On the run for 12 years, father arrested in his teen daughters’ Irving shooting deaths
Twelve and a half years after police allege Yaser Said shot to death his two teenage daughters inside a taxicab parked outside a hotel in Irving, an FBI SWAT team arrested him Wednesday in Denton County, authorities said.
Said, 63, has been among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives since December 2014.
Amina Said, 18, and Sarah Said, 17, were slain outside the Omni Mandalay Hotel on New Year’s Day in 2008. The Lewisville High School students’ father took them for a ride in his cab under the guise that they were going out to eat, authorities have alleged.
Before she died, Sarah Said called 911. She was unable to say where she was.
“Help!” she said. “My dad shot me.”
Police could not find her.
An hour later, a man discovered the victims’ bodies, one in the front passenger seat, the other in the rear. Sarah wore a brown sweatshirt with a puppy pattern and Amina had on a tan jacket with fur trim on the hood.
Said was taken into custody in Justin about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. He was compliant and quiet, authorities said.
Aggressive investigative work, not a tip, led to Said’s arrest, said FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno. He declined to describe the investigative effort.
The FBI had not determined Wednesday night where Said has been since the killings. He is an Egypt native.
Yaser Said’s son, Islam Said, and brother, Yassim Said, assisted him and were arrested Wednesday in Euless, DeSarno said. They are to be charged with harboring a fugitive.
Law enforcement authorities have not described a motive for the slayings.
Yaser Said had threatened to harm Sarah after he learned that she had gone out with a non-Muslim boy, according to a police report. Yaser Said had a history of violence toward his daughters, and his wife Patricia Said feared for her life, according to the report.
Patricia Said obtained a protective order against her husband in Dallas County in 1998. She and her daughters left their home in Hill County after the girls alleged that their father had touched them inappropriately, officials said. More than a year later, the girls recanted their story, said an official with the Hill County Sheriff’s Department.
Some relatives have said Amina and Sarah Said were victims of an honor killing because their father thought they had delivered shame to the family.
“I don’t know how you can use the term honor and killing in this instance,” Irving Police Chief Jeff Spivey said Wednesday night. “This man brutally murdered, shot to death, his two daughters in his taxi cab. What led him to do that I think at this point to us is irrelevant.”
The suspect’s arrest required tenacity, the chief said.
“This is a good day for law enforcement. This is one of the days that make this difficult job really pay off,” Spivey said.
“The FBI-led Dallas Violent Crimes Task Force has worked tirelessly to find Yaser Abdel Said,” DeSarno wrote in a statement. “These experienced investigators never gave up on their quest to find him and pledged to never forget the young victims in this case.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 7:23 PM.
