Trial underway for Arlington man accused of killing wife days after she arrived in Texas
Prosecutors continued on Tuesday to present their murder case against a 39-year-old Arlington man accused of killing his wife just days after she arrived from Jordan in 2019.
The murder trial for Tareq Alkayyali is being held this week in Criminal District Court No. 396 in Fort Worth.
Alkayyali is accused of strangling 23-year-old Wasam Moussa of Amman, Jordan, in May 2019.
Moussa was killed less than a week after arriving in Texas from Jordan.
The two had married in Jordan, but the husband came to Texas because of his job, a family member told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2019.
“She went to the United States to try to give her husband a chance to make a life for her family,” said Moussa’s brother, Ahmad Ali, in a 2019 email to the Star-Telegram.
After arriving in Arlington, the 23-year-old Moussa was found unconscious in the couple’s apartment and was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
An autopsy indicated that Moussa died from asphyxiation, according to officials with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Arlington police found Alkayyali outside of the couple’s apartment on May 28, 20219, and arrested him.
“She went there knowing that she had a lot of problems with him,” Ali said in the email. He did not provide any further details.
Arlington police responded to a call for a welfare check at 6:42 a.m. on May 28, 2019, in the 2500 block of Park Village Drive.
A caller told a dispatcher that a man could be at the apartment and had assaulted a woman.
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Moussa arrived in Arlington on May 25, 2019, after getting approval from the United States Embassy in Jordan to travel to Texas.
“After she arrived, there were problems,” her brother said. “She asked to go to Miami, where another sister lives. She wanted to live there without problems.”
Ali said Moussa’s husband ignored her request to live in Miami with her sister.
“Our hearts were broken because of this savage,” her brother said. “She was an angel.”
Anyone who needs help should call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
This report contains information from Fort Worth Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 12:23 PM.
