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00:04a fatal fall from a second floor window of a detroit mansion i start screaming and i run to
00:12my brother's room we need an ambulance let's tell the window can't you follow
00:16a devoted mom's life cut short bustle arrives sees his estranged wife dead and he drops in shock
00:26was it simply just tragic misfortune this was an accidental fall i'm yeah i'm pretty sure
00:33the physical examination did find fractures consistent with a fall of this kind or murder
00:40somebody was there we know that it's undidated i mean if you're in the room with her they just
00:44say you're in the room with to my mom's wife man
01:10nada harania moved here to michigan from syria in the middle east her husband basil
01:17altantawi was a medical doctor and set up a practice here in metro detroit
01:22nada and basil had come to the united states from syria they were raising their children in
01:29farmington hills which is a very nice suburb of detroit they were devout muslims they were members
01:34of a local mosque and they had three children their son muhammad and two daughters including
01:41aya my name is aya altantawi my mom was a very very kind person she put everybody before her
01:51and she loved us she loved her kids she and i we had a pretty good relationship we bonded over
01:57makeup
01:58she was very very good at it she was very passionate about the gym about working out just feeling like
02:07the best version of herself such was nada's love of fitness that she eventually turned her passion
02:13into a career working as a personal trainer at her local gym in farmington hills she was becoming more
02:21independent she was actually living her life for the first time she and i would go to the gym i
02:27would
02:28do my session she would be working out or she would be teaching her own clients and then we'd work
02:33out
02:33for a little bit at the end and then we'd go home nada embraced the sense of freedom and independence
02:39that her new career gave her but her husband basil wasn't so supportive he didn't like it he didn't
02:48think it was necessary for her to be independent he thought that his role for the family was to be
02:55the provider so there was no need for her to be independent because we all were reliant on him and
03:00he was
03:01there to provide everything we needed so he didn't like that he wanted i think us to be just lost
03:07without
03:07him my dad was very old school in his thinking to put it nicely so my mom wanting to get
03:14a job to work
03:15at the gym to live her life to him was she's becoming americanized and he didn't want that
03:23there became turmoil in their marriage based on nada's desire to become more westernized and
03:30basil's desire to have a traditional wife within their religious practices he did say that once she
03:39removed the hijab that she wasn't really a person anymore he didn't consider her to be a person
03:45and that that was the part that really disturbed me they would have arguments but at first it was
03:52always don't talk about it around the kids wait until the kids are gone but eventually that pretense
03:57dropped and it was just all out in the open constant yelling and screaming for my dad towards my mom
04:03he was becoming violent uncontrollable in his fits of anger and he wanted to put us in a little box
04:11and
04:11hide us away and lock the key he was a man who was used to being in control and that
04:20included in
04:21his tradition uh being in control of his wife and he was losing that control and it was very upsetting
04:29to
04:30him in early 2016 basil and nada's volatile relationship escalated to whole new levels around valentine's day
04:39i remember i woke up to hearing them screaming and arguing and i opened my door and i went to
04:47the railing to look down to see what was going on and my dad was holding my mom's phone and
04:53he was
04:53like walking around the house trying to get away from her and like he wouldn't give her her phone back
04:58and he went to their bedroom and he was standing behind the door and my mom put her hand in
05:06the door
05:06to try to pry it open and my dad slammed it shut on her hand
05:12eventually i called the police and they arrested him they took him to police station they put a
05:18tether on him an ankle monitor so he wasn't allowed to come back to the house under any circumstance
05:24basil would eventually be charged with domestic violence he would plead no contest but it would be
05:30the beginning of the end of their marriage basil was also issued with a protective order banning him
05:38from the family home shortly after his domestic violence charge nada started divorce proceedings while
05:45juggling her career alongside parenting three young children as a single mom this divorce between basil and
05:52nava was definitely what i would call a high conflict divorce there was a lot of contention i was
06:01concerned about nava's general safety but there was a court order in place that protected her a lot of times
06:08nobody knew what she was going through because she didn't want to talk about her issues she wanted
06:12to talk about what was bothering the people that she loved so that she can try to help them most
06:18of the
06:18time we didn't know what the details of what she was going through approximately 18 months after the
06:26incident between basil and nada on the morning of monday august 21st 2017 14 year old aya was preparing
06:36for her usual school day it was the second week of my sophomore year of high school i was excited
06:44but
06:45that day i woke up late normally my mom would already be awake she would have had her coffee or
06:51whatever i think i remember hearing my brother's shower on but nobody else was awake in the house
06:59so i thought okay let me get ready and then i'll see where everybody else is at i finished getting
07:05ready
07:05and i sat on my bed and i was like okay this is really strange it's like 6 15 ish
07:09nobody else seems to
07:11be awake we're gonna be late so i called my mom or didn't get a response so i was like
07:15okay i'm gonna
07:16go find her and see what's going on i went to the guest bedroom that was where she would do
07:23her makeup
07:23every morning the window was open and i thought maybe just in case let me go look out there
07:30the guest bedroom was towards the back of the house it was two floors up and looked out over a
07:36concrete patio which was 22 feet down inside that guest bedroom a stepladder a bottle of cleaning
07:44solution on top of it next to it a bucket of water all right next to that open window
07:50when aya looked out the window two floors below she saw the lifeless body of her mother nada
07:56on the patio face up still dressed in her pajamas
08:02i start screaming and i run to my brother's room
08:08i opened his door and i said our mom's outside our mom's outside he's like what what are you talking
08:14about i think he was falling behind me at this point and i was i was running out the garage
08:19to go
08:19around the house and i just i was telling him come on like we have to go our mom's outside
08:26despite how distressing this was i had just seen her mother she was able to get her brother to come
08:32down to the patio where her mother was and she called 911
08:40911
08:42what's going on there um i don't know we were we were we were
08:46we were talking about my mom and i was the other one that was opening she never opened
08:50then she followed her mom and i looked to stories yes
08:56oakland county police officers raced to nada's home while a 911 operator stayed on the line with aya
09:17aya gave her brother muhammad the phone at this point he then started following the dispatcher's
09:22instructions to give cpr to his mom okay i'm gonna tell you how to do it okay
09:29one two three four one two three four just pick up the pace one two three four one two three
09:40four
09:40keep going you're doing good one two three four
09:46at around 6 40 a.m as muhammad was performing cpr on his mom the police arrived
09:54i had directed the officers as they arrived while the 911 operators probed muhammad on what had
10:01happened so what happened to your mom there look right she fell off the building how did she fall
10:09i didn't go to their room like this is there she does scream i couldn't look
10:14do you know what the house she fell or what she was doing
10:18yeah she was on that soft floor she was washing her cleaning the window she was cleaning the window
10:23yeah officer nathan jordan was the first one to arrive on the scene
10:29he checked nada she was still warm to the touch but she would later be declared dead on the scene
10:42after mother of three not a harania fatally fell from a second floor window
10:48her 14 year old daughter aya who had found her mother's body was unaware that she had been pronounced
10:55dead at the scene when they took her i was under the impression that she was going to the hospital
11:01to be worked on i thought okay she's going to be in the icu obviously critical condition but not death
11:07i thought we probably wouldn't get any update for a couple hours but she was still alive
11:12but now she was declared dead on the scene but i didn't know that until hours later
11:19ayah's younger sister had been asleep during the whole incident so the only people who were there at the
11:26time were ayah and her brother muhammad so they were both interviewed by police at the scene
11:38in the guest bedroom there were streaks on the window as well as an iphone left on top of the
11:44dresser there was no immediate signs of a struggle or forced entry that the police could see so
11:51they assumed that this had been a tragic accident whilst nada had been cleaning the window
11:56she'd fallen they were asking us a lot of questions they were asking what our mom's normal
12:03routine was if it was normal for her to clean the windows i said no that's not normal any cleaning
12:09that
12:09she would do would be like washing leftover dishes from the night before but not cleaning outside of a
12:15window she would normally hire a company to come do that and then they were also asking about my mom's
12:20history if she ever attempted to harm herself and i adamantly immediately said no and my brother was
12:27like ayah you didn't know this but yeah she tried to kill herself once and i turned to him and
12:32i was
12:32like what are you talking about no she didn't and he's like ayah you you you didn't know this but
12:36yeah
12:36she tried taking a bunch of pills i just didn't think it was true i thought there would have been
12:42no
12:42way i didn't know about it if our mother overdosed it didn't make sense no matter which way i tried
12:49to
12:49spin it there was no plausible explanation as ayah and her siblings were all under 18 and alone
12:58emergency services called their estranged father basil to come and look after the children
13:05basil arrives and he sees his estranged wife dead on the patio and he drops to his
13:12knees in shock at this point i still didn't know that her mother was dead it was the first time
13:21basil had returned to the family home since the protective order his behavior and comments to his
13:27daughter ayah raised suspicions among investigators that day i had jim so i was wearing leggings and
13:34a shirt and the back of it had an open back cutout my dad comes into the house and he's
13:41like ayah what
13:42are you wearing you're gonna go to hell if you keep dressing like that and i'm just thinking what
13:46is wrong with you this is the first time you're seeing me in over a year and a half and
13:50the first
13:51thing you're saying to me is ayah you're gonna go to hell if you keep dressing like that ayah's father
13:56immediately commenting on her state of dress after ayah has just witnessed this very traumatic experience
14:02and is a child who actually needs consoling is very telling about his sort of attitude approach
14:09to her family and i believe attitude towards women as well still unaware that her mom nada's fall was
14:16fatal ayah was desperate to find out her condition my dad took us to a bunch of different places that
14:23day i think we were coming back from one of his friend's houses we were in the car my dad
14:28driving
14:28and he was on the phone with his mom talking in arabic um and we were pulling up into our
14:34driveway
14:34and he said oh nada's dead everybody gets out of the car and i say to my dad when were
14:43you planning
14:43on telling me that our mother was dead and he turns to me and his face like drops he starts
14:48crying he
14:48turns to me and he he's like ayah we have to stick together we only have each other now we
14:53have to be
14:53there for each other and he's hugging me and i just have my arms down at my sides i'm not
14:58hugging
14:59him back i didn't trust him i didn't feel safe with him i didn't i didn't want to be around
15:05him
15:06i think it just reinforced that any hope i had for him changing becoming empathetic becoming
15:14a father was gone
15:22security and stability are key pillars of any child's upbringing just needs basic fundamental
15:29needs and for ayah all of that has been ripped away in a matter of hours her mom has passed
15:35she
15:35already has a very complicated relationship with her abusive father and so that's really got to put
15:41her in such a difficult and emotional position which is a huge amount to try and comprehend at just 14
15:48years old on august 22nd the morning after nada had died the medical examiner carried out an initial
15:57autopsy on her body she had suffered scrapes and fractures consistent with a fall from height
16:03but there was no blood found under her body she also had a scrape on her head which had not
16:10bled as
16:10profusely as would have been expected and no bleeding on the brain meaning her heart had stopped
16:17pumping before she went out the window that means she couldn't have jumped she couldn't have
16:25accidentally fallen she died before she fell on the patio below
16:33they went back to run further tests and at the same time police returned to the house with a search
16:39warrant there were six security cameras around the outside of the house and they confiscated the
16:45equipment for further review unfortunately none of the cameras looked directly at the guest bedroom
16:52but there was a bit of footage found that blew the investigation open
16:59detectives came across surveillance of the spot where nada's body was found and on footage recorded at
17:065 54 a.m they saw nada's body falling to the ground but when they looked at it again they
17:14spotted
17:15something chilling in the shadow of the second floor bedroom from where nada fell on the left of the
17:22frame a light appears to come on followed by a curtain opening in the guest bedroom a person with short
17:30hair
17:30could be seen opening a window before something heavy was dragged over to it and thrown out of the
17:37window just before nada's body fell to the patio below
17:44this is not someone who's accidentally fallen to their death they're on their own someone else is there
17:49and is involved this fundamentally changed the investigation this was now a homicide not an accident
17:58they could clearly see somebody had pushed nada's body out of the window but whose shadow was it
18:06the first person who came to mind for many was not as a strange husband dr basel alton tohi
18:14basel's history of domestic violence after slamming a door on nada's hand
18:19stood out as a red flag for detectives the police immediately look at basel as a suspect and you can
18:26understand why in the u.s it's estimated that up to nearly 50 percent of all female victims of homicide
18:34have been murdered by intimate partners past or current and so combining that with basel's history
18:40of domestic violence and abuse can really highlight why he was a probable contender for police suspicion
18:47and why they wanted to ask him some very significant questions investigators were also aware that during
18:54divorce proceedings between basel and nada he had become the subject of another criminal investigation
19:01basel had found himself in some serious legal trouble after there had been an investigation
19:06into his clinic basel was convicted of health care fraud in the state of michigan that was handled by
19:14the attorney general of the state of michigan at the time he had to pay a heavy fine and he
19:19lost his
19:19medical license but investigators were shocked to discover that their prime suspect basel had an airtight
19:27alibi as part of his protective order basel wore a gps tracking ankle monitor that fed his location to
19:36authorities 24 7. turns out he was 20 miles away when nada died basel ralton towi was not the killer
19:51after detectives spotted a shadowy figure on a surveillance camera pushing the body of 35 year old
19:58mother of three nada harania from a second floor window investigators began to narrow down their hunt
20:04for her killer they now knew that her abusive estranged husband had a rock solid alibi so the investigators
20:13now needed to know the whereabouts of the children at the time of the murder and try to work out
20:19if
20:20somebody had broken in to kill their mom the day after nada was killed police were wanted to interview
20:26both ayah and muhammad and their dad basel suggested that the best place to do that would be the family
20:32home ayah went to school and when basel went to pick her up muhammad was being interviewed by police
20:39sat at the family's dining table detectives quizzed 16 year old muhammad about his mom
20:46do you and your mom get along well yeah i mean we're pretty normal we've been pretty normal for
20:52like a while like the only time i um i told you this morning uh we kind of had issues
20:59you could say
20:59is at the beginning of like the divorce case but that started how long is that been going on uh
21:05nearly
21:05two years a year and a half now muhammad's attitude towards his parents divorce comes up and
21:10he acknowledges that there was some difficult feelings there which is understandable and
21:15happens i'm going to say in pretty much every case of divorce where children might find that
21:20situation difficult so nothing raises initial significant alarm bells
21:27all right like how often do you talk to your dad say pretty like maybe every three every three four
21:33days three or four days your dad pretty close yeah all right muhammad still seems to have a pretty
21:38strong relationship with his father certainly stronger than that that his sisters have with him
21:43and perhaps that just expresses that this is a very young person who maybe doesn't understand
21:49the violence that's occurred between his mother and father because clearly that's disrupted the
21:55relationship between his father and his sisters but doesn't seem to have between them would you know
22:01if somebody came over to the house last night i mean if somebody came in the house or anything would
22:06you know i'm i i should yeah i got up around six o'clock then six or five i got
22:14into the shower
22:16and then what i started to put my clothes get my school stuff ready and then around 6 30 that's
22:23when
22:23my sister yelled police knew that it was only the children who'd been in the house that day so they
22:29began to question muhammad about who this figure that they'd seen on the cctv could be somebody was
22:36there we know that it's on video so we know that somebody was there when it happened we're trying
22:43to find out if it was something done by an accident which accidents happen all the time it doesn't
22:47change anything or if it was done on purpose that's what we're trying to find out yeah
22:56i i don't want to like i said i don't want to say anything about my sister about
23:01i mean if it comes down to her then yeah she was awake before me although muhammad claimed his
23:08sister was awake before him investigators already knew it couldn't have been her in the guest bedroom
23:15the investigators had a crucial detail from this footage that the person had
23:19shot her so that ruled out ire but you're telling me right now that you weren't in the room like
23:26maybe helping her clean the windows or holding the ladder or anything like that when this happened
23:30when this accident happened no although muhammad denied being in the guest bedroom with his mother
23:36that morning police continued to press him about his whereabouts i mean if you're in the room with her
23:42they just say you were in the room with him i mean not i mean the only thing that i
23:51really did um
23:53i saw her walking upstairs with some stuff and she said to go get spray bottle and then i brought
23:59her
23:59that and i i just that's it i loved muhammad's story has now shifted significantly now this throws into
24:09question all of the account that he's made prior because it's impossible now to know which elements
24:15have been fabricated which elements are based in truth it's okay seriously accidents happen all right
24:23we just need to know so my mother's wife man muhammad i understand that i understand that wholeheartedly
24:32we just need to know why so we don't look into this further okay
24:39what happened under pressure muhammad's story really starts to fluctuate quite a bit he
24:48admits that he was in the room with his mom he was helping her out while she was cleaning holding
24:53the ladder for her but then when she fell in shock he took himself off to the shower i i
25:00i i looked down
25:01i don't want to i don't want to i mean i don't want to do it i don't i didn't
25:06know what to do i mean
25:07so like i said i thought i was like a dreaming song into my room immediately and i just want
25:12to forget
25:12about it because i just saw my mom man when you're looking at a police interview there is a very
25:20key
25:21difference between someone adding in additional pieces of information and changing information and what
25:28we're starting to see here is that muhammad is starting to err on changing information and that
25:33can be a real red flag for potential deceit at this point basel arrived home and stopped the interview
25:42i i need to not tell me now i don't want to go any further i have to try to
25:45not tell me because when i
25:46came back it blew up my mind because my daughter asked me what's going on that why they don't let
25:50us go
25:50back to the house okay so this is actually now if they're getting uh you know you're investigating a
25:56child here following muhammad's shock confession that he was in the room at the time of his mom's
26:02death police interviewed the children separately to avoid them communicating or corroborating on one
26:09version of events ayah used her police interview as an opportunity to explain that she didn't want to
26:17live under the care of her abusive father when we got to the police station and we were being
26:22questioned that was when i was able to make that very clear that regardless of what happens i'm not
26:31going back home with him um and yeah i chose to go into foster care me and my sister were
26:37going to go
26:38live with a family relative who i knew had known for the majority of my life and i trusted and
26:44i felt safer
26:45with them so it was a no-brainer for me on august 24th 2017 three days after nada's fatal push
26:55ayah received an unexpected message on her cell phone i got a text from somebody that i had gone to
27:02middle school with and he had texted me saying i i'm so sorry for your loss um but do you
27:08think he did
27:09it and i was like do i think who did what he said i'm so sorry you didn't hear you're
27:13they're charging
27:14your brother i found out from a middle school classmate that my brother was being charged with
27:20the death of my mother i was in shock it was more like an out-of-body experience where okay
27:28yeah i went through this and i'm telling you all about it but i'm not
27:31feeling the emotions that are connected with it i'm just i don't know i i
27:40on the day this case happened i went out to the family home tried to talk to neighbors but they
27:46didn't know this family very well the family kept to themselves but after a few days of it being in
27:51the news nada's friends started calling police nada would tell them that muhammad her son blamed her
27:59for the trouble in the family and that she would always have her daughters but she was dead to her
28:05son processing the news that her brother had been arrested and charged for the murder of his own
28:13mother aya reflected on muhammad's behavior in the lead up to nada's death he was becoming a lot more
28:21assertive a lot more violent i think he genuinely thought that now that our dad's out of the house he
28:28has to step up and be the man and put us in our place my brother was in contact with
28:36my dad a lot just
28:39became a little like spy essentially for my dad because this was during their divorce case
28:48i had an encounter with muhammad that led me to believe that muhammad had taken his father's side
28:56in the divorce it's actually a blizzard here in michigan and i parked my car close to the house
29:07i met with nava i had not seen muhammad and then when i went to leave when i went to
29:14get into my car
29:16muhammad was actually standing right behind my car and he seemed to be recording my license plate the only
29:24thing i could think of that made sense under the circumstances that he was going to be reporting to
29:28his father so he was trying to find anything he could to give to my dad to use as leverage
29:35is my guess in the divorce case so it made sense that he did it so i still thought okay
29:41maybe somehow
29:42he accidentally did it or he didn't mean to do it or i don't know i guess i didn't fully
29:47believe that
29:47it was 100 intentional ayah is a young and vulnerable girl in this situation whose entire
29:54life has been torn apart in a matter of moments and so of course she's clinging on to the hope
30:00of
30:00her brother's innocence because she's already lost her mother and her father and now this is her
30:05potentially losing her brother too while muhammad awaited trial for the murder of his own mother
30:14his father basil hired a veteran defense attorney named michael sciarno one of the first things that
30:21michael did was highlight that the day after nada died muhammad was interviewed by three police officers
30:28without his dad or an attorney present he could have been coerced by the officers he hadn't been read his
30:35rights and that whatever he said in that interview couldn't then be admissible in the court case
30:40the court ruled in their favor meaning prosecutors were unable to call in muhammad's kitchen table
30:47interview for the trial but in november 2017 during a preliminary court hearing new details of nada's
30:58autopsy report were revealed to the public for the first time the key finding which investigators were
31:05already aware of was that nada had died by asphyxiation she had been smothered to death
31:15armed with evidence that nada had been murdered investigators continued to build their case
31:21and discovered that muhammad resented his mother for the failure of his parents marriage
31:26and had taken his father's side during the divorce
31:31in the very beginning of the divorce case our mother would ask him where he was going when he
31:37was going to meet up with our dad and he wouldn't tell her but then he would ask us where
31:40we were
31:40going and expect answers or when she would try to take his phone because he was texting our dad and
31:45he wasn't supposed to he would not let her and it would turn into its own physical altercation and
31:51he would then take her phone instead it was just very bizarre despite her brother's arrest and his
31:59murder charge i was still holding on to that hope that he might be innocent i lost my dad long
32:06before
32:07my mom died i lost my mom i didn't want to lose my brother too i think that's part of
32:11the reason why i
32:12was not fully accepting that it was 100 intentionally premeditated murder there has to be some other
32:19explanation maybe he did do it but how do you kill your mother how do you kill anyone much less
32:25your
32:26mother after extended legal wranglings over the use of a police interview muhammad altantawi spent
32:36years awaiting trial for the murder of his mother nada harania who had been suffocated before being
32:42pushed out of a second floor window in march 2022 nearly five years after nada's death muhammad altantawi's
32:51murder trial began muhammad altantawi would go on trial charged as an adult with first degree premeditated
33:00murder i was not at the trial i had at that point moved uh jobs and moved back to the
33:11prosecutor's office
33:12who was prosecuting muhammad so i had nothing to do with the prosecution of the case by order of the
33:19uh prosecutor although muhammad altantawi was only 16 years old when he killed his mom he was tried as
33:27an adult because michigan state law allows prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults in cases of serious
33:34offenses such as murder a case like this is extremely rare and there's a name for it matricide
33:41maternal homicide where a child kills his or her own mother the death of a mother at the hands of
33:48a child
33:49almost unheard of in opening statements at the trial prosecutors focused on the motive and also the
33:57family dynamics though muhammad had a hatred for his mother her growing need for more independence her new
34:04americanized lifestyle and the timing nada was set to give a deposition against muhammad's father in
34:11the divorce he wanted to stop that nada came to my office on a friday before she passed away to
34:21prepare
34:21for a deposition that was to be held the next week where basil's attorney would question nava and i in
34:29turn would question basil and i got the impression that she did not think that the deposition was ever
34:36going to take place why that is i don't know i was very concerned about it and i assumed that
34:46nava knew
34:47something that i didn't know that was going to happen between the meeting in my office on friday
34:53and the deposition which was scheduled for the next week as it turned out we'll we'll never know because
35:00now they passed away a couple days later this case wasn't just about the physical facts of who
35:07was where and when it was about a family split down the middle and whether hatred between a father
35:14wife and a son could really cause someone to kill the big question for prosecutors was whether they
35:23would be able to convince the jury that a son was capable of killing his own mother
35:29part of the prosecution's case focused on inconsistencies at the crime scene
35:35the prosecutor explained to the jury that this was not an accident that nada had been suffocated
35:40before she fell and that the scene had been staged the ladder next to the window with a cleaning bottle
35:47of solution on top of it one detective testified that's not a solution that's used to clean windows
35:54and next to nada's body on the patio below was a towel a cloth that had some solution in it
36:01it may have also been used to suffocate nada
36:06then it was time for the prosecution's key evidence the surveillance video footage prosecution
36:14showed the jury the video evidence the shadows from the surveillance cameras a person with short hair
36:21dragging something over to the window then hoisting it out to the window just moments before
36:27nada's body would hit the ground they also pointed out that inside the house were only the three children
36:35and only one had short hair muhammad at one point in the video muhammad could be seen giving his mother
36:44cpr but according to the prosecution only half-heartedly furthermore while on the phone to emergency services
36:53he was not giving her chest compressions at all and was simply counting
36:58one two three four one two three four one two three four prosecutors suggested that this was because
37:08muhammad already knew his mother was dead
37:15then they highlighted key evidence from muhammad altantawi's phone
37:21prosecutors knew it would be extremely difficult to convince a jury that a 16 year old son would kill
37:27his own mother but they had more good circumstantial evidence including muhammad's phone records in fact
37:34he had his mother in his phone as a contact named dog to call somebody a dog and your own
37:42mom nonetheless who
37:44did nothing to deserve that just why muhammad saving his mother's name as dog in his phone is incredibly
37:53misogynistic language and really implies a hatred not just towards his mother but to women and i think
38:02we can really see a potential influence there from his father's own attitudes and behaviors towards women
38:08in his life and how that might have impacted then on muhammad's own opinions and behaviors too
38:14the prosecution also used muhammad's phone to demonstrate motive
38:20just weeks before she was killed nada texted her son muhammad
38:23to tell him she would have to testify in the divorce case
38:27she would have to say truthfully about what happened with abuse and misconduct
38:33prosecutors argued that muhammad wanted to protect his father that this had
38:37serious legal and personal implications that he wanted to stop nada from testifying to protect
38:44his father but there was more strong evidence prosecutors presented to the jury that muhammad
38:51took pictures of the guest room and that open window and sent them to his father three weeks before
38:57nada was killed also revealed was further evidence from his phone in the early morning hours of the
39:03day that nada died there were phone calls between muhammad and his father he had told police he was
39:10asleep before learning of his mother's death even though the trial raised some questions about what
39:17basal knew about what muhammad was planning to do to nada basal altantawi has never been charged with
39:24anything in connection to her murder ayah testified at the trial about what was going
39:30on in their family five years earlier when she was only 14. i didn't see it as testifying against
39:36my brother i was there to testify and tell the truth and that was it one of the things that
39:43i addressed
39:44in court while testifying was the fact that my brother saw the divorce as being a splitting the
39:49family to two sides he and our father and the other being my mother and i and that our agenda
39:54was to
39:55destroy our father's life to take his money to take his house to ruin his career his life which wasn't
40:01the
40:01case in response to the prosecution muhammad altantawi's defense team laid out their arguments
40:09in an attempt to introduce reasonable doubt to the jury they pointed out that there was no way of
40:15proving that the person in the window was muhammad or even the size age or sex of the person casting
40:22the shadow the defense also made the case that muhammad was skinny and there was no way he could
40:29overpower his own mother who had been working out in a gym the defense attorney argued the timeline was
40:35too tight not his body fell at 5 53 in the morning the children woke up at six not enough
40:42time to commit
40:43the murder to clean up the scene and to hide evidence on monday march 14 2022 after deliberating
40:53for only two hours the jury found muhammad altantawi guilty of first degree premeditated murder
41:03six months later at sentencing muhammad continued to declare his innocence then came the victim impact
41:10statements from ayah and muhammad altantawi's father basil he was trying to use everybody else's
41:16story to gain sympathy and he didn't even talk about how he was sad about our mom he didn't talk
41:23about
41:23our mom at all as basil left the courtroom ayah followed him to the lobby to confront him i got
41:32in
41:32his face and i started yelling at him and i would have gladly punched him if i didn't have six
41:38deputies
41:39holding me back and i wouldn't have regretted it i don't think he understands why i felt that way i
41:46don't think he ever will understand why i felt that way because i don't think he's capable of empathizing
41:50with anybody i don't think he's capable of thinking about how other people could be affected
41:57from his actions it's sad for me to think about being related to such pathetic people
42:06muhammad was sentenced to 35 to 60 years in prison with the judge saying he understood the consequences
42:14of his actions and was deserving of such a stiff penalty i have not had any contact with my brother
42:21since the trial or his sentencing ended have i thought about it yes and the only reason that i would
42:27talk to him again not because i want to but because she was also his mother and i recognize that
42:32i am the
42:34would be able to offer him the opportunity for me to go to her grave and have him be on
42:39the phone and
42:40say whatever he would want to her and it doesn't mean that i like him that i love him that
42:45i support him
42:46that i want anything to do with him that i want a relationship with him it means absolutely nothing
42:50other than i'm presenting you with an opportunity that i don't think anybody else would give you
42:56since her mother's death in 2017 and the pain of the trial aya has committed herself to helping other
43:04victims of crime find justice for their loved ones my career plans are to go to law school
43:13um become a criminal prosecutor and if somebody's going through something like domestic abuse or whatever
43:19the case might be where and they feel like they can relate to me or my mom or any part
43:24of anything
43:25that we went through i want people to know um and see that i might be biased but i don't
43:33think i turned
43:33out too terribly all things considered and your life isn't defined by what happens to you what people
43:40do to you your life is what you want it to be what you make of it and that's all
43:46that matters
43:49i remember my mom as somebody who was incredibly selfless and kind and caring and she put everybody
43:57before her and didn't want anybody to ever worry about what she was going through and didn't tell
44:02almost anybody what she was going through and i know she would want everybody that she loved everybody
44:08in her life to be happy and to not dwell on what happened to her and it sucks that i
44:17don't have her
44:19but knowing that she can't be hurt anymore is that's enough for me
44:50so
45:00you
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