Yaser Said testifies at his capital murder trial

DALLAS — In Yaser Said’s telling, he’s the sufferer – a sufferer of a media narrative that painted him because the killer of his two daughters.

Said testified that’s why he fled after his daughters, Amina and Sarah, had been discovered shot to dying inside a cab on New Year’s Day in 2008.

“Behind this coverage, there was a secret agenda,” he mentioned. “All the media was stirred in a certain direction and fueled against me.”

Said denied having killed his daughters and implied that one among their mates should have accomplished it. He testified that he didn’t consider he would get a good trial.

“The coverage for this case was kind of abnormal, one of its kind and maybe harsh,” Said testified.

Said was the one and solely witness taking the stand for the protection. He testified for greater than an hour on Monday afternoon. Both sides rested after his testimony. 

After either side rested, the decide ordered that the jury be sequestered.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday morning.

If he is convicted, Said might be sentenced to life in jail with out parole.

Before Said took the stand, Said’s attorneys sought to restrict the scope of what prosecutors might ask him throughout cross-examination, saying he would solely testify in regards to the timeframe surrounding the time of his daughters’ deaths. 

District Judge Chika Anyiam denied these requests.

The decide granted a request {that a} wished poster behind him be eliminated and that the jury not see him in shackles.

His former spouse, Patricia Owens, and the daughters’ boyfriends have beforehand testified that they and the women fled out of state after Said threatened Amina with a gun. They had been gone just some days when Owens mentioned Said satisfied her to return house.

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On the night of New Year’s Day, Said left with the 2 women to go eat dinner. He acknowledged that he was upset that the women had been relationship however mentioned he wished to unravel the issue.

“In my culture, it’s something to get upset about,” he mentioned.

Said testified that whereas they had been driving, he noticed an unknown individual following them in a automotive, inflicting him to abort the plan to go to dinner.

“I felt my life was in danger,” he mentioned, as one among his attorneys guided him by way of the chronology.

He testified he initially stopped by the cab stand at the Lodge, a widely known Dallas strip membership. But not seeing any cabs there, he determined to not cease.

Next, Said mentioned he determined to go to a bus cease on Riverside Drive in Irving. There he determined to go away the women and the cab and flee right into a wooded space.

“I thought if they are my daughter’s friends, let them solve the problem together if they have issues,” he mentioned. “I told them the car is yours. You can do whatever you want. Since they know how to drive, I left the car for them.”

He mentioned he selected the situation as a consequence of it being well-lit and having surveillance cameras.

“When you left on foot, you believed that if there was a threat, that threat would follow you?” protection lawyer Joe Patton requested.

“Of course, because I thinking they were trying to get to me personally,” Said mentioned.

He didn’t clarify why he believed somebody can be attempting to assault him or assassinate him. Said testified he had no plan in thoughts and hoped to catch a journey with one among his cab-driving mates.

Said mentioned he left his cellphone within the automotive.

He mentioned he walked on foot to a close-by Waffle House and solely later heard that his daughters had been murdered.

But underneath withering cross-examination from lead prosecutor Lauren Black, Said couldn’t clarify the various inconsistencies in his testimony.

Black questioned why Said didn’t simply go into the strip membership and ask for assist he was so scared.

“My girls were with me, and I didn’t want to take them into the club,” Said responded.

His spouse, Patricia Owens, referred to as him at 7:29 p.m. that evening. Said couldn’t clarify why he didn’t inform her that he was involved somebody was following them.

He additionally didn’t name 911 to report it.

“You decided to leave the car and your two daughters in the car by themselves?” Black requested.

“I did not expect anyone would harm them,” he responded. “I was thinking someone sent them after me to harm me and not my girls.”

Four minutes after Owens referred to as Said, Sarah Said referred to as 911 reporting that her father had shot her and that she was dying.

FBI Special Agent Mark Sedwick testified that cellphone evaluation that Yaser and Sarah Said’s telephones had been in the identical neighborhood between 6:57 p.m and seven:30 p.m. that evening.

Sedwick testified that after Owens’ name, Yaser Said’s telephone was both turned off or not linked to the community.

Black additionally requested him about his 9mm handgun.

Said testified that he carried it with him when he was working and that he had it with him that evening. He testified that he left it within the automotive with the women.

He mentioned he didn’t take it as a result of he was “thinking there’s nothing harmful” – which is tough to sq. with his different testimony that he was so afraid that he acquired out of the automotive and fled on foot.

Said mentioned in his testimony that he believed the women had been “harmed by their own friends,” though he additionally mentioned he didn’t know who was on this automotive he claimed was following them.

He denied being current at the resort the place the women’ our bodies had been later discovered within the cab.

Black requested him why he didn’t present as much as the funerals.

His attorneys objected, saying noting that he’s nonetheless dealing with federal fees for having fled seize.

The decide overruled the objection.

Said mentioned he didn’t go the funerals “because of the unfair and hateful media coverage” at the time.

“There was no evidence, but all the accusations was against me,” he mentioned.

Defense attorneys additionally objected when prosecutors tried to ask Said in regards to the allegations of molestation that Amina and Sarah had made in opposition to him after they had been kids.

“It is wholly improper for them to try to get into these extraneous offenses that they failed to substantiate,” Patton informed the decide

This time, the decide agreed with the protection.

Next, Black requested Said if he had been violent towards Amina and Sarah. Again, the protection objected and this time the decide sided with prosecutors.

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Said denied that he had been violent towards his daughters. He additionally denied that he had threatened to kill his former spouse if the women didn’t recant their sexual abuse claims.

“Patricia is lying,” he mentioned. “It never happened.”

He additionally denied having ever been violent towards his spouse.

“Women are more protected, more than men in America,” he mentioned.

Under cross-examination, Said denied that anybody took him to or picked him up from the Waffle House on the evening of the killings.

Black questioned him about who took him to or picked him up from the Waffle House on the evening of the killings.

Said was imprecise about what he did after leaving the Waffle House. He testified that he knew throughout the time he was on the run that he was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted listing.

“That’s why I escaped because I was afraid I wasn’t going to get a fair trial,” he mentioned.

Said was captured in August 2020 at a white body house in Justin owned by his brother’s daughters.

FBI brokers testified that they used a aircraft to observe the home and positioned a hidden video digicam on a pole in entrance of the home.

When FBI brokers searched the home, brokers testified they discovered a hidden room with a lure door that authorities consider Said’s relations constructed to hide him. The room contained a cot and a prayer rug.

Pictures taken inside the house confirmed that somebody had been dwelling there. Agents additionally discovered a wig, an FBI agent’s enterprise card, Yaser Said’s expired passport and quite a few rounds of ammunition.

During his testimony, one among Said’s protection attorneys requested if he needs he had stayed with the women that evening.

“Certainly,” he responded.

“Did you love Amina and Sarah?” the protection lawyer requested.

“Look at the tapes,” he mentioned. “I have hundreds of tapes showing how much I loved my daughters.”

Said denied figuring out what occurred to his daughters after he left the cab.

“If the FBI did their work, they would have known, but they were looking for Yaser Said and they did not do what they have to do,” Said mentioned.