Reflecting on Zach's Complex Legacy

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That's fetchpet d. com slash save On november twenty eighth, twenty nineteen, nineteen year old Zach Bretler was living at home with his parents in London He told his mother, Rachelle, he was going to spend the weekend with a friend Just to chill out. He told her he was a little stressed out and he was going to do a phone detox. He had told her he was going to be staying in a part of London just a few miles away In a fancy apartment complex called Riverwalk And so as far as Rochelle knew, that was where Journalist Patrick Rad and Keef. Zack's friend came to pick him up And after he left, Rochelle realized Zack had left his keys and credit cards behind His mother thought that was really odd And so she just texted him and she said, you know, I'm so worried about you. Are you okay? If you've gone away for the weekend, you know, aren't you going need your keys and your wallet? Is everything going to be all right And hours later He texted back Eddie just wrote all good X The next morning, Rochelle was at home alone Her husband, Matthew, was on a business trip Around nine thirty AM. She heard the doorbell ring And there was a man that she didn't know standing on the doorstep, a guy who was a kind of middle aged man, He was black. He was elegantly dressed in a suit and a bright tie. and She thought he looked Maybe like a chauffeur, like a driver of some sort And he was holding a phone And the phone had somebody on speaker And she came to the door and he said IsZacholm And she said, No, he's not. who are you And he said, Who are you She was a little taken aback And she said, Well, I'm his mum And at this point, she heard a voice from the phone in this guy's hand And she could hear this voice say, That c't be his mom His mum's in Dubai And she was totally startled. She'd never been to Dubai. But before she could ask any questions The guy in the doorstep turned around got into a rangerver. and drove away After he left, Rachelle tried to call Zack But her call went straight to voicemail Then she called her husband Matthew They ended up calling the police. They had a kind of premonition that something might be very wrong I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal When Zach Brettler was a little kid, his parents described him as bright and a little quirky. He's always a bit of a smart alex. he's a great talker He was the kid who would put on funny voices. He had a kind of theatricality to him tell jokes. He was always very at ease talking to adults, even when he was a kid. And so he was kind of fun to be around. in that respect. You know, you had a sort of slightly jazzy style of conversation. You know, sometimes you encounter somebody and they They're just kind of fun to talk to because you never know quite what they're going to come out with next And he had a confidence to him evenven as a really young kid His older brother, Joe remembers that once at a family party when Zach was around five A girl showed something to Zach and asked him Can you read this Zack told her I didn't bring my glasses He used to memorize the electronic sections from shopping catalogues. and loved cars especially fancy sports cars. His favorite was a bugatti I started going to a school called Mill Hill. He became known as a class clown And he did well He joined the tennis team and the cricket team His parents noticed he started to become obsessed with money. Many of his classmates came from very wealthy families. Really wealthy families And so a lot of Zach's classmates were the children of oligarchs, the children of foreigners, often from the former Soviet Union. who had huge fortunes, no billionaires H had a second home in London, they made London their home in part because they wanted to send their kids to school in London. Dack had never really been exposed to those kinds of people when he was growing up, but at thirteen gets to Mill Hill and He's suddenly surrounded by these classmates, these kind of international students who had swagger and they had money and they had designer clothes And on the weekends, they would go to fancy restaurants and they'd party at nice hotels A lot of the kids were boarding students. and the dormitory was about an eight minute walk from class. and on cold days, These kids of oligarchs, they would summon Ubers. to bring them to class Zack started saying how great he thought Vladimir Putin was H favorite movies were The Wolf of Wall Street, when Leonardo DiCaprio and war dogs. about childhood friends who get rich by becoming arms dealers As a teenager, Zack began fighting with his parents They argued a lot about money. Roelle and Matthew were really well off by most standards. They lived in a nice two thousand square foot apartment and made a Vale, which is quite a nice neighborhood in central London And they were paying to send these two kids to private schools. So this was a family that by most standards was really privileged Zach felt as though he didn't have enough And so he started to say to his parents, he would say know, why don't we drove a mazda Why don't we drive a Mercedes? Why don't we drive a Bentley You know, we should really buy a house in this neighborhood. And the thing is that a house in that neighborhood, you know cost ten million dollars. And so he started to seem a little strange to them because there was a sense of, you know, how much do you want But over time he also just got kind of more sullen. I mean, in a way that anybody who's been an adolescent will relate to that you you're kind of pulling away from your parents. And I think that Rachelle and Matthew felt that in a painful way, but not in a way that felt like they should sound the alarm Zach's friends said he talked about starting his own businesses all the time. He tried to convince them to go in on different ideas with him He got older friends to buy him cartons of cigarettes and would sell them individually to his classmates He found a storage room where the school kept things left behind by students. and began selling those too He started wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase After Zach turned seventeen His father said Zach changed a lot. Zack's brother had just graduated school. and was takaking a gap here W Sack had recently tried to transfer schools and had gotten rejected He was angry a lot of the time And Rochelle remembers that Zach was hard to talk to they argued even more One night, Zack and Rochelle were home alone started in on, you know what was a very familiar argument to them at that point about how the family should have a nicer home And she said something. She made some remark about how he sounded like a spoiled brat And suddenly Zack's hands were around her throat. and It only lasted a second And he didn't actually, you know, physically her, but it was that kind of impulse to sort literally to kind of go for the jugular And she was terrified And You know, it was over almost as quickly as it began, but on the other side of that, Rochelle insisted that get into therapy. to see a psychiatrist. who noted that Zach had a somewhat defiant manner They talked about school and his family. Zack said he was quote focused on being wealthy The psychiatrist said Zach showed quote, A potentially dangerous lack of insight and skewed norms of behavior The psychiatrist recommended therapy But Zack only went to one appointment And Richelle and Matthew didn't make him keep going. They said after his fight with Rachelle, he seemed to calm down, and they argue thus In twenty eighteen, Zack got an internship with a man who owned a chauffeur company He told his parents he was doing well. and doing real business deals They were under the impression that he was making money, that he was, you know, he was actually doing deals. He told them about a real estate deal he'd done where he'd gotten a finder's fee for this luxury apartment that he found for a woman who worked at Chelsea Football cllub He increasingly seems as though ' kind of impatient with school. He's not sure he wants to go to college He really is in a hurry. You know, he wants to go out and kind of get rich and be out there in the world Zack told his parents he was going to move out He said he had met someone who owned multiple apartments in the Riverwalk complex in Central London right next to the Thames And he was letting Zach stay in one By October was back home He said he was lonely Rachelle and Matthew said that during this time, there was a lot about Zach's life they didn't know Rachel New that Zack had been visiting a neighbor an older Russian woman. She sometimes wondered if they were dating At one point, Zack showed his father's bank account It showed at over eight hundred thousand pounds. They were really worried about his lifestyle You know, they were worried he might be dealing drugs or using drugs, they actually kind of surreptitiously gotot his doctor to do a blood test. I mean, he had a blood test at a checkup. They asked the doctor to screen the blood for drugs, came back negative. At one point they went away on vacation and they actually installed a hidden camera in the living room of the house just to see who we might have brought home. But All that came up was, you know, there were some guys from the local tennis club who came back and they would watch TV. they'd just watch movies on the television Zack told his parents about someone he had been doing business with A man named Akbar Shamji. He told his parents, I've met this guy He is a really wealthy, really successful, just impressive London businessman. He went to Cambridge University He's this kind of good looking, glamorous guy in his forties He has an apartment on Mount Street and Mount Street in Mayfair. It's just For those who don't know London is know Mayfair is one of the fanciest neighborhoods in London and Mount Street is one of the fanciest streets He had two kids who were younger than Zach. And he had a wife named Daniella Carnut since she was a fashion designer with an Aelier in London and she designed these veryer high end gowns the sort that you might wear the Oscars or something for really well known women for Princess Kate, for Meghan Markle for Gwyneth Paltrro for Michelle Obama. He showed his mother the dresses, that that fashion line is called Safia. the dresses on his iPad Um, He told his parents that he and Akbar were starting to look at some business deals. And so there were you know, there was a deal involving cars and deal involving CBD infused skincare products. and so They were kind of out hustling doing deals And they didn't meet Akbar at that time. But to his mother and father, it seemed like he'd made friends with this guy who was maybe a mentor and kind of was What Zach wanted to become So maybe with the help of somebody like Akbar, he could make something of himself If I were his parents, I would think I would be thinking This a successful forty year old businessman doing hanging around my eighteen year old son I mean, you know, were they suspicious at all I think they were. Yeahah. I mean, I think it was a very, very difficult period of time for the Bothers because Zach has turned eighteen and He's already kind of trying to pull away and assert himself as an adult. So yes, they were anxious and suspicious and they didn't really know what the story was But they were worried that if they pushed too hard push him away The last time Rachelle saw Zack On the day he'd left his keys and wallet behind ar Samji was the friend who had picked him up fourour days passed Police didn't have any news for Rochelle and Matthew What's their next step? Richell called around to talk to various friends of Zach' And one of them ended up giving her the phone number for Akbar Shamji Bar Shamji agreed to meet them and tell them about the last time he'd seen Zack He asked them to come to a hotel called the Meridian. When they met Akbar, There was something kind of reassuring about him. He's a very elegant, polished guy and he told them that Zach was a close friend and he told them that he was really surprised to meet them because he had understood that Zach was not named Zach Bretler at all that his real name was Zach Ismilov Barsamji said that he thought Zack was the son of a billionaire Russian oligarch. He had believed that Zack was living in the UK to invest his family's money And so it was this very strange meeting of the two of them because Bar was saying he was kind of shocked to meet these English parents who aren't billionaires. and learned that they were Zach's real parents, and Matthew and Rachelle were shocked to learn that their son might have had this secret alter ego Barshamji said he had met Zach through a friend named Mark Foley who managed some real estate for Chelsea foootball Cub. which is the famous storied soccer team owned by Roman Abramovich The most famous Russian Oligarch And so you can see how if you're Zack and you think that Putin is great and Roman Avoramovich is great, and you're a little obsessed with the oligarch set in London. You meet a guy like Mark Foley, who works for Chelsea Football Club, That's a really appealing contact to have So Zach initially tells Mark Foley that he is The son of an oligarch person's act trx And so Mark Foley arranges a meeting between Zach and Akbar and That is where their friendship is born As Akbar talked to Zack's parents Some of what Zach had told Rachelle and Matthew did seem to be true said they had sold cars in Romania and Georgia And it made some money with rare earth mineral mining told them that after he'd picked up Zach on the day he went missing They drove around the city before they went to the River Walk complex They met a man named Verinda Sharma there. Brenda was another middle aged guy And Akbar was a little ambiguous about what Verandnder did for a living. He said he was kind of semi retired Zack's parents pieced together that when Zack had briefly moved out He'd actually been staying with Verinder Sharma Bar said that on the way to Riverwalk Zack said he needed to tell him something Zach had confessed to him Zach was addicted to heroin As Ackbar told Roachell and Matthew He took Zack to the Rriverwalk complex, whereere Zack then confessed about his heroin addiction to Verinda Sharma Akbar said that the three of them talked for a while And by the end of the night, they'd all agreed that Zach would go to a rehab clinic in the morning that he left Veranda and Zack at the apartment. He said Ferinder called him in the morning and said Zack was gone. What ex parents think when they heard heroine, did they believe that that could be a possibility? So all of this, you can imagine was a lot coming at Matthew and Rachelle. and There was an interesting thing where when they heard that he'd been pretending that he was the son of a Russian hlologarch, it was completely shocking but they believed it They could sort of see some version of their son who could find his way to telling that kind of story When they heard from Aack Bar that Zach was addicted to heroin Neither of them believed it for a second And you know, it wasn't that they had some kind of parental fantasy that their kid couldn't take drugs. It's just that heroin didn't seem to be Zachs kind of thing. They thought if anything, it would be cocaine And you know, Zach had been living with them, they thought it would have been difficult for him to kind of carry on a heroin addiction and be living with them and they would never pick up on any of the signs. This was a kid who got up in the morning and took long runs along the Thames. It just didn't seem right. They did believe that Zach might have told Akbarr that he was addicted to heroin, but they thought that if he said something like that, it was probably because he was scared or he wanted pity Now, Zach was always the kid in school who would feain a migraine on the day of the exam He often would come up with stories that he would tell in order to kind of get out of doing something or get somebody to feel bad for him So they believed that Zach might have lied and said this to A Bar, but they didn't believe the heroin story a minute And what do they think about Akbar? I mean, he's more their peer than Zackspeare, I mean, you know, age wise. They recorded that first conversation. they actually recorded it on an iPhone. and eventually They let me listen to the recording and I think they were so reassured by Akbar. They were so grateful to him for his help In that moment, they thought, this is a guy who actually kindinda got burned by our son. He's like a real serious grown up with a professional life and a lot of money, clearly. Our son sort of wheedled his way into this guy's life, pretending to be something he wasn't S Bar has just learned that Zach was lying about all that And yet he seems very kind and he keeps saying, the most important thing is we've got to get Zach home. We've got to get him back safe Bar Shamji introduced the Bretlers to Verinder Sharma over the phone Verinder also thought Zack was a billionaire Zack had told him that he wasn't speaking to his mother because of a problem with his inheritance. He had said his mother and the rest of his family were all in Dubai Verinder said I didn't think someone could lie to that extent. Roachelle and Matthew apologize to both men for Zack's lies Verinder said the only thing that mattered was getting Zack back They all agreed to stay in touch The next day pololice officers came to the Bretler's home They set a body had been found in the Thames We'll be right back to listen without ads Join Criminal plus Thanks to Squarespace for their support Making a website can be intimidating, especially because it's often the first thing people see about your business If you want to build a website that makes a great first impression on people, you don't need years of coding experience You just need Squarespace. 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Police were called to the Thames They hadd received a report that there was a body on the riverbank in front of the Riverwalall complex This initially is a John Doe investigation body had no ID Tos There was no suggestion of who this person was He had no shirt on or shoes just sweatpants and socks The police assumed that he had jumped off a bridge, somewhere else and that the body had drifted down river through the night About thirty people are found every year in the Thames Most of them are people who died by suicide The body was taken to the police station And then the mortuary Police began trying to ID him. If you imagine how big London is and how big the metropolitan police Scotland Yard is You have this kind of bizarre situation where there's this body They don't know who it is. And in another part of the city, there's a missing persons investigation that starts where they're looking for this missing kids act brother. and the left hand and the right hand aren't talking for about four or five days Finally, the police put it together. They realized that the body found out in front of the building was the same kid who went missing. On december fifth, twenty nineteen, Police arrested Verinda Sharma. on suspicion of murder Zaket told his parents Verinda Sharma was a rubber tycoon Police knew that Verinder Sharma had a long criminal record He was also known as Indian Dave police had investigated him for drug smuggling and potential involvement in a homicide from a drive by shooting with an AK forty seven At one point, he faked his death when he was charged with blackmail But he'd actually gone into hiding in Monaco There were accounts that he would hold people over the sides of buildings. pay back their loans When he was questioned about the night that Zack died, Verinder Sharma said he believed that Zack had killed himself He said he had fallen asleep after midnight. ' been drinking whiskey taken a sleeping pill So I didn't remember much about the night He said Zack had been crying was upset about his heroin addiction. that by the end of the night, they had hugged He said I would like to state for the record that I was not responsible for Zack's death in any way When officers asked him more questions, he answered No comments which is the English equivalent of pleading the fifth You know, this is a guy who was a very seasoned hardcore English gangster who'd been in prison and had been investigated for murder. and He did what those kinds of hard men tend to do in these situations, which is he totally clampmed up Police had also arrested Akbar Shamji He told them he thought that Zack was, quote kind of slightly schizophrenic Barami told police that on the night of november twenty eighth, he went home and his wife had been angry with him for staying out so late So he'd slept in his car Police officers had evidence that he was lying They had footage from CCTV cameras from the night that Zack died at the CCTV footage, he was there and then he left drove away And then Bar didn't drive home. he actually just kind of drove around the area as if he was sort of hanging out just in case. And it was late at night. you know, this is one, two in the morning And Zach was alone in the apartment with Sharma for about twenty or thirty minutes. And then at a certain point, Indian and Dave called him. we know that from the phone records. The phone record showed that around two AM Verinda called Obar And as soon as Akbar got that call, he turned his car around and he started speeding to Riverwalk. He heard something on that call. that made him desperate to get back there and he pulls up in front of the building and gets out of the car and goes in and starts heading up. And just at the moment he pulls up in front of the building, the footage shows Zach walking out onto the balcony Walking over to one end and seeming to kind of look over the side and then walking over to the other and then walking to the center and jumping Moments after Zach goes up the balcony, Akbar goes into the apartment He's in there for about fifteen minutes. We don't know what happens when he's inside because he wouldn't tell the police and neither would Sarma. But afterwards, goes downstairs and you think he's going to go home again Instead, he walks around the building. the other side which is where the river is And he walks right over to the river, and there's a river wall there. And he walks right over to exactly the point where Zach had just gone into the river And the cameras capture Akbar Shamji leaning over and looking down into the river at just the point or ax just gone into it thenen He straightens up walks back around the building gets into his car and drives home Police asked why Akbar Shamji had gone to look in the river He said, It's a nice bit of the river. One police officer said it seemed like too much of a coincidence. But Okbar said that he would have called the police if he had seen Zack. One week after Zach's death, Richelle and Matthew met with the lead detective, a man named Rory Wilkinson. He explained that Zack had several injuries, most of them related to his fall, but the police said he had a broken jaw that they couldn't explain Detective Wilkinson said police had video showing Zach alone on the fifth floor balcony But he said, If someone is so scared that they jump, even if it's of their own volition, that still is obviously a criminal offense, possibly murder Police officers had also searched Verinda Sharma's apartment and found Zach's phone broken in two It wasn't his main phone that he used to text with his parents. It was a burner phone with special encryption Police didn't have enough evidence to hold Akbar Shamji or Verindar Sharma Both men were released on bail T Zack's parents feel the investigation is going. I you know, when the police start, are they happy with the information they're getting Initially, the police were very reassuring and they said, listen, you know, this is Scotland Yard. It's one of the biggest most well resourced police departments in the world. We will leave no stone unturned Um The brothers basically took it for granted that the police would do what they said that they would do And so initially They u I think felt as though it was in good hands Then the COVID pandemic kicks in and things kind of slow down. and They're not sure how much of the non responsiveness of the cops is a function of COVID and how much of it is that they seem to have sort of lost the thread on the investigation. And over time, they become more and more uneasy And so Rachelle and Matthew, rather than be passive feel as though they owe it to their son to get to the bottom of what happened to him. Matthew and Rochelle had also hired a private investigator after Zach had gone missing They started calling Zach's friends to find out for themselves the last few weeks of his life had been like One friend said that a few days before he died He'd noticice Zack kept checking his surroundings. he was thinking of going to the police because he was being threatened His friends weren't always sure if what Zack said was real claimed that his father was an arms dealer. Later, Rochelle found out that when Zach was thirteen, during his first year at Mill Hill, He told his classmates that his mother had died She learned that the neighbor she thought Zack had been dating a woman named Zamira had believed Zak was from Kazakhstan She was from Russia and they had become friends She sometimes made Zack food and had once invited him to celebrate New Years with her family Sometimes when they talked Zach threw in a word of Russian Rachelle learned that her full name was Zamira Ismailova Zack had used her last name for his fake identity with Akbar Shamji and Verinder Sharma. Rell and Matthew began to worry Two men have been trying to extort money from Zack They eventually start learning more about the gangster past of Veranda Sharma. And Akbar, it turns out, has a very checkered history in terms of business and his life And in fact, in the months before he meets Zach Bretler, Akbar has actually declared bankruptcy. Now you wouldn't know it. He's still living a very luxe lifestyle with the apartment on Mount Street and he meets people at these various private clubs that he's a member of. But he's actually in some financial trouble at the point where this young kid who says that he is the son of a billionaire oligarch. suddenly wanders into his life And where did Zach fall in this threesome Zach was adopted by them basically as a kind of friend and protege He would spend time with their families, with Akbar's kids, with Indian Dave's kids And so he really kind of in that sort of classic way with Zach. He went from not knowing people at all to ingratiating himself with them really quickly I think they were amused by him. I think they absolutely were enticed by the idea that he might have access to hundreds of millions of dollars that he could help them out with or he could channel some of that money in. The problem was he kept telling all these stories about how he was going to come through with money and investments And the money itself never materialized. Roelle and Matthew check Zach's bank account they had saved checks from his grandparents over the years and money he'd gotten from his Barmitzva put it in a savings account given it all to him after he turned eighteen It was about eighteen thousand pounds He had kind of blown through that money, it turns out, pretending that he was the son of an oligarch, you know, paying for meals, doing this and that kind of here and there to seem incredibly like a rich person And in the days before he died, Zack That bank account had only four pounds He was close to empty. They tried to contact some of the people Zach had said he was doing business with They said they didn't know anything that could help them. Zach's father, Matthew, spoke with the owner of a cafe in one of the River Walks buildings He'd been there, the morning Zack's body had been found by the Thames. He helped them get in touch with some of the doormen from Riverwalk At the end of twenty twenty The lead detective on Zack's case called with News Verinder Sharma had been found dead. We'll be right back comes from bombers If your sock drawer could use an upgrade, Bombus has a range of well designed socks, like their sports socks, which are made with a cushioned, sweat wicking design that also stops them from sliding down your foot while you're in motion. And Bombus has more than socks. They also make soft and breathable basics, including underwear and t shirts I look forward to going on longonger runs, wearing my new Bombus run socks. They're soft and lightweight, made with a mesh knit that makes them breathable And they're designed with cushioning in the heel and toe to protect your feet Bombas also has a mission. 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He said it might have been a suicide, it might have been an overdose. He didn't really know the details. And he said he wasn't able to learn the details. He said we're being kind of kept sterile from that part of the investigation And they were confused by this. if you're leading a murder investigation and your lead suspect dies why it is that If you were that cop, you would be kept sterile from knowing the circumstances of that death A year later, Detective Wilkinson Ased to meet with Rochelle and Matthew He had an update on the investigation He told him that he wouldn't be able to give them a copy of the case files He would read everything aloud and they could record it Rachelle and Matthew were told about text messages on Verinda Sharma's phone. that in the days leading up to his death, Okbar and Verinda no longer trusted Zach Verinda Sharma had written to Okbar trying to find out how much money Zack had. and texted that they should take Zack to an ATM He also texted I want five percent of that two hundred five million. Okbar sent a voice memo back and said, I'm highly skeceptical about this two hundred and five million. Verinder responded saying that they were owed fifty percent of everything Zach owned The night Zack died, Okbar had texted another man that he had been, quote, heating up the knives and clearing up blood Matthew and Roelle asked if the police had interviewed that man They said no They also learned the police had not interviewed the chauffeur, who knocked on the door and told Rochelle that she couldn't be Zach's mother It had been two years since Zack died cops really had very few answers and basically kept sort of suggesting, well, you know, maybe he just committed suicide, Maybe that's what this is. And at that point, the brothers were a little bit more aggressive because they had really done more homework than the police had. The lead detective kind of defensively says, you know, I feel like I'm the criminal here and you guys are interviewing me. You know, you're interrogating me In February of twenty twenty two, prosecutors in London said they would not file charges against Akbar Shamji in connection with Zach Bretler's death Ten months later three years, after Zach had died The coroner's office held a public inquest about his death Anytime there's a death in the UK that is unnatural or kind of unclear, ambiguous. There's what's called an inquest And it's an interesting procedure. It looks a little bit like a judicial inquiry There's a coroner who acts essentially like a judge. you have evidence presented, it's a somewhat adversarial situation in the sense that the Bretlers in this case had a lawyer who was able to cross examine witnesses. And so this was kind of their last bite at the apple in terms of an opportunity to really try and get to the bottom of what had happened to Zach In some ways, it was very dramatic in the sense that they were able to kind of confront face to face. Some of these people who clearly knew more than they were saying about the circumstances of Zach's death Conner said at the beginning of the inquest We're here simply to find the answers to four questions Who the deceased was, where he died, when he died and how he came by his death Sar Shamji testified over video call. He had left London and was now working at a cryptocurrency company He spoke for several hours Matthew and Roelle's lawyer asked Okbar about the text Verinda had sent him, saying he wanted five percent of that two hundred five million. Sar said that Zack was always promising huge sums of money I pretty clearly told Sharma, I don't think there's any golden pod at the end of that rainbow The Brentler's lawyer also asked about some of the texts Okbar had sent before Zach died including the one where he said he was heating up knives and cleaning up blood. bar said he was, quote a little bit drunk He said he hadn't meant literal blood. He said that blood is, quote, a more earthy streety way of saying bro. The lawyer asked about the nine minute call between Verinder and Okbar at around two AM, that ended just a few minutes before Zach had jumped from the balcony Okbar said he didn't remember what they hadd talked about The lawyer asked if Verinda Sharma had seemed angry Akbar said everything was fine The coroner asked Okbar if he had ever talked with Verinder about what happened that night Okbar said I never push too hard I'm not sure what kind of hornet's nest I would have been kicking. When his testimony was done, the coroner allowed Akbar Shamji to continue listening to the rest of the inquest over video call. Most of the time, he kept his camera off But at one point he accidentally turned it on and the courtroom realized he'd taken his computer to the bathroom, where he was taking a shower The inquest took two days At the end, the coroner's official finding was that the cause of Zack's death was inconclusive Corner says could have been suicide could have been something more sinister I'm not in a position to say. And so the brothers come out of that really kind of shimmering with fury because they feel as though This was the last opportunity. when the authorities, the British authorities could help them find answers about the death of their son, and they were let down once again Richelle and Matthew think happened to Zach The brrothers believe and I think they're right that Zach thought that if he stayed in that apartment, he was going die And so he went out onto the balcony and he did a swan dive He thought, the only chance I have is of making it to the river And it was a fifth floor balcony and The worst part of this is that had he made it clean into the river, he might actually have survived. He probably would have been quite badly hurt jumping into the river from that height, but he might have survived. But on his way down His hip clipped the embankment wall Uh, And so he died in the water Patrick Rad and Keef wrote a book about Zach Bretler After he finished it, Rochel invited him to visit It was last September and Roelle wrote to me and said, we're going to have a little ceremony at our home to mark what would have been his twenty fifth birthday. And it was about thirty or forty people. friends and family, people who knew Zach and loved him And it was the most extraordinary thing. It was actually kind of a joyous event. It was a celebration of his life I think that Rachelle and Matthew and Joe, Zach's brother They think a lot about Zach and they try and honor his memory But in kind of a strange way, through this process of kind of trying to solve his death They've come to see him in a way that is more full and complete than they were ever able to when he was alive and as flawed and complex as he turns out to be To love him and that complexity Rachellea said Zack always stretched the truth a little. He should have been an actor. He should have been a writer Zach's brother Joe, told Patrick that he sometimes has dreams about his brother He said they were usually happy dreams of Zach when he was younger In January of twenty twenty five The Bretlers met with two senior officers with the metetropolitan police One of the officers said that he still talked with the lead detective from the investigation, Rory Wilkinson about Zach