Father convicted of teen daughters’ ‘honour killings’

Yaser Said faces automatic life prison term after jury found him guilty of 2008 murders

A Dallas man has been found guilty of the so-called “honour killing” of his two teenage daughters.

Yaser Said, 65, shot dead Amina Said, 18, and Sarah Said, 17, in a taxi in 2008 before going on the run for 12 years.

Prosecutors chose not to pursue the death penalty, meaning Said will receive an automatic life sentence.

Prosecutor Lauren Black told Dallas County Court in opening arguments that Said was a violent and abusive father and husband who “controlled everything in his household”.

“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date,” Ms Black said, according to the Associated Press. 

The sisters and their mother Patricia Owens fled their Dallas home about a week before the killings after Mr Said put a gun to Amina’s head and threatened to kill her, prosecutor told the jury.

But Mr Said lured them back by convincing them he had changed, in what Ms Black described as another act of “control” and “manipulation”.

The prosecutor told the court Mr Said drove the girls to a hotel parking lot in Irving, Texas, and shot them multiple times inside his taxicab. Before she died, Sarah called 911 to say: “Help, my dad shot me! I’m dying, I’m dying!”

Yaser Said, pictured in court this week, was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list (AP)

Patricia Owens, the mother of 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said, takes the stand on the third day of trial of her ex-husband Yaser Said (AP)

Amina and Sarah Said (The Price of Honor)

Ms Black said Sarah was shot nine times and Amina was shot twice.

She read an email sent by Amina Said to her high school history teacher a few days before she was killed in which she said they did not want to live by their father’s culture and marry men “we don’t know or love.”

“I know that he will search until he finds us, and he will without any drama nor doubt kill us,” the email read.

Ms Owens, the victims’ mother, testified that her daughters had told her in 1998 that their father had molested them.

She reported the assault to the Hill County Sheriff’s Department and moved away.

Ms Owens said the charges against Mr Said were dropped after the girls withdrew their statements because they were scared of him.

Mr Said remained on the run for 12 years after the killings, and was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List in 2014. The fugitive was finally arrested in August 2020 in Justin, about 35 miles (60 kms) northwest of Dallas.

Mr Said’s son Islam Said and brother Yassim Said were later convicted of helping him evade arrest.