And I'm thinking, oh wow, I would never think about this in my lab.
00:34:36 Speaker_04
Serhat, thank you so much for being here. You showed up, we learned. Thank you for having me, guys.
00:34:41 Speaker_13
As they wrapped up, Serhat mentioned he was having a birthday party at his new house. Why don't they come? Guy and Ali were excited. It seemed like a great way to make some new contacts.
00:34:52 Speaker_05
We were thinking that we're going to meet amazing people in the science realm, or like the innovation realm, you know? That's what I was thinking, Bill Gates, Elon Musk. It doesn't have to be scientists, just people that are very innovative.
00:35:07 Speaker_13
On the day of the party, they took an Uber up to the Hollywood Hills.
00:35:11 Speaker_07
There's this gate and there's like these bodyguards.
00:35:15 Speaker_13
One asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement before they were allowed in.
00:35:20 Speaker_07
And then you go up this, it's like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, this Babylonian spiral that takes you to the top. Plants, landscaping, everything.
00:35:29 Speaker_07
You get to the top of this spiral and it's this old Hollywood mansion with this beautiful pool that has views of the ocean and the city. It's spectacular.
00:35:39 Speaker_13
And all the guests were following an unusual dress code.
00:35:43 Speaker_07
Everybody has to wear white. It's like a white clothing party kind of thing.
00:35:50 Speaker_13
The place was bustling. Hundreds of people.
00:35:53 Speaker_07
There's a food truck, open bar. He's bringing in some DJs. There's like some fire dancer stuff and kind of little performances like that. Good music, good drinks.
00:36:05 Speaker_07
There's this like one room that's filled with pillows and stuff where people are just like resting because it's dark and then they go back out and party or whatever.
00:36:13 Speaker_13
Guy and Ali took it all in.
00:36:15 Speaker_07
There's like yoga instructors and engineers.
00:36:20 Speaker_13
But there weren't many of the types of people Guy and Ali were expecting at all.
00:36:25 Speaker_07
Not a lot of biotech or science people, which maybe to some extent makes a bit of sense because you're in LA, you have a much different type of personal life.
00:36:36 Speaker_13
But still, there was one profession that did stand out.
00:36:41 Speaker_07
There was a lot of magicians. Magicians, I found very weird as a person who is a scientist that he has so many magician friends. It's like very odd to me because their whole job is deception. But yeah, that was weird.
00:36:58 Speaker_13
At the time, Guy didn't think too much of it.
00:37:01 Speaker_07
He's rich. He likes eccentric things. He's not the first rich eccentric person, you know, to do that. Some of them have different proclivities. His is magicians. Okay. Sue me.
00:37:16 Speaker_13
Eventually, they came across Serhat right in the center.
00:37:20 Speaker_07
He's not wearing a shirt and just these poofy linen pants. And he looks, he looks like he's tripping. I'm like, are you on something? He's like, no, I'm just like, it's just so, it's just the energy or some shit like that.
00:37:38 Speaker_13
They thanked him for the invitation and kept circulating among the guests. As the party went on into early morning, Guy kept noticing Serhat in the middle of things.
00:37:49 Speaker_07
He's just dancing the whole time. He's almost kind of an introverted person, even though he is the life of the party.
00:37:58 Speaker_07
He just kind of looks like he's vibing with himself and, you know, he's dancing and kind of dancing with people and not really talking that much.
00:38:12 Speaker_13
Guy and Ali enjoyed the party, then went home to their less fabulous lives. They put up the episode of their podcast, which, truthfully, not many people noticed.
00:38:24 Speaker_13
And they'd pretty much forgotten the whole thing until a few months later, when Guy was at his lab.
00:38:30 Speaker_07
And I get a DM, a LinkedIn message, from someone who I don't know, being like, hey, Have you seen this article? Your podcast episode is referenced." And I think, oh, cool, what is this? And I consumed it.
00:38:49 Speaker_13
It was an article by a small investment company called Hindenburg Research. Its subject was Dr. Serhat.
00:38:58 Speaker_07
I inhaled this article in record time. I don't think I've ever read anything faster. So many things start shattering.
00:39:07 Speaker_05
We were just mind-blown, yeah. I was in shock for a day. I didn't know how to process it, and my friends were like, this is insane.
00:39:15 Speaker_13
Ali thought back to their interaction with Serhat, to when he was sitting cross-legged and barefoot in their studio. He thought back over all the things he'd told them. Did he really speak nine languages? Was he a scientific mastermind?
00:39:31 Speaker_13
Was he really worth millions? Who was this guy? Thinking back, it was a question even Dr. Serhat had seemed cagey about.
00:39:42 Speaker_04
Who is Serhat?
00:39:45 Speaker_15
Well, I am... Well, that's a difficult question to answer, actually. Who am I?
00:39:54 Speaker_13
Coming up on this season of Dr. Death.
00:39:59 Speaker_03
I kind of think of it like, we're like pirates, but we only rob other pirates. I just pick up the phone, boom, there he is. He just bought a Porsche, and he just started having parties.
00:40:08 Speaker_14
This was a person who's willing to cold-heartedly just lie to people's faces. He pulled a gun on his head.
00:40:16 Speaker_00
We believe that he died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso.
00:40:27 Speaker_13
From Wendry, this is episode one of five of Dr. Death, Bad Magic. I'm your host, Laura Beale. This series is written by Benjamin Gray. Producer is Nika Singh. Senior producer is Russell Finch. Story Editor is Allison Weintraub.
00:40:46 Speaker_13
Senior Editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Fact-Checking by Jacqueline Colletti. Additional Reporting by Gulsan Harman. Production Assistance by Mariah Dennis and Emily Locke. Sound Design and Mixing by Kyle Randall. Senior Managing Producer is Lata Pandya.
00:41:03 Speaker_13
Coordinating Producer is Heather Beloga. Produced by StoryForce. Music Supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Freesound Sync.
00:41:12 Speaker_13
Special thanks to Ali Dashti and Guy Rokin of the Fancy Lab Coat Guild podcast, and to Nate Anderson and the staff at Hindenburg Research for use of their reporting. Executive producers are Bly Pagan-Faust and Corey Shepard Stern for StoryForce.
00:41:29 Speaker_13
Our executive producers are George Lavender, Marshall Louie, and Jen Sargent for Wondering.
00:41:47 Speaker_08
It's me, the mean one, the green one, the Grinch. And I'm back for season two of Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast. And this holiday season, we're going big, baby.
00:41:56 Speaker_08
I'm talking A-list guests, B-plus comedy, and together with my crew, that's Max the Dog and Cindy Lou Who. Hello, everyone. I'll try to clear my name once again from the latest accusations leveled against me.
00:42:11 Speaker_08
Turns out somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa. And for some reason, everybody thinks I did it. It's a real Whoville whodunit. So join me for Season 2 of Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast when it drops on November 25th.
00:42:26 Speaker_08
Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas mystery bonus content and listen to every episode ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts.