IRVING, Texas — Sarah, 17, and Amina Said, 18, had big hopes of going to college and living the American dream. Until those dreams were cut short after they were shot and killed. Their accused killer is their father, Yaser Said .
Home videos give a glimpse into their lives. Behind the camera is their father. “He followed them everywhere he went and recorded their every move,” said Ruth Trotter, a family friend.
Trotter whose son, Joseph, dated Amina says Said was obsessed with his daughters and was abusive. When they were younger, Amina and Sarah filed a police report accusing him of sexual assault. Eventually, the charges were dropped.
But police believed the girls were scared of their father. And police believed he became jealous and obsessed because the girls both dated American boys. Police said it caused him to do the unthinkable.
“I think it frustrated him and he couldn’t handle it and he killed them,” said detective Eric Curtis of the Irving Police Department. Trotter says Amina told her that her father might kill her. “I knew the threat was real and told us her dad might kill them,” said Trotter.
The girls begged their mother, Patricia, to leave. In December of 2018, she took Amina and Sarah and two friends to Oklahoma. But police said on New Year’s Eve after talking to Said, Patricia brought the girls back home and convinced them to have dinner with him alone.
Police believed Said borrowed a taxi cab from a friend and that’s where he shot his daughters. Sarah managed to call 911 and named her father as her killer. “My father shot me.
I’m dying. . I’m dying,” said Sarah.
“You hear her last breath fighting ’til the very end,” said Trotter. Amina was shot twice. Sarah was shot nine times.
Police frantically searched for the girls but couldn’t find them. An hour after the first call, a second 911 call came in from a man who spotted the girls slumped in the taxi in front of the Omni Hotel in Irving. Said had vanished.
There were reports he had fled to Egypt, or possibly in New York. Said ended up on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list. His son, immediately after the murders, made a plea for him to give himself up.
“Maybe they won’t put you on death row but you can sit in prison and think about what you did,” said Islam Said. But, police always believed his son and other family members helped hide Said. And after 13 long years, a tip came in that helped the FBI and Irving police arrest Said at a home in Justin, Texas.
It was just 30 miles from where Sarah and Amina were killed. The FBI also arrested his son and brother for harboring a fugitive. Both have been convicted and sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
Meanwhile, Yaser Said has spent some of his time in the Dallas County jail writing rambling letters to the judge, proclaiming his innocence. In one letter he wrote, “I was not happy about my kids’ dating activity. But, I did not do the killings or any plan to hurt them.
” Said, who is 65 years old, will stand trial for capital murder. The Dallas County district attorney has said he won’t seek the death penalty, so, if convicted, Said will be automatically sentenced to life without parole. .
From: wfaa
URL: https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/north-texas-yaser-said-accused-killing-daughters-to-go-on-trial/287-7151299d-55af-4c40-9c91-69f34f0aaf85
