FORT WORTH, Texas — A 65-year-old father was found guilty Tuesday of capital murder in the 2008 shooting deaths of his two daughters in his taxi near an Irving hotel in what some family members called “honor killings.”
Yaser Said showed no emotion as Judge Chika Anyiam announced the verdict from the Dallas County jury, which took about four hours Tuesday to reach a decision.
The judge ordered Said to prison for life without parole because prosecutors had decided not to seek the death penalty before his trial started last week in Criminal District No. 7 in Dallas.
“My client has told me from the start that he didn’t do it,” said Brad Lollar of Dallas, one of Said’s attorneys, after the verdict.
Lollar said Said would appeal the verdict.
In victim impact statements after the verdict was announced, Patricia Owens, who is Said’s former wife, told Said that she could never forgive him for killing their daughters, Amina Said, 18, and Sarah Said, 17.
“You can keep those evil eyes glaring at me,” Owens said. “I don’t have to worry about you anymore. My kids were my world.”
As Owens talked, the judge ordered Said to keep quiet as he talked to his attorneys.
“I’m not scared of you,” she said. “You are nothing.”
After the fatal shooting in 2008, Said fled the scene and hid for 12 years before he was captured in a Justin home in August 2020, authorities have said. He was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list.
In closing arguments Tuesday morning, defense attorneys continued their argument that the investigation into the shooting deaths of the girls was botched, noting that authorities lacked evidence such as DNA or fingerprints.
“Justice is not convicting an innocent man,” defense attorney Joseph Patton told the jury Tuesday morning. “Yaser Said loved his daughters. He may have made mistakes, but he did not kill them.”
Earlier in the trial, Patton told the jury that Said was targeted as the suspect because he is a Muslim.
But prosecutor Lauren Black said on Tuesday morning that Yaser Said kept control of his family.
“All signs point to Yaser Said, period,” Black said in her closing argument. “Fourteen years later, he still puts himself with (the victims).”
Once again on Tuesday morning, Black played the 911 call from Sarah Said. The call was played for the jury last week during the first days of the trial.
“She’s screaming out of the grave,” Black said. “No one else was involved in this. He took their lives. He’s the murderer. No one else.”
On Monday, Said took the witness stand and denied shooting to death his daughters.
Said, who was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. for decades and is an American citizen, began testifying in his defense Monday afternoon. He spoke in Arabic, which an interpreter translated to English.
The 65-year-old told jurors that he ran away from the cab the night the girls were killed because he thought someone was following him and planned to hurt him.
Said answered questions from Patton and Black through a translator.
When Patton asked Said if he killed his daughters, he said, “For sure, did not.”
The prosecution contends that Yaser Said killed his daughters after persuading them to go out to dinner on New Year’s Day 2008. Witnesses have said he was upset they were dating boys who were not Muslim.
Amina Said was shot twice, and Sarah Said was shot nine times.
Hours before the bodies of the teens were found, Yaser Said picked up his daughters, saying he was going to take them to dinner, and never returned home, according to the capital murder warrant obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The girls escaped the family’s home with their mother on Christmas Day in 2007 and went to Oklahoma and Kansas because they were afraid of their father.
The sisters had become “very scared for their lives,” and the decision to leave was made after Yaser Said “put a gun to Amina’s head and threatened to kill her,” Black said.
But in an act of manipulation, claiming he had changed, “He got them to come home,” Black told jurors last week. “On the night they are killed, Amina is sitting on the front-seat passenger side and Sarah was in a back seat. Yaser Said’s wife wanted to go with them, but he told her to stay home.”
Before she died, Sarah Said called 911. She was unable to say where she was.
“Help!” she said. “My dad shot me.”
Patton, the defense attorney, said that in moments of extreme trauma, like being shot multiple times, people can have hallucinations.
For several years after the killings, Said was a fugitive on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. He was arrested in August 2020 in Justin, just north of Fort Worth.
Since his arrest, Said has been in the Dallas County Jail.
Two of Said’s family members have been sentenced for hiding him in North Texas for years.
His son Islam Said, 32, pleaded guilty in January 2021 to conspiracy to conceal a person from arrest, concealing a person from arrest and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. He was later sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
Yaser Said’s brother Yassein Said was sentenced in 2021 to 12 years for conspiracy to conceal a person from arrest, concealing a person from arrest and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
Throughout the investigation, federal agents and Irving police believed other members of Yaser Said’s family had assisted and communicated with him.
Owens, the victims’ mother, told federal authorities that members of his family had indicated to her “little remorse for the victims,” and indicated support for their killer, according to a federal criminal complaint.
Some family members said that the girls were victims of “honor killings” because their father thought they had brought shame to the family.
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(This report contains information from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s archives.)
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