Yaser Said, found guilty in daughters’ murders, still faces charge of evading arrest
Yaser Said, who was convicted on Tuesday of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters in 2008, also faces a federal charge for evading the FBI for 12 years.
Said was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Tuesday, moments after a Dallas County jury found him guilty of capital murder. Dallas Judge Chika Anyiam sentenced him.
At one point, Said was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, after he fled from law enforcement following the killings of his daughters, Sarah Said, 17, and Amina Said, 18.
A trial date has not been set for his charge of fleeing to avoid prosecution for his daughters’ murders.
Said hid inside a secret room of his family’s house in Justin to elude arrest, according to FBI agents’ testimony Monday.
The FBI had previously been tipped off about Said’s whereabouts at a Bedford apartment complex in 2017, but he disappeared again until August 2020, according to FBI testimony. The FBI knew Said had family members who lived in North Texas in cities that included Euless, Bedford, Haltom City and Southlake, an FBI agent testified Friday. Financial records tipped authorities off that the Said family had a home in Justin.
On Aug. 26, 2020, a SWAT team set up around the house and set flash bangs off in the back yard to dissuade Said from escaping that way, according to the FBI. Said surrendered to the SWAT team, and was arrested.
Said shot and killed his daughters on Jan. 1, 2008, after he told their mother, his then-wife Patricia Owens, he was taking them out to dinner.
On Christmas Day in 2007, the girls and their Owens had run away from the family’s Lewisville home because they were afraid of their father, according to testimony from Owens. But Owens and the girls returned back to their home by Jan. 1, 2008.
Some family members have said the girls were victims of “honor killings” because their father thought they had brought shame to the family. The girls were dating boys who were not Muslim, and the girls’ mother testified last week that Yaser Said had threatened their daughters.
