The confession tapes

They're comin' to lock your ass up.

Yours and your friend's.

Now, if you want my help...

you have to do as I say, and things are gonna be done proper.

If you don't want it, you can tell me right now...

- and you're gonna deny ever knowing me. - Well, I want your help.

It's gonna save you and your friend's ass from jail.

- But you're gonna pay me in the end. - Yeah.

Fuck, you got yourself in a pile of shit, man.

How'd you fucking do three people at once?

Tell me what went on, and I'll tell you how I'll take care of your problem.

- What are you reporting? - Uh, there's, uh...

I need, uh, an ambulance.

Okay. What's the problem there?

There's been some kind of break-in. I...

Okay, well, just calm down. What's the problem?

The... The two...

My friend, his mom and dad...

are...

We think they're dead.

- Just calm down. - I don't think it's safe here.

- I want... We'll be outside. - Okay, go ahead and go outside.

- Please, fast! Okay? - They're on the way.

- Okay. - They're on the way.

- We'll be outside. - Okay, go ahead.

Approximately 2:30 in the morning, I got a phone call.

My boss asked me to respond to the Rafay residence,

which was in the Somerset area of Bellevue.

They had just moved in, so there was a lot of boxes.

In the family room downstairs, we found Mrs. Rafay facedown on the ground.

She had blunt force trauma to the head.

From that room, we went upstairs to Dr. Rafay's room.

There was blood spatter, brain matter...

The entire room was covered in debris from the murder of Dr. Rafay.

And then we went into Basma Rafay's room, the daughter of Dr. Rafay.

She was still alive.

And she later died at the hospital that morning.

The two people that found them were Atif Rafay, the son,

and his best friend, Sebastian Burns.

They were our only witnesses.

When they took them down to the police department,

that was the first time

that it was kind of an eye-opener as to who these people really were.

At the time, we didn't understand how the world worked.

I don't know how to describe it.

But when you're a teenager, anything seems possible.

We started dating in grade 12

and dated throughout first year of college.

Sebastian, he was bright.

He was a good student but a lazy student.

He was someone who liked to talk

and debate and share and tell you how he felt.

And then Atif, he was such an achiever.

His parents were highly educated. She had a master's degree.

And Dr. Rafay had his doctorate in engineering.

So both of Atif's parents were very accomplished.

I think that they're the reason that he went to a school like Cornell.

That's what was expected of him, and he was happy to fulfill that role.

Atif's sister had been disabled by a childhood bout of spinal meningitis.

And so, Atif's mother really looked after her.

Sebastian and Atif were very good friends.

And they were guys that didn't look like they would be friends with each other.

These guys are culturally different. They're an odd pair.

The Rafay family lived in North Vancouver.

So they had just moved to Bellevue.

And Sebastian had been living in Vancouver.

And he actually visited Atif.

Atif had been attending Cornell University.

It was his mom who actually had been calling saying, "Come down and visit."

So they had been in the house for five days.

And then this one night that they actually went out, then this tragedy happens.

So we took an entire statement from Burns and Rafay.

In checking those alibis, everybody remembered them.

They left their home about 8:30 in the evening.

They went down to a Keg restaurant, and after they went there,

they went across the street to The Lion King, to watch a movie.

Loren, you're employed by the Factoria Cinemas.

- Is that correct? - Yeah.

And one of those persons you said you recognized?

I'm almost positive that I saw him 'cause he was wearing an army jacket.

How certain are you of the guy?

I'm positive I saw him.

After they went to The Lion King, they said they went over to Seattle.

Drove over there to an all-night diner.

And you recall seeing these guys before?

Yeah, they asked about the clubs in the area,

and one wanted to know what time it closed.

And after they left there, they went to find a club.

And after they left the club, they then came home.

People act differently when they've seen trauma.

But they acted very strange.

Atif Rafay, he was just very nonchalant about what had happened.

He had saw his mom, she was dead.

He ran upstairs, found his dad. There wasn't anything he could do.

He heard his sister in the room next door to his dad.

I said, "Well, did you check on her?" And he says, "No, I didn't check on her."

"Why wouldn't you check on her if you knew she was alive?"

And he said, "Well, I... There was nothing I could do."

In fact, I think he even said, "I can't even put on a Band-Aid, okay?

All I know is somebody had taken my Walkman,"

from a shelf in his room.

And a VCR was missing from the family room.

You just saw your dad slaughtered. You just saw your mom slaughtered.

And you're telling me that someone stole your Walkman?

And Sebastian Burns, he was very put out about even having to talk to police.

He was feeling that, "I already talked to the police.

I already told them what happened."

It became clear. It's like, "He's been up all night.

He's probably tired. He just saw a horrific murder scene.

What we need to do is wrap this up."

So we put them up in a hotel,

gave them our pager numbers and our contact numbers,

and said, "We'll be in touch with you. Let's get some sleep."

I didn't know exactly when they were gonna come home.

Their plans were a little loose. So I had been phoning the Burns house.

And... one morning, um,

my parents woke me up.

They told me that they had read in the newspaper

that Atif's family had been murdered.

And it occurred to me that the Burns may not know.

So I phoned Mr. Burns.

And he answered the phone, and he sort of joked

and said, "Sebastian isn't home yet."

And I said... I was sort of sobbing into the phone,

and I said, "You haven't heard."

Sebastian finally called us around... It was after nine o'clock in the evening.

And I said, "Hi. Are you...? What's your status?

Like, are you in custody or anything of that nature?"

And he said, "No, we're in a motel."

So I said, "Well, I, you know...

I think I'd like to come down and pick you guys up and bring you

'cause I guess you can't go back to the house.

So you've got no place to stay."

And he said, "No, we can't leave without letting the police know."

As soon as the murders happened, they were taken in

by the Bellevue Police Department and sequestered.

They were in a dingy motel room for three days

and just questioned at the Bellevue police's discretion for that time period.

Initially, when you're taking these statements,

you're just kinda, like, getting this information.

But, as you're kinda sitting back and looking at it again,

you go, "I wanna take another look at this.

Something isn't making any sense."

Sebastian Burns makes the 911 call.

There's been some kind of break-in!

Those words weren't very significant to me in the beginning.

A break-in... refers to a burglary of some sort, not a murder.

And when you look at this home, it was a staged burglary.

In a room that Sebastian Burns was staying in, there were legal boxes.

So when you first walk in, it looks like somebody had been rummaging

through documents and things.

But if you really look closely at it, the boxes hadn't been gone through at all.

They'd just been knocked over.

And then you take the alibi, The Keg restaurant.

And the waiter there goes, "Oh, yeah.

Definitely remember them because they ordered a salad and some wine."

I think they were ordering wine so that the guy would ask for ID

and remember that there was two Canadians that came in here

and ordered wine with a salad.

At the all-night diner in Seattle, they remembered them there

because the waitress said that they ordered just a Coke and some fries.

"And they left me a ten-dollar tip."

And when they went to The Weathered Wall, which was a nightclub,

that guy remembered them because he said, "I looked at my watch, 20 minutes to 2:00.

We were just getting ready to close." He said, "I wouldn't let 'em in."

It's all these little pieces that you start putting...

Individually, they're not too meaningful.

But you start putting them all together and you have a very organized plan

on how they were going to commit a murder.

The next day, we went to locate them, went to the hotel,

and they were just gone.

Carol had the moxie to phone the Canadian consulate

to make sure that the Bellevue police had, indeed, been consulted

about this move back to Vancouver.

And they had.

Once they got home,

the Bellevue police leaked...

not leaked...

told the press that Sebastian and Atif had fled,

which was the first of many dirty tactics that sent the signal

that this was not gonna go well.

So we reported in the media... No, we didn't report in the media.

So...

It was reported in the media that Burns and Rafay had fled to Canada.

And, for all I knew, they were fleeing,

they were getting away from Bellevue, basically, as fast as they can.

But, to be frank with you...

at the time, we didn't have any reason not to let 'em go to...

I mean, we... They were free to go wherever they wanted.

But they were just gone.

They got back here around five o'clock.

We had the television news on from Seattle at that time

because I'd been trying to follow what had been going on.

And...

blow me down, it was coverage of the funeral.

Members of the Rafay family gathered at the Northgate Mosque today.

Rafay's 18-year-old son, who found the bodies, was not there

and has declined to speak.

Atif was just... I'd never seen him with that much of an emotional outburst.

He just said, "Those bastards!"