LAGIM: A Filipino True Crime · LAGIM Podcast

The Murder of Steven Davis

·54 min·3 clips

Three armed men entered the apartment and shot Stephen four times while he slept.

1. LAGIM: A Filipino True Crime centers on the murder of Stephen Alston Davis and the relationship that connected Nottingham, Hong Kong, Angeles City, Makati, and Samar. 2. The episode is narrated by the host, who says the case led her from a December 2023 Sun Star headline to Stephen Davis, Margaret, Alan, and Evelyn. 3. The central question is how a marriage that began with a 500-pound payment in Angeles City ended in a July 2002 killing in Makati. 4. Stephen Davis was born in Nottingham on 27 March 1970, lost his father at 14, and later worked in computers. 5. Hong Kong offered Stephen a job that paid three times his English salary, and he later joined a flying club in Angeles City. 6. Evelyn came from Dharam in Samar, where the narration says electricity, running water, poverty, fishing, and farming shaped daily life. 7. The host says Evelyn was 13 when she left Samar for Angeles City and eventually worked in a bar in the red-light district. 8. The documentary cited in the episode gives two different versions of Evelyn's entry into bar work, one from a relative and one from her sister. 9. The host argues that Evelyn was a minor and vulnerable, while also noting that the transcript does not give Evelyn's own full account of that period. 10. Stephen and Evelyn met while Stephen was visiting Angeles City, and he later paid about 500 pounds to release her from a bar arrangement. 11. Their wedding in Hong Kong happened quickly, and Evelyn could not initially read the vows off the paper. 12. Margaret says Evelyn looked beautiful, shy, and polite when the families met in Hong Kong in 1997. 13. Margaret also says Stephen and Evelyn had a simple marriage, and that Stephen wanted his mother and stepfather present for the wedding. 14. The couple later had two children, Jessica and Joshua, and lived for a time in Hong Kong before settling in Angeles City. 15. The episode says cracks appeared after three or four years, including allegations about money disappearing, bills not being paid, and Jessica not being enrolled in school. 16. The host notes that Evelyn denied the affair allegation involving Arnold Adorai, while Margaret and Stephen's friends suspected that money and relationships were breaking the marriage apart. 17. On 17 July 2002, Stephen worked until 10 p.m. as chief technology officer for JC Software while Michael Thomas Dunn left to pick up his girlfriend. 18. Around 2 a.m., three men with drawn guns entered the Makati apartment, and Stephen was shot four times while asleep. 19. The narration says Michael later recognized one of the men, Margaret hired a private detective, and police eventually arrested Adorai and later Robin Butas. 20. The episode is part documentary retelling and part skeptical commentary, and it will suit listeners who want a Philippine true-crime case with family testimony, court quotes, and disputed interpretations.

As heard by us

A marriage case built around money, suspicion, and unresolved claims.

Stephen Alston Davis's story is told as a marriage under pressure, where trust, money, and suspicion keep turning the knife. The affair claim, the missing school fees, the pawned wedding ring, and Stephen's response all land with enough gravity to make the domestic details feel…

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Why you'd press play

You want a true crime case anchored in a marriage that's already on the rocks.

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