Holy Spider

Rahimi dressed modestly for undercover work

Between August 2000 and July 2001, Iranian serial killer Saeed Hanaei murdered 16 women in the holy city of Masshad, Iran, in what he claimed was a jihad against decadence – Hanaei’s victims were either prostitutes or drug users or both. Holy Spider tells the story of the “spider killer” – he lures them to his place, where he kills them, hence the name – and the female journalist who set about tracking him down, in the face of the attitude of male journalists, male cops and male imans, who are barely capable of registering what’s going on as a crime, because it’s druggies and whores who are the victims, but even more because … Read more