To Live and Die in LA · Tenderfoot TV & Audacy

Five Years Later - E1: A Different Kind of Star (Republish)

February 23, 2023·34 min·3 clips

On the fifth anniversary of Adeya Shabani's disappearance, the host reveals he knows what happened but not why.

The episode opens on the fifth anniversary of Adea Shabani's disappearance, with host Neil Strauss — a Rolling Stone journalist — noting that releasing the podcast has brought threats against him and his family. He frames his investigation as a question about motive, not just method: what drives a person to commit premeditated murder to solve what he describes as a small problem. Adea Shabani was a 25-year-old from Macedonia who had studied at the American University in Paris, worked at a jewelry store in Dubai, and moved to Hollywood to pursue acting, booking her first role in a Macedonian animated film just before she disappeared. A disturbing audio clip of her voice demanding the return of a Rolex watch and saying she had been beaten up is played. Strauss was introduced to the case by private investigator Jaden Brandt, who had previously worked with Strauss on a Malibu disappearance. He interviews Adea's mother Nora in Adea's apartment on Hollywood Boulevard, finding a room decorated with inspirational quotes, photos of Kanye West, Justin Bieber, and Marilyn Monroe, and a whiteboard with 'Zest for life' written on it. Friends Emma and Angel describe racing to the apartment after Adea stopped responding, finding the door left unlocked, and being told by police not to come to the station because officers had other things to do. An ex-boyfriend identified only as Ivan, who held Adea's phone bill and apartment lease in his name despite never living there, claims to have hired a hacker to access her iCloud. He shares data showing her last phone activity at 12:50 p.m. on the day she disappeared, and her final text — sent to a friend from acting class asking where to buy red candles — 48 minutes earlier. A tip received that night claims a witness saw Adea being placed into the bed of a pickup truck outside her building, appearing to be drugged, before the truck drove south on Hollywood Boulevard.

As heard by us

A restrained disappearance story grounded in grief, proximity, and uncertainty.

On the fifth anniversary of the disappearance, the episode shifts from the date itself to the people left behind. The narrator goes to the apartment, talks with family and friends, and records the mother's first interview about her daughter, so the story moves through absence…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a true-crime episode that starts with the family, not the headline.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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