All language subtitles for Staged Deadly Deception - S01E07 - Hate Crime Killing.eng

She was one who had to
come downstairs

and find her mother bleeding,
you know, dying on the floor.

That's a trauma that she'll
never be able to get rid of.

We don't know where the weapon
is in this case.

It wasn't at the scene.

It would need to be a weapon
of some substance.

Tonight,
a new search and new information

on a possible hate crime.

There's an awful lot of pressure
that's coming. You have the media.

And of course, the media is gonna
be paying particular attention

to this because it has blood
and violence in it.

Police are under pressure
to make something happen,

and they need to arrest somebody.

They need to announce
that they've got leads.

They've struck once.
They may do it again.

And staging the crime
as a hate crime

would take the focus
off the immediate family members.

As soon as you determine that
there was no forced entry

but there's that broken window
to give that impression,

well, then you have
to start looking at,

"Wait a minute, something's wrong."

Significant other is always,

always, always
the number one suspect. Period.

We have the husband now pointing
the finger at the daughter.

Once you know
that you're accused of a murder,

the first thing you want to do is
further misdirect the police

to go into another direction.

Now he's caught in a lie.
So what else is he lying about?

I think anyone that stages a crime
to create public outcry

or discord deserves a special place.

Shaima and Kassim fled Iraq due
to an uprising. They came to the US,

and they found a very welcoming
Middle Eastern community

called El Cajon, in California.

And, you know, they really
wanted to start this new life.

I have asked many clients,

"Why do Middle Eastern
people come to El Cajon?"

The most substantive response
I've gotten is that it's a lot like

their hometowns in places like Iraq

and other Middle Eastern locations.

Right away, Shaima really made
an impression on the community.

She made tons of friends.

She was someone that people
always wanted around.

She was, you know, really a staple
in that community very quickly.

He and his wife
met in a refugee camp,

when she was, like, 13 or 14,
very, very young.

Shaima was particularly close
with her teenage daughter, Fatima.

They had a really special bond.

And Fatima often referred
to her mom as her best friend.

Fatima is a very strong,

very independent-thinking,

Americanized child
of Middle Eastern parents

that grew up in what I would call
a very severe environment.

Because Shaima was such
a bright light,

such a warm, approachable person,

no one ever would have thought that
something this heinous

would happen to someone like her.

Fatima was upstairs in the home
getting ready for her day.

She comes down the stairs
and was absolutely shocked

to see her mother lying
bleeding on the floor.

She couldn't believe
what she was seeing.

To walk down
and see your mother in that state...

...she probably went into a complete
state of shock.

She probably couldn't even
comprehend what she was looking at.

I found her on the floor,
drowned in her own blood.

So Fatima made an emergency call,
and first responders came

and found the body of her mother,
who had been beaten.

And there was a note next to her.

Saying, "Go back to your country,
terrorist."

And because that was near
her mother,

it was right away
viewed as a hate crime.

Based on the contents
of this note, we are not ruling out

the possibility
this may be a hate crime.

I do a lot of work in El Cajon,

so it caught my attention
right away.

And then not long after,
I got a call,

and we spoke for a minute or two.

I don't remember what
we spoke about,

but at some point I went,

"Are you the daughter in that case?"

And she said, "Yes."
And I think we both started crying.

I mean, it was a very sad moment.

Hate crimes are very sensitive
things to investigate.

They involve community tensions.

Sometimes communities don't believe

the police investigate
hate crime properly.

Witnesses may not want to come
forward because it's complicated.

So in a certain sense,

it was quite a credible thing,
because of their Iraqi background,

that this could be the explanation
for this case.

And in fact, that is how the police
treated the case initially.

When they get to the scene
and we see there's

potential forced entry
and then the note...

The note itself
is really not consistent

with what we would
find in a, quote, "hate crime".

Really, in a hate crime,

they're not just punishing
this particular person.

What they want to do in a hate crime
is advertise to everybody else

that this in fact happened.

So just leaving a note is not it.

They would do something else
far bigger than that,

to use this death as a warning
to everybody else.

This appears to be targeted,

that they're looking at this one
particular person,

not Muslims in general.

Once the news became public
in the community

that this could be a hate crime,

it was terrifying for everyone,

you know, because it's such a tight
knit Middle Eastern community.

They all felt that, you know,

"This is something that
could happen to me, too.

If it could happen to her,
why not me?

My family, my neighbour."

You know, it instilled a horrible
amount of fear into everyone.

And, what could happen next?

They don't know who did this.

They don't know if it's internal

or somebody just came in
from the outside.

They won't have any idea what they
should do to protect themselves.

Any time you commit a crime
on a victim

that shares a characteristic,

like being Middle Eastern
or being gay,

statutorily they can
prosecute you for a hate crime,

and the penalties are much higher.

It's considered to be
a more serious crime.

Because this was a crime that
seems to be a hate crime,

it was picked up by media all over
the place, not just local media,

but, you know, major national
outlets were talking about this.

So the fact that it was
garnering so much attention

put a really extra sense
of pressure on the case

and pressure to solve it.

The suspect broke a glass
door in the rear of the house

during the commission of the crime,

which El Cajon police say
could be a hate crime.

But there is another reason
this story

is pulling
at the world's heartstrings.

Mohebi says it was well known
that in coming to America from Iraq,

Alawadi hoped to build a bond
between Muslims and Christians,

and she hoped she would have
a safe haven here to do so.

Shaima's husband, Kassim,

became very vocal after the news

that this
was a perceived hate crime,

appearing on camera,
demanding answers,

making sure that everyone was aware

that they were looking for somebody
who was capable of doing this.

And he, you know,
really took that cause on

and was not afraid
to let his voice be known.

And once the news,

you know, percolated throughout the
community, people were coming out

and protesting. They were really
wanting answers of what happened

and,
"How are we going to be protected?

So it became a big moment

for the police department
to start searching for answers.

Alawadi's
17-year-old daughter, Fatima,

finds her mother in a pool of blood
on the dining room floor.

She says her mother had been hit
repeatedly in the head

with a tyre iron.

The first thing that investigators
need to do is examine the scene

and see if there
are any fingerprints,

anything forensic
that can be traced back

to someone
who's in the system already.

The investigator would then speak
to the family of the victim to see,

did they have any enemies?

Had they been threatened?

Had they encountered anyone
suspicious

or seen anything
suspicious recently?

The crime scene processors
are gonna be looking

for physical evidence.
Anything that the perpetrator might

have left behind.
And also anything that indicates

that this is NOT the kind of crime
it looks like.

One of the things they discover
is that the glass door

was broken in a way that
had to have been done from inside.

It looked like the glass was
shattered out into the yard, not in.

Kassim's account is that there was
an intruder, there was a break in,

and that they smashed a window
in his glass door in his house.

Glass breaks in kind of two ways.

It breaks into concentric rings
and radial lines.

And if you examine
the edges of that glass,

you can tell which direction
the force came from.

This does not suggest forced entry
or a break in or intruders.

It suggests something else.

As soon as you determine
that there was no forced entry

but there's that broken window
to give that impression, well,

then you have to start looking at,
"Wait a minute, something's wrong."

Whoever did this
was already inside the house.

And that was added
to distract the police.

Now again, when you break
a window in an occupied residence,

what you're doing
is you're alerting the resident.

So someone who's coming in to do
something to the resident

might not want to make all
that noise.

So you have to take all
that into consideration.

The fact that such a violent
and bloody scene happened

and no one heard anything

points to the fact that she had
to know her attacker.

And also,
she was a very strict Muslim,

so she wore a hijab
anytime she was out in public

or any time she would see someone.

She was not wearing that
when she was found.

That further leads you to believe
that she had been inside her house

with someone
she was comfortable around.

Who is she comfortable around?
Who has access to the home?

Her family.

The police eventually go through
and took a look in her car.

And they find actual divorce papers.
Well,

that immediately goes to the very
top of the list of motive. Divorce.

Mom took out divorce papers.

I believe she presented them
to the father.

And of course,
that created some problems,

some tension, some passion.

In law enforcement circles,

significant other is always,
always,

always the number one suspect.
Period.

Every single case where
that relationship exists.

So things began to emerge.

Police would then frame that as,
"Well, why are there tensions?

Does it involve domestic violence?
Does it involve other issues?"

And they would then
start to investigate that.

But it provides a motive
for her death

that is different
from the hate crime motive.

The other tensions that were
bubbling up

were the parents' desire

that Fatima marry her cousin,

who I believe lived in Iraq.

Fatima was not happy with that.

That created tension
with her parents

and between the parents.

So there was a lot going on.

It wouldn't immediately just
dismiss the hate crime motive.

As in many cases,

until a dominant theory
of the crime emerges,

there will be parallel
investigations

into different explanations.

But it would frame the crime
in a very different way.

In the initial stages
of this investigation,

the note was discovered very close
to where the victim was found.

The note turns out to have been
photocopied from a note

that had been left a few weeks
earlier outside the door.

So who would have photocopied
the note

rather than just written it
originally?

And so there are suspicious elements
to this that give them leads to

"Now we have to investigate
this further."

When they find that the note
was prepared

some time BEFORE the crime,

I think that would then make
Kassim's actions look suspicious.

When the evidence points
away from a hate crime

and the focus then
turns toward the family,

the investigators' focus needs to be
on ruling family members out.

So they would interview them,

and they would try to
find corroborating information

to back up their story.

When we first interview a witness

that has experienced a
traumatic event, you know,

we understand
that we got to be cool and calm.

The problem is is it's imperative
to get the information

as quickly as we can
as to what they found.

El Cajon Police say they
are investigating all aspects

of this case, including
the possibility of a hate crime.

But they also say based
on the evidence gathered so far,

they do believe
this is an isolated incident.

Hate crimes are so vile
that it would be hard to believe

someone in her own family
would write an anti-Muslim note.

And also the fact that
everything pointed

to this not being a hate crime

indicates that the crime was
staged to appear like a hate crime.

And staging the crime
as a hate crime

would take the focus
off the immediate family members.

A problem that often arises

is that this person
who staged the crime,

their emotions that they project
when they speak to law enforcement

is often not in line with what one
would expect emotions to be

when they find
their loved one killed.

That whole area of psychology
is pretty interesting.

I mean, there are people that kill
people who cry real tears.

At a memorial service
for Shaima Tuesday afternoon,

a plea from Shaima's husband,
translated by her 15-year-old son.

What are you getting out of this,

and why did you do it?

This particular case,

when the husband is
constantly going to the media

and reaffirming this hate crime

and trying to drum up support with
the rest of the Muslim community,

to me, that's very important.

Going on camera
and having a press conference

makes him look MORE like a victim
in this case.

He's still trying to keep
control over things.

It's one of the reasons
he held a news conference.

He wanted to make sure everybody
bought into his version of it.

He was so little considered
to be the suspect

and so little considered
to be a flight risk

that they "let him"
take her body back to Iraq.

Police are under pressure
to make something happen,

and they need to arrest somebody.

They need to announce
that they've got leads,

that they have a productive plan
in place

and something's going to happen to
reassure people,

because otherwise it just looks like
they don't know what they're doing

and everybody remains unsafe.

There's an awful lot of pressure
that's coming.

It's pressure not only
just to solve what's happening,

but you also
have outside influences.

You have the media.
And of course,

the media is going to be paying
particular attention to this

because it has blood
and violence in it.

And the remainder of the
Muslim community,

they're going to be
outraged as well.

They have to be assured that

the police aren't just brushing
this away, they are treating it

with the necessary attention
that it deserves.

He had been so involved

and been vocal, talking about it
being a hate crime.

You know, how could he possibly be
the one who was involved in this?

We do know that Shaima
Alawadi was planning

to divorce her husband and move
to Texas with her children.

Investigators Tuesday
removed bags of evidence

as they executed a second search
warrant on her Skyview Street home

in El Cajon, where the Iraqi mother
of five was found

bludgeoned with a tyre iron
last Wednesday morning.

The two immediate
suspects are Kassim, the husband,

who might have known that his wife
was about to divorce him...

...and Fatima,
who apparently has some beef

with them wanting to put her
into an arranged marriage.

And she does not want to do this.

So we have two people
in the household

who already have motive
for committing this murder.

And then you have to look at, OK,

out of these two people
that we know that were there,

who's most likely to have committed
the crime?

And then typically in interfamilial
or domestic-type events,

it's usually the other spouse that's
going to be suspect number one,

automatically.

There are videos of him
at her coffin in Iraq

where he broke down...

very emotionally.

I don't know what the normal
way to react to a death is,

even if you're the one that
committed the killing.

So now they have two suspects.

They have
to investigate both further.

It's possible the two of them
were in on it together,

and that's something
they also have to think about.

Fatima had a boyfriend. She did not
want to have this arranged marriage.

And this boyfriend was seen with her
around the time of the incident.

So her resistance to this arranged
marriage gives her a motive

for why she might want
her mother dead.

They have a note, so they might be
able to compare handwriting.

That's one thing.

If they can find the implement that
was used to either bludgeon Shaima

or break the door,
so that's potentially a crowbar,

something like that, they can check
it for who might have handled it.

They're going to be looking at any
kind of computer

or digital record on phones,
tablets, anything like that,

to see if somebody had planned
this out in some way

or if there was any collusion
between father and daughter on this.

All through their interviews,

even when they had all this
information that kind of points

to the husband, the husband still
maintains that he wasn't present.

And there's no other evidence
to firmly establish

that he was there
at that particular time.

So the police came up with a
photograph that they doctored

to make it appear as
if his car had been photographed

at another location nearby.

This use of false evidence,

which is totally legal
in the United States,

can sometimes break down
your offender when they realise,

"Uh-oh, my alibi isn't holding up."

The police, in a creative move,

confronted him with the picture...

that they said was taken
from a nearby camera.

And the father actually did
not park his car there,

but they confronted him with it,

and he cracked.

He made a mistake.

He knew that the cops had got him.
Or at least he thought so.

And he made a very important
admission that,

yes, he was, in fact, at the house.

Now he's caught in a lie.

So what else is he lying about?

That's an open door to start
really putting pressure on him.

He might fess up to other things
that give them leverage.

I'm outside the former
home of Shaima Alawadi.

I spoke with her daughter's best
friend today and she says the family

is not surprised to hear about
today's arrest of Kassim Alhimidi.

Today,

the Iraqi man accused
of killing his wife faced a judge.

Kassim Alhimidi appeared
on video during his arraignment.

Not guilty

Arabic interpreter and a public
defender were at his side.

His five children
watched from the courtroom.

His daughter, Fatima,
shown here today,

wept when she saw her father
on the screen.

Once Kassim was arrested
and charged for this crime,

that news was an absolute shock
to the whole entire community.

They had all been so involved
in trying to find this person.

It was unbelievable to everyone.

The Muslim community would be
relieved to some degree

that this ISN'T a hate crime.
It's not what it looked like.

That would make them
very angry and doubly angry.

It isn't just about a failed
domestic situation that's tragic.

It's about, "You used us

to try to make this
look like something else.

And we want justice. Not just
for the victim but for all of us."

Because the community had been
so involved in solving this case

and demanding answers
from the police department,

when Kassim was officially
charged with this crime,

you know, the community really did
want a sense of justice here.

They wanted him
to be held responsible.

They wanted him to really apologise.

Much of the affidavit is centred on

the behaviour of Shaima's
17-year-old daughter, Fatima,

the only other person known to be in
the home at the time of the attack.

She was evidently unhappy
about an arranged marriage.

He points the finger
at his daughter as the perpetrator

and tries to vilify her essentially
and blame her for this.

That's now just tearing
the family completely apart.

He hasn't allied with her
in any way.

She's 17. She's forced to be alone
to fight this out herself.

And she too, with a circumstantial
case, it could be made against her.

The daughter,
Fatima, changed her story.

And why the Muslim teen continued
to lie about her Chaldean boyfriend

and her relationship
with her mother.

I think you had
two clear suspects.

We're not sure where
they were at the time of the murder.

And they each
have their own narrative.

Fatima, she knew her mother
wanted to get a divorce,

and she knew that they had
a contentious marriage.

So she has ammunition
against her father.

And they're just clashing. One of
them wants the other to go down.

And this is not how you
think about families.

You have the offender,
the husband,

now pointing the finger
at the daughter.

That is not uncommon,

because once you know that you're
accused of a murder,

the first thing you want to do is
further misdirect the police

to go into another direction.

What a defence attorney needs
is their own version of the events.

And part of the defence
story has to be,

"If my client didn't do this,
who else did?"

And if you can point
to a probable suspect,

the prosecution's almost
in a position

where they need to disprove that.

They need to show that there's
sufficient evidence that

this person DIDN'T do it.

And in this case, the daughter would
have been the only one

that could have broken
the glass from the inside

and who could have
also staged the scene.

Now blaming a crime on his daughter
also makes some sense,

because the defence can put forward
a motive for the daughter

to have killed the mother.

So anytime you can point
the finger at someone else,

it's very helpful to the defence.

El Cajon Police Chief Jim
Redman finally put to rest rumours

that had persisted for months,
that the murder

of 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi
was a hate crime.

Instead, he says, her husband,
Kassim Alhimidi,

brutally beat her to death.

When he does plead not guilty
and he's going to go to trial,

the trial sets off
a major flurry of attention

throughout the whole entire country,

media outlets, the community.

Everyone wants to see
the outcome of this trial

because they were already
so heavily invested

in this potential hate crime
that had occurred.

Tonight,
a husband is behind bars,

charged with his wife's murder,

which was staged
to look like a hate crime.

Alawadi's bloody body
was found by her daughter, Fatima,

seen here talking to Ten News
the day after the murder.

And standing beside her, the man now
charged with his wife's murder,

Kassim Alhimidi. As you can see,
he appears to be crying.

And within a couple of weeks,

here he is at his wife's funeral
in Iraq, collapsing to the ground.

Mr Alawadi may have been offered
a plea deal

that was not acceptable to him.

It is his constitutional right
to have a trial by jury.

What he is saying by taking this
case to trial is saying,

"You think I did this?
Prove it

but prove it
beyond a reasonable doubt."

Once the investigators believe
they have enough evidence,

the case goes to the prosecutor
for charging decisions,

and that can happen one of two ways.

One, by the prosecutor filing
a legal document

that accuses him of the crime.

And the other way of doing it is by
taking the case before a grand jury.

And interestingly,
only the prosecutor

presents evidence
before the grand jury.

We do not have a defence attorney
in there to question any of it.

And the grand jury has to determine,

is there enough evidence
here that we could send it to a jury

and a jury could reasonably
believe that it was him?

Reasonable doubt means we don't
have clear, direct physical evidence

that puts the murder weapon
in this person's hand.

So what you have is circumstances,
and the jury is going to decide

whether
they have enough circumstances,

that this is way too
much for coincidence,

somebody that this case is
built against is definitely guilty.

So the defence is trying to poke
a hole in that set of circumstances

and show you still haven't
really proven anything.

Going to trial, he still believes

that he can get one over
on the jury.

Kassim Alhimidi used a
rolled up towel to silence his sobs

as his defence attorney
made a final plea to jurors,

saying Alhimidi loved his wife
and wouldn't kill her,

so much so that
when he learned Shaima Alawadi,

the mother of his five children,
was brain dead, he broke down.

He said, "Take my brain.

Take my brain
and implant it in her.

I'll pay you any amount of money.

Save her life."

The jury would be confronted
with a motive

which explains all of this evidence.

The motive needs to be credible,
needs to be plausible,

and it needs to be convincing

so that they believe
that is the explanation

for all these indirect pieces
of evidence

that link to Kassim being the killer

and overcoming any gaps
in the evidence,

for example,
the absence of the weapon.

We don't know where the weapon
is in this case.

It wasn't at the scene.
It was never recovered.

But you can infer what
that weapon might be.

The pathologist described the
injuries as blunt trauma injuries.

So he or she was distinguishing
those injuries

from lacerations from a knife or
a sharp object, from a gunshot.

It is also likely that the
pathologist would have indicated

how heavy the weapon was.

It would need to be a weapon
of some substance. Now,

why would the pathologist know that?

By examining the wound,
the shape of the wound,

the length of the wound, the damage
to the skin or bone,

whether these were cuts or bruises,

how deep the bruising went
and so on and so forth. So,

it's something experienced forensic
pathologists do all the time,

particularly when no weapon
is recovered.

Even the prosecutor in this case
says this is not a slam dunk.

No, it's not. And that's
because mostly it's circumstantial.

The murder weapon was never found.

There was no blood evidence ever
linking Kassim Alhimidi

to the murder of his wife

or linking him to that bizarre hate
letter that was left near her body.

I believe that Kassim thought he had
everything under control.

And as soon as he was a suspect,
he found out he didn't.

And even during the trial,

he would have been still very
heavily invested in the fact that

"people should believe me".

He believes a lot in the power
of his own convictions

and he's a very strong presence.

And he continues to want people
to hear his voice,

even though it's kind of over.

Now Kassim Alhimidi
was wailing so loudly,

the judge had to call for a break,
and at one point,

he just put his head down,
dropped his arms and sobbed.

Testimony showed Shaima
referred to her husband

as the actor
for his manufactured emotions.

The family and the community
really wanted to see Kassim pay

for what he did because, you know,

not only had he gotten
the entire community involved

in trying to solve this hate crime,
he had done this violent,

horrible crime to their beloved
member of their community

and tried to lie about it
on top of it.

It was like one blow
after the other,

and people just really
wanted to see him pay for that.

After the prosecution and defence
have done all of their arguments

and admitted all of the evidence,

the case goes to the jury,

and the jury needs to
determine beyond reasonable doubt,

did this person commit this crime?

Deliberations sometimes
take a long time.

And if at the end of the first
day of deliberations

the jury hasn't reached a verdict,
they can continue the next day.

And if you have one person
on that jury

who is not completely convinced

and they cannot be convinced
by the other jurors,

it ends up in a hung jury,
which means a mistrial.

So everyone
has to be on the same page.

If convicted, Alhimidi could
get 26 years to life in prison.

The jury will return here tomorrow
morning to begin its deliberations.

It's not a quick verdict,

but it certainly didn't take that
long for them to come back with it.

California, plaintiff,
versus Kassim Alhimidi, defendant.

Guilty of the crime of murder.

Once the verdict comes in and it
doesn't go his way,

he's going to explode...

...and insist that they're wrong.

He's innocent,
and he just wants to die.

Wants it all over with.
He can't even believe this happened.

The guilty verdict
against Kassim Alhimidi

brought pandemonium
to the courtroom.

His oldest son, Mohammad,
began screaming in the gallery.

That's ...

Others joined in then,
including the defendant.

Then a struggle as deputies hold

the younger Alhimidi
out of the courtroom.

He was handcuffed
in the hallway and arrested.

Tempers still high,
though, as his younger brother,

on crutches,
had to be restrained too.

I'm surprised at the sentence:
26 to life?

If I were Fatima I would think this
was an inappropriate sentence.

He should be put away for life,
for good.

He should never have
the chance to get out.

If he does get out,
HER life is in danger.

So I think she would be afraid.

But I think the community would
believe that justice

HADN'T been served because
he still has a shot at getting out.

And he shouldn't have that.

People that stage these things,

it's terribly manipulative,
and honestly,

using the tension in that community

to shield yourself

from a murder that you committed,

I mean, it's very creative,

but it's a special kind of evil.

Trust me,
even as a defence attorney,

I don't like bad people.

In a community like the one
in El Cajon where, you know,

the majority of the community
is Middle Eastern,

something like a hate crime is
a very intense, serious thing.

It's not something
to be taken lightly.

And it sets a level of fear
that is unlike a regular crime.

And this community
was rattled by this.

It instilled so much fear in them

that even after Kassim
was sentenced,

they still carried that fear
with them,

and it reverberated for years after.

And now Fatima and her two brothers

have to grow up without either
parent. You know,

one of them killed and the other one
serving essentially life in prison,

over a senseless crime...

that should have never happened.

And Fatima, the one who had to come
downstairs

and find her mother bleeding,

you know, dying on the floor,

that's something that she
will have to cope with

and carry for the rest of her life.
That's a trauma

that she'll never be able
to get rid of,

and that's a horrible thing.

I think it's clear this wasn't
just a reactive crime.

He had planned it.

The note showed up
a few weeks before.

He had staged it in a way
that riled up the community.

He did a bad job,
but he still had premeditation.

And it wasn't a heat-of-the-moment
kind of murder.

And that's why I'm surprised
at the sentence.

The unbelievably deep harm

that it has caused
to so many people.

I think anyone that stages a crime

to create public outcry

or foment discord

deserves a special place,

because it certainly harms...

I would even use the word
"traumatises",

a huge number of people.

You can barely imagine
what it must be like

for those children to see their
father, who they love and trusted,

who they believed was fighting to
find their mother's killer,

was actually the one
who was behind it all along.

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