Warning: This article contains content that some readers may find distressing.
A woman who survived a brutal abduction has come forward to share the chilling details of the night she and her housemate were kidnapped and tortured.
Michael, a successful marijuana dispensary owner in California, was violently taken from his home and left for dead in the Mojave Desert.
The then 28-year-old and his housemate, Mary Barnes, were abducted in October 2012 from their Newport Beach residence. The attackers blindfolded and gagged them before subjecting them to a horrifying ordeal.
Their hands and feet were tightly bound with zip ties before they were thrown into a van and driven over 140 miles into the desert.
While the kidnappers assured Mary that she wouldn’t be harmed if she complied, Michael endured unimaginable torture. During the two-and-a-half-hour drive, he was beaten, electrocuted with a taser, and burned with a blowtorch.
The violence escalated even further when the attackers severed his penis, doused him in bleach, and allegedly laughed as they fled—taking the severed organ with them.
After the kidnappers left, Mary managed to free herself using a discarded knife and flagged down a passing car.
By a stroke of luck, the driver was a deputy from the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, who immediately assisted Mary and found Michael barely conscious and covered in blood.
Now, more than a decade later, Mary is sharing her story in Wicked Game: The Devil in the Desert, a new true-crime series from ABC News Studios, available to stream on Hulu.
Twisted Kidnapping Plot Unraveled
Authorities later discovered that the kidnappers had devised a bizarre plan, convinced that Michael had hidden $1 million somewhere in the desert. Their goal? To locate the buried fortune.
Investigators identified Hossein Nayeri as the mastermind behind the scheme. After the crime, he fled to Iran, while his accomplices—Kyle Handley, a cannabis grower from Fountain Valley who had previously done business with the victim, and Ryan Kevorkian—were also implicated, according to NBC Los Angeles.
A High-Stakes Investigation
The gripping three-part docuseries delves deep into the extensive investigation, featuring everything from covert sting operations and police bodycam footage to international manhunts and tense courtroom battles between the prosecution and the accused.
One of the most shocking revelations includes footage of Nayeri attempting to escape from Men’s Central Jail in Santa Ana. Using a contraband cellphone, he even recorded his daring jailbreak attempt while awaiting trial.
A Key Witness and Chilling Victim Testimonies
Cortney Shegerian, Nayeri’s ex-wife, played a crucial role in bringing him to justice. She assisted authorities in his arrest as he disembarked from a plane in California and later testified in court, revealing how Nayeri had meticulously spied on the victim before carrying out the abduction.
The docuseries also features never-before-heard audio recordings of the victims recounting their harrowing ordeal to police, offering a chilling firsthand account of the terrifying events they endured.
Hossein Nayeri was ultimately captured thanks to his wife’s decision to cooperate with authorities.
In video clips obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, Michael recalled the terrifying night. “I left the shop at 11:30 p.m., so I was in bed by midnight or a little after. I passed out on the little couch futon thing,” he recounted.
His nightmare began when he was startled awake by an unfamiliar sound—only to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
Mary also described her horrifying experience, saying she was asleep when she suddenly felt “something cold and metallic” pressed against her neck.
Despite enduring a brutal attack that nearly took his life, Michael miraculously survived and later testified against the men responsible.
Hossein Nayeri and Kyle Handley both received life sentences without the possibility of parole, while Ryan Kevorkian was sentenced to 12 years and four months in prison. Kevorkian’s wife, who was implicated as an accessory, was given three years of informal probation.
