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Thread: Yaser Abdel Said Sentenced to LWOP in 2008 TX Honor Killing of his Daughters, Amina and Sarah Said

  1. #31
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    ‘That devil there’: Mother of Sarah, Amina Said testifies at ex-husband’s murder trial

    Yaser Said, 65, is accused of fatally shooting Sarah and 18-year-old Amina on New Year’s Day 2008 in Irving

    By Krista M. Torralva and Maggie Prosser
    Dallas Morning News

    Patricia Owens’ face grew red and her lips pursed as she pointed to the man accused of killing her two daughters. Their own father.

    “That devil there,” Owens said of Yaser Said, the man she divorced while he was on the run after the murders.

    Owens took the stand in a Dallas County courtroom Thursday, the third day of Said’s capital murder trial. It was the first time she’d seen Said since New Year’s Day 2008, when she believed that he was taking their daughters out for dinner.

    Instead, Said, 65, is accused of shooting 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said multiple times in a taxi cab that he left outside an Irving hotel.

    Said was on the lam for 12 years until his arrest in August 2020 at a family home in Denton County. If convicted, he faces an automatic life sentence because prosecutors are not pursuing the death penalty. Said’s son, Islam Sain, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for helping him hide. Said’s brother, Yassein Said, got 12 years for the same conviction.

    Owens fixed her eyes straight ahead as she walked into the courtroom. Said, sitting across the room next to his lawyers and an interpreter, cocked his head to watch her.

    Owens told jurors she was 15 when she married Said in February 1987. He was 29. She gave birth to their three children in the first three years of marriage.

    Said became abusive and controlling, Owens said, and she left him countless times.

    Amina and Sarah accused their father of sexual abuse in 1998. Owens made a report with the Hill County Sheriff’s Office where they lived. She and the three children left Said for about four months. Owens said Said threatened to kill her and her family if she didn’t return. She filed a police report but took the kids back to Said a few months later and the girls recanted.

    Owens and the girls fled Said again in December 2007. Owens said the girls wanted to leave because Said prohibited them from dating.

    Jurors previously heard from their former boyfriends and a Lewisville High School teacher who said the girls feared Said would kill them.

    Owens knew the girls’ boyfriends and approved. But she kept their secrets from Said.

    “I just thought he would, like, punish them, like take their phone away and stuff like that,” Owens said.

    Amina, Sarah and Owens fled to an apartment in Tulsa with the girls’ boyfriends. But Owens said she and the girls wished to go home so they could finish the school year. Amina and Sarah were honor students who dreamed of becoming doctors.

    Owens’ testimony was at odds with what Amina’s boyfriend told jurors: He said Amina did not want to return.

    Owens and Sarah went back to Said, but dropped Amina off at her boyfriend’s house on Dec. 30, 2007. On New Year’s Day, Said started chewing the inside of his cheek, which Owens said he did when he was angry.

    Owens brought Amina home that evening. Said hugged Amina when she returned, Owens said. He kissed her forehead and a tear trailed down his face, Owens said. Amina returned the embrace, she said.

    Prosecutors asked Owens if she had any inclination what would happen. Amina was shot twice and Sarah was shot nine times, lawyers have said.

    Owens looked up at the ceiling before answering.

    “Part of me did,” Owens said. “Part of me didn’t.”

    She paused and looked at her lap.

    “I’m sorry,” she said.

    Owens’ demeanor was demure and she spoke softly. Her eyes shifted around the courtroom during the nearly two hours she was on the stand. She quickly glanced toward Said a few times. He leaned forward and watched her testify.

    That night, Owens recalled, Amina said she was hungry, so Said said he’d take the girls to a nearby Denny’s. He left Owens and their son, Islam, behind.

    After the killings, Owens lived briefly with Islam. But eventually, she got her own apartment and she said she believed Islam flew to Egypt. Owens said she has since been diagnosed with several medical conditions, including severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Randall Johnson, an Irving police detective, testified he sensed from talking with the mother and son that night that Islam was “controlling the situation more than Patricia.” Johnson, who has since retired, described Owens as reserved.

    Owens turned over a box of ammunition from their house, Johnson said. The bullets, 9 millimeter Lugers from the brands FC and Winchester, matched shell casings retrieved from the cab, Johnson said.

    Defense attorneys have argued police ignored the girls’ boyfriends as suspects and wrongly narrowed in on Said. Johnson told jurors they did investigate the boyfriends.

    “Initially we were looking at the two boyfriends, and then we focused on the defendant,” he testified.

    But police did not test for gunshot residue on their hands, defense lawyers pointed out, and two other detectives who testified Thursday said they were not suspects. Irving detective Joe Hennig said he listened to Sarah’s 911 call when he got to the police station that night and heard her say, “Help, my dad shot me.” Jurors heard the call on Wednesday.

    Said was added to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted fugitives list in 2014. Hennig said the FBI’s online bulletin described the crime as an “honor killing” — a narrative that took off soon after the killings and reignited after Said’s arrest. It was perpetuated in a 2014 documentary called The Price of Honor, which fueled speculation Said killed his daughters because he harbored archaic beliefs that they should die for bringing shame to the family.

    Hennig testified Irving police rejected that characterization of the slayings.

    The girls were discovered in an orange Jet Taxi cab that police said Said borrowed from a fellow driver. That driver, Jihad Tafal, told jurors Said asked to use the car a few days before Christmas because he didn’t like the owner of the car he leased.

    Taxi drivers lease vehicles for short stints, often weeks at a time, from fleet owners whom the cars are registered to.

    Tafal insisted Said fill out paperwork with its owner to replace Tafal’s name on the lease. But Said never did, the owner testified.

    The orange car had GPS, but former Irving police Detective John Schingle testified the GPS was turned off on the evening of Dec. 31, 2007. Schingle is an investigator with the Dallas County district attorney’s office.

    “There’s almost 24 hours where we don’t know where that cab went,” Schingle said.

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/cour...-murder-trial/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #32
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    Jury hears closing arguments in trial of man accused of killing teenage daughters

    By ABC News

    Jurors heard closing arguments Tuesday in the capital murder trial of Yaser Said, who is accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters, 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said, in a taxi in the Dallas area in 2008.

    Said was placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list and evaded arrest for more than 12 years. Said, who had worked as a cab driver, was arrested in August 2020 in Justin, Texas. He entered a not guilty plea and faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.

    Prosecutors claim Said, who is Muslim, murdered his daughters because he was upset that the girls were dating.

    "He wouldn't even let these girls go to a movie. He wouldn't let them date,” a prosecutor said during closing statements Tuesday.

    ABC News local affiliate WFAA reported that police have described the murders as “honor killings” — defined as the killing of a relative, especially a girl or woman, who is perceived to have brought dishonor on the family in certain cultures.

    During the trial, prosecutors read a December 21, 2007, email Amina wrote to her history teacher 10 days before she and her sister were killed, saying their father “made our lives a nightmare” and that she and her sister wanted to run away.

    “I am so scared right now,” Amina wrote, according to prosecutors. “OK, well as you know we’re not allowed to date and my dad is arranging my marriage. My dad said I cannot put it off any more and I have to get married this year."

    “He will, without any drama nor doubt, kill us,” she also wrote.

    The girls, along with their mother and their boyfriends, fled their Texas home to Oklahoma on Christmas Day 2007, four days after Amina sent the email. Witnesses said the girls returned to the Dallas area on New Year's Eve when their mother, Patricia Owens, said Said convinced her to return home.

    The girls' bodies were found on New Year’s Day 2008 in a taxi cab prosecutors said Said drove.

    Last Wednesday, the prosecution played the 911 call Sarah allegedly made the night of her death. During the call, a woman can be heard frantically screaming that her father had shot her and that she was dying.

    During her testimony in court last Thursday Owens pointed to her ex-husband, calling him “that devil.” She testified that Said was controlling and abusive throughout their relationship, adding that she and her daughters left him several times over the years, but they always returned out of fear.

    Owens declined to comment on the case until her ex-husband is convicted, she told ABC News.

    In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said while he disapproved of his daughters’ “dating activity,” he denied killing the girls.

    “I was upset because in my culture it’s something to get upset about,” said Said, who took the stand Monday. He testified that he immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt in 1983 and later became a U.S. citizen.

    Said told jurors that the evening his daughters were killed, he was taking them to dinner because he wanted to smooth things over and “solve the problem."

    However, Said claims he left the vehicle, fleeing into a wooded area before the girls were killed because he thought someone wanted to murder him, testifying that he spotted an unknown person in a car stalking them while they were driving to dinner.

    Said said he did not turn himself in after the murders because he didn't think he would get a fair trial.

    The defense team claims that Said was targeted by law enforcement because of his Muslim faith and cultural beliefs.

    "Everybody has a preference in how they discipline their kids, just like they have a preference for what kind of food they eat, what kind of people they date, what religion they want to practice," Baharan Muse, Said's defense attorney, said in closing arguments Tuesday. "Discipline does not mean you murdered your children. Your culture does not mean you murdered your children."

    Said's defense team alleged prosecutors sought to "generalize" and "criminalize an entire culture, to fit their narrative."

    The prosecution rejected the claim that Said was unjustly accused for his religious beliefs.

    "If you intentionally or knowingly cause the death of another in Dallas County, we are coming for you. Period. You will be prosecuted. Period. It has nothing to do with your race or religion," prosecutor Lauren Black said in her closing argument.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...dc709486191fd5
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #33
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    Jury finds Yaser Said guilty in 2008 murder of his teenage daughters

    Prior to his 2020 arrest, Said had been on the run from law enforcement for 12 years, even making the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list

    By Briauna Brown
    WFAA News

    DALLAS — Yaser Said, once listed as one of the most wanted men in America, has been found guilty of killing his two teenage daughters.

    Said's daughters Sarah, 17, and Amina Said, 18, were found dead in 2008, slumped in Said's borrowed taxi as it was parked in front of the Omni Hotel in Irving. The girls died of multiple gunshot wounds.

    Their deaths been described as so-called "honor killings" -- because they believed Said was upset that his daughters had been dating outside the Muslim faith. In her final moments, Said's younger daughter Sarah managed to call 911 and identify her father as the shooter.

    In the wake of his daughters' death, Said hid from authorities as they sought to arrest him. He eluded law enforcement for 12 years, and eventually ended up on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list. He was later found at a home in Justin, Texas, just 30 miles from where Sarah and Amina were killed.

    Upon detaining Said in 2020, the FBI also arrested his son and brother on charges of harboring a fugitive. Each of those men has since been convicted and sentenced to more than a decade in prison.

    Yaser, by all accounts and even his own, was the last person known to have seen the girls alive that day.

    "All signs always pointed to Yaser Said. Period," prosecutor Lauren Black told jurors during closing arguments. "And we have an eye witness to the crime. sarah said tells you who her killer is.

    Black replayed Sarah's 911 for jurors, where she says her dad shot her. Their mother, Patricia, became visibly emotional.

    "She’s screaming out from the grave," Black said. "He’s here. He did it."

    Black reminded jurors about the letter email Amina wrote on Dec. 21, just days her death. Amina told her teacher that she and her sister were running away because they feared their father.

    "He has simply made our lives a nightmare," the email said. "...I know that he will search til he finds us and he without any drama or any doubt kill us."

    At the end of six days in the capital murder trial, jurors deliberated for about three hours before returning their guilty verdict Tuesday afternoon.

    Over the course of the trial, prosecutors painted a picture of Said as a jealous and angry man who controlled his daughter's lives. They detailed the brutal nature with which his daughters were murdered, and they described it in graphic detail.

    Said's attorneys, meanwhile, only called one witness to testify: Said himself.

    Throughout his testimony, Said -- aided by a translator -- denied that he killed his daughters, saying that he loved them, claiming that he feared for his own safety the night they were killed. He said they were alive and well when they left them in the taxi.

    He said he was the victim of a media smear campaign that was all too eager to paint him as a killer.

    “He is asking you to suspend all common sense, all reality to believe that story,” prosecutor Brandi Mitchell told jurors. “It was so absurd. It is insulting to the memory of Amina and Sarah Said.”

    Mitchell told jurors that Said couldn’t explain why someone would want to hurt him. She said it didn’t make sense that he would leave his two girls in the cab with his phone and his gun.

    “Does that seem reasonable?” Mitchell said.

    Throughout the trial and in closing arguments, Said’s attorneys attacked the investigation itself. They questioned, among other things, why police didn’t take fingerprints from the car, why gunshot residue wasn’t taken from the girl’s boyfriends and why written statements weren’t taken from the boyfriends.

    Said’s attorneys have implied that Sarah could have been suffering from a rare condition that causes auditory and visual hallucinations when she made that 911 call pointing the finger at her father.

    “This is insulting to the memory of Amina and Sarah,” defense attorney Joe Patton said. “The police insulted their memory.”

    Defense attorney Bahranan Muse told jurors sthat prosecutors and investigators had based their case “on prejudice and ignorance.” Yaser, she said, was a conservative father who sought to protect his daughters, not an abuser.

    “Discipline does not mean you murdered your children,” Muse said. “Your culture does not mean you murdered your children.”

    After the verdict, Said's former wife, Patricia Owens, took the stand to give a victim's act statement.

    She told him because of his actions Amina and Sarah never went to prom, graduated from high school or became doctors as they had dreamed of doing.

    "They were very smart intelligent and bright and did not have an enemy in the world, their father, the devil, that killed them," she said, holding up pictures of the girls as she spoke to him.

    She told Said that not only had he killed his daughters, he had "brainwashed" their son who is now in prison for helping to hide him.

    Said became visibly angry as she spoke. The judge admonished his attorneys to keep their client quit.

    " You can keep those evil eyes on me as long as you want, but you will never break me down again nor will you ever be able to hurt another person," Owens told him.

    She told him she hopes he suffers just the way their daughters did.

    "At this time, you are nothing. You are a prisoner. You are a murder and the devil," she said.

    Said's former sister-in-law, Connie Moggio, who had spoke to Amina on the day she died, also addressed Said.

    "There is no honor in killing two unarmed people. I call that being a coward," she said. "The only thing you did to your family was stain it with your family's blood. Now it is your turn to get what you gave,a prison you call home."

    Prosecutors did not seek out the death penalty in this capital murder case; with this conviction, Said is automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/cr...9-7c50aa923d5b
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #34
    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
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    This guy 100% deserves the DP. I believe that not seeking the DP in this case had a lot to do with his current age, and thus, the fact the fact that he will most-likely be dying of natural causes in less than 5 years, regardless.

  5. #35
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    Edited:

    Man convicted in 2008 murders of his daughters sentenced to life in prison without parole

    (CNN) - Yaser Abdel Said was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being found guilty of capital murder in the 2008 killings of his two daughters, 18-year-old Amina and 17-year-old Sarah, according to a news release from the office of Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot.

    After six days of trial, a Dallas County jury deliberated for three hours before returning a verdict of guilty Tuesday, the release said.

    "There is nothing honorable about what Yaser Said did on January 1, 2008. Dallas County has shown Mr. Said that there is no excuse for taking another human life. He must now spend the rest of his days confined to a prison cell living under the control of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice," District Attorney Creuzot said. "While this verdict does not bring Sarah and Amina back, my office and this jury have done all that is in our power to see that justice is done."

    Said's public defender, Bradley Lollar, told CNN, "We are disappointed in the verdict, but accept it. We are planning on appealing."

    Lollar added, "This was a case where there were no witnesses, no physical evidence of any kind, no surveillance videos, or confession. To the contrary, our client always maintained innocence of the crime."

    CNN's Jennifer Henderson, Ed Lavandera, and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/10/us/ya...ced/index.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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