Trial set for family members of murder suspect Yaser Said accused of hiding him for years
The son and brother of capital murder suspect Yaser Said are set to go on trial next month in Fort Worth on federal charges that they helped hide him for years before he was arrested last summer.
Yaser Said, who was on the FBI”s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List, is accused of shooting to death his two teenage daughters on Jan. 1, 2008 in his taxi cab in Irving, and then fleeing the scene.
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.
Amina Said, 18, and Sarah Said, 17, were slain outside the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving
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.
After the killing, the 63-year-old was then on the run for 12 years until he was arrested in August in Justin.
Federal authorities said two members of Yaser Said’s family, his son, Islam Said, 32, and brother, Yassein Said, 59, helped conceal Yaser Said’s whereabouts from August 2017 to Aug. 26, 2020, when Yaser Said was taken into custody without incident.
A federal grand jury indicted Yassein Said and Islam Said in October on two federal charges, conspiracy to conceal a person from arrest and concealing a person from arrest.
Their trial is scheduled for Feb. 1 in a federal court in Fort Worth.
If they are convicted, Yassein Said and Islam Said face a maximum of five years in a federal prison.
Throughout the investigation, federal agents and Irving police believed other members of Yaser Said’s family had assisted and communicated with him.
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 in a federal criminal complaint.
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 physical surveillance at both homes.
A few days later, FBI agents saw Islam Said and Yassein Said carry about five grocery bags into the Justin home.
Later, authorities armed with a search warrant found Yaser Said in the Justin home in a hidden room and arrested him without incident
Yaser Said remained in the Dallas County Jail on Thursday awaiting his capital murder trial.
Yaser Said faces the death penalty if he’s convicted of capital murder.
This report contains information from Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives.
