North Texas father killed 2 daughters because he couldn’t control them, prosecutor says

Amina Said and her sister, Sarah, were girls with big dreams.

A prosecutor on Tuesday described the teens as bright young girls who as students at Lewisville High School wanted to be doctors, attend college, marry and have a family.

But their father, Yaser Said, was a man who was possessive of them, controlled them and finally killed them in 2008, said prosecutor Lauren Black in the opening statements of Yaser Said’s capital murder trial in Dallas.

“He got extremely dangerous,” Black told the Dallas County jury Tuesday. The other prosecutors in the case are Brandi Mitchell, Jaclyn O’Connor and Summer Elmazi.

“He controlled what they did, who they talked to, who they could be friends with, if they and who they could date,” Black said. “And he controlled everything in his household.”

Black also told jurors that Said became a fugitive after his daughter’s deaths. “Where was he when the girls were killed?” she asked. “He was nowhere to be found. Twelve years later and the man was finally found.”

On Tuesday in Criminal District Court No. 7 in Dallas, Said, 65, pleaded not guilty in the shooting deaths of Amina, 18, and Sarah Said, 17.

Yaser Said’s defense attorney, Joseph Patton, told jurors that Said was a suspect because he is Muslim, and that evidence would indicate the investigation was botched. The defense raised questions about several of the 58 witnesses on call by prosecutors.

The prosecution contends that Yaser Said killed his daughters in his taxi near an Irving hotel on New Year’s Day 2008. Witnesses have said he was upset they were dating American boys. Said was born in Egypt.

Amina Said was shot twice, and Sarah Said was shot nine times.

Hours before the bodies of the teens were found, Yaser Said had picked up his daughters and never returned home, according to the capital murder warrant obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The prosecution told the jury on Tuesday that the girls escaped the family’s home with their mother on Christmas Day in 2007 and went to Oklahoma 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 and wanted to take his daughters out to dinner, “He got them to come home,” Black told jurors on Tuesday. “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.

Some family members said that the girls were victims of “honor killings” because their father thought they had brought shame to the family.

Yaser Said has sent several letters to the judge, proclaiming his innocence, according to WFAA-TV.

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,” WFAA reported.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, Said will be automatically sentenced to life without parole.

Family accused of hiding killer

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.

Patricia Owens, who is Yaser Said’s former wife and the mother of the girls, 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.

The search for a fugitive

The criminal complaints against Yassein Said and Islam Said do not indicate where Yaser Said was from January 2008 until August 2017.

Nine years after the killings, investigators got a break when a maintenance worker at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Bedford spotted Yaser Said in an apartment rented by Islam Said, federal agents said.

FBI agents had told apartment officials before that encounter that Islam Said was renting an apartment there and that he was the son of a wanted fugitive.

After the sighting, on Aug. 14, 2017, an FBI agent tried to interview Islam Said, wanting to ask him who was inside the Bedford apartment and get consent to search it. Islam Said refused to cooperate and called his attorney. Later, authorities discovered that Islam Said called someone and told them, “we have a big problem,” according to the complaint.

Authorities obtained a search warrant for the apartment and executed it on Aug. 15, 2017 , but they didn’t find anyone. Investigators collected a Pall Mall cigarette butt from a trash can, a pair of eyeglasses, and a toothbrush found in a luggage bag inside a closet.

A few days after the Bedford apartment was searched, Yassein Said and another man showed up at the leasing office, demanding to know who saw someone in Islam Said’s apartment, according to the complaint.

Months later, test results on DNA collected from the apartment indicated that Yaser Said had been there.

Years passed before federal authorities got another break.

On Aug. 10, 2020, authorities discovered that two homes were in the name of Dalal Said, one of Yassein Said’s daughters. One home was in Justin and the other in Euless. Authorities already knew that the Euless residence was the primary home of Islam Said.

Federal authorities began surveillance at both homes.

FBI agents saw Islam Said and Yassein Said carry about five grocery bags into the Justin home.

From Aug. 17-19, 2020, FBI agents were conducting 24-hour surveillance at the home.

Yassein Said and Islam Said arrived and carried in more grocery bags. Islam Said was seen exiting the Justin home with two small grocery bags possibly containing trash. He placed the bags in a vehicle. Yassein also walked out of the residence and the two got into the vehicle.

In early August 2020, trash bags had been left on the curb near the Justin home. The two Said men drove to a Southlake shopping center and dropped the two bags in a garbage can.

The trash bags, which included numerous cigarette butts, were seized by FBI agents.

On Aug. 19, 2020, authorities armed with a search warrant found Yaser Said in the Justin home. He was arrested without incident.

Federal authorities discovered a hidden room with a cot in it in the back of the residence.

The Associated Press contributed to this report, which contains information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.