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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
08:50didn't she follow your mom now like two 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 yeah stick up the pace one two three four one two three
09:40four
09:40one two three four keep going you're doing good one two three four at around 6 40 a.m as
09:49muhammad was
09:50performing cpr on his mom the police arrived i had directed the officers as they arrived while the 9-1
09:58-1
09:58operators probed muhammad on what had happened so what happened to your mom there look right
10:05she fell off the building how did she fall i didn't go to the room i just screamed i couldn't
10:14look
10:15do you know what the house she fell or what she was doing yeah she was on the soft floor
10:20she was
10:20washing her creating the windows she was cleaning the windows yeah officer nathan jordan was the first
10:27one to arrive on the scene he checked nada she was still warm to the touch but she would later
10:34be
10:34declared dead on the scene after mother of three nada 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 dead
10:55at the scene when they took her i was under the impression that she was going to the hospital to
11:02be worked on i thought okay she's going to be in the icu obviously critical condition but not death i
11:08thought we probably wouldn't get any update for a couple hours but she was still alive but now she was
11:13declared dead on the scene but i didn't know that until hours later i as younger sister had been asleep
11:21during the whole incident so the only people who were there at the time were aya and her brother
11:28muhammad so they were both interviewed by police at the scene so i thought the window was open and
11:33then on the weapon that they were painting the pattern and that's when i'm listening to something
11:36in the guest bedroom there were streaks on the window as well as an iphone left on top of the
11:44dresser
11:45there 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 she'd fallen
11:58they were asking us a lot of questions they were asking what our mom's normal routine was if it was
12:04normal for her to clean the windows i said no that's not normal any cleaning that she would do would
12:10be
12:10like washing leftover dishes from the night before but not cleaning outside of a window she would
12:16normally hire a company to come do that and then they were also asking about my mom's history if she
12:20ever attempted to harm herself and i adamantly immediately said no and my brother was like aya
12:28you didn't know this but yeah she tried to kill herself once and i turned to him and i was
12:32like what
12:33are you talking about no she didn't and he's like aya you you you didn't know this but yeah she
12:37tried
12:37taking a bunch of pills i just didn't think it was true i thought there would have been no way
12:43i
12:43didn't know about it if our mother overdosed it didn't make sense no matter which way i tried to
12:49spin it there was no plausible explanation as aya and her siblings were all under 18 and alone
12:59emergency 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 knees in shock
13:15at this point i still didn't know that her mother was dead it was the first time basil had returned
13:22to
13:23the family home since the protective order his behavior and comments to his daughter aya
13:28raised suspicions among investigators that day i had gym so i was wearing leggings and a shirt and
13:36the back of it had an open back cutout my dad comes into the house and he's like aya what
13:42are you
13:42wearing you're gonna go to hell if you keep dressing like that and i'm just thinking what is wrong with
13:46you this is the first time you're seeing me in over a year and a half and the first thing
13:51you're saying
13:52to me is aya you're gonna go to hell if you keep dressing like that aya's father immediately
13:56commenting on her state of dress after iris just witnessed this very traumatic experience and is
14:03a child who actually needs consoling is very telling about his sort of attitude approach to family and
14:10i believe attitude towards women as well still unaware that her mom nada's fall was fatal
14:17aya was desperate to find out her condition my dad took us to a bunch of different places that day
14:23i
14:23think we were coming back from one of his friends houses we were in the car my dad driving and
14:29he was
14:29on the phone with his mom talking in arabic and we were pulling up into our driveway and he said
14:37oh nada's dead everybody gets out of the car and i say to my dad when were you planning on
14:43telling me
14:44that our mother was dead and he turns to me and his face like drops he starts crying he turns
14:48to me and
14:49he he's like aya we have to stick together we only have each other now we have to be there
14:53for each
14:54other and he's hugging me and i just have my arms down at my sides i'm not hugging him back
14:59i didn't trust
15:00him i didn't feel safe with him i didn't i didn't want to be around him i think it just
15:07reinforced that
15:09any hope i had for him changing becoming empathetic becoming a father was gone
15:22security and stability are key pillars of any child's upbringing just needs basic fundamental needs
15:29and for aya all of that has been ripped away in a matter of hours her mom has passed she
15:35already has
15:36a very complicated relationship with her abusive father and so that's really got to put her in such
15:42a difficult and emotional position which is a huge amount to try and comprehend at just 14 years old
15:50on august 22nd the morning after nada had died the medical examiner carried out an initial autopsy on her
15:58body 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
16:10as profusely 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 accidentally
16:25fallen 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 5
17:0654 a.m they saw nada's body falling to the ground but when they looked at it again
17:13they spotted something chilling in the shadow of the second floor bedroom from where nada fell
17:20on the left of the frame a light appears to come on followed by a curtain opening in the guest
17:27bedroom
17:28a person with short hair could be seen opening a window before something heavy was dragged over
17:35to it and thrown out of the window 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
17:48someone else is there and is involved this fundamentally changed the investigation
17:55this was now a homicide and not an accident they could clearly see somebody had pushed nada's body
18:02out of the window but whose shadow was it the first person who came to mind for many was not
18:10as a strange
18:10husband dr basel alton tohi basel's history of domestic violence after slamming a door on nada's hand
18:20stood out as a red flag for detectives the police immediately look at basel as a suspect and you can't
18:27understand why in the us it's estimated that up to nearly 50 of all female victims of homicide have
18:34been murdered by intimate partners past or current and so combining that with basel's history of domestic
18:41violence and abuse can really highlight why he was a probable contender for police suspicion and why they
18:48wanted to ask him some very significant questions investigators were also aware that during divorce
18:54proceedings between basel and nada he had become the subject of another criminal investigation basel
19:02had found himself in some serious legal trouble after there had been an investigation into his clinic
19:08basel was convicted of healthcare fraud in the state of michigan that was handled by the attorney
19:14general of the state of michigan at the time he had to pay a heavy fine and he lost his
19:19medical license
19:20but investigators were shocked to discover that their prime suspect basel had an airtight alibi
19:29as 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 tohi was not the killer
19:51after detectives spotted a shadowy figure on a surveillance camera pushing the body of 35 year
19:57old mother 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 need 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 has that been going on uh
21:04nearly two 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 happens
21:16i'm going to say in pretty much every case of divorce where children might find that situation
21:20difficult so nothing raises initial significant alarm bells all right mike how often do you talk to your
21:29death say pretty like maybe every three every three four days three or four days you're dead pretty
21:34close yeah all right muhammad still seems to have a pretty strong relationship with his father and
21:40certainly stronger than that that his sisters have with him and perhaps that just expresses that this is
21:46a very young person who maybe doesn't understand the violence that's occurred between his mother and
21:52father because clearly that's disrupted the relationship between his father and his sisters
21:57but doesn't seem to have between them would you know if somebody came over to the house last night
22:04i mean if somebody came in the house or anything would you know i'm i i should yeah
22:11i got up around six o'clock then six or five i got into the shower and then what
22:18so i took my clothes get my school stuff ready and then around 6 30 that's when my sister yelled
22:24police knew that it was only the children who'd been in the house that day so they began to question
22:30muhammad about who this figure that they'd seen on the cctv could be somebody was there we know that
22:37it's on video so we know that somebody was there when it happened we're trying to find out if it
22:43was
22:43something done by an accident which accidents happen all the time it doesn't change anything
22:48or 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
23:06although muhammad claimed his sister was awake before him investigators already knew it couldn't
23:12have been her in the guest bedroom the investigators had a crucial detail from this footage that the
23:19person had short hair so that ruled out ayah but you're telling me right now that you weren't in the
23:25room like maybe helping her clean the windows or holding a ladder or anything like that when this
23:30happened when this accident happened no although muhammad denied being in the guest
23:35bedroom with his mother that morning police continued to press him about his whereabouts
23:40i mean if you're in the room with her did you say you were in the room with her
23:45i mean
23:49i mean the only thing that i really did um i saw her walking upstairs with some stuff and she
23:56said to go
23:57get spray bottle and then i brought her that and i i just that's it i loved
24:04muhammad's story has now shifted significantly
24:08now this throws into question all of the account that he's made prior because it's impossible now to
24:13know which elements have been fabricated which elements are based in truth
24:18it's okay seriously accidents happen all right we just need to know
24:26so my mother's wife man muhammad i understand that i understand that wholeheartedly we just need to know
24:33why so we don't look into this further okay
24:39what happened
24:44under pressure muhammad's story really starts to fluctuate quite a bit he admits that he was in
24:50the room with his mom he was helping her out while she was cleaning holding the ladder for her
24:54but then when she fell in shock he took himself off to the shower i i i i looked down
25:01and i didn't
25:02want to i mean i didn't want to do it i don't i didn't know what to do i mean
25:07so like i said i
25:08thought i was like a dreaming song to my room immediately and i just wanted to forget about it
25:12it's pretty good i just saw my mother fucker man when you're looking at a police interview there is
25:20a very key difference between someone adding in additional pieces of information and changing
25:26information and what we're starting to see here is that muhammad is starting to err on changing
25:32information and that can be a real red flag for potential deceit at this point basil arrived home
25:40and stopped the interview i i need to not tell me now i don't want to go any further i
25:45have to
25:45try to not tell me because when i came back it blew up my mind my daughter asked me what's
25:49going on
25:49dad why they don't let us go back to the house okay so this is actually now it's like a
25:53uh you know
25:55you're investigating a child here following muhammad's shock confession that he was in the room at the
26:01time of his mom's death police interviewed the children separately to avoid them communicating or
26:08corroborating on one version of events i used her police interview as an opportunity to explain
26:15that she didn't want to live under the care of her abusive father when we got to the police station
26:21and we were being questioned that was when i was able to make that very clear that regardless of what
26:29happens i'm not going back home with him um and yeah i chose to go into foster care me and
26:37my sister
26:37were going to go live with a family relative who i knew had known for the majority of my life
26:43and i
26:44trusted and i felt safer with them so it was a no-brainer for me on august 24th 2017 three
26:52days after
26:53nada's fatal push aya received an unexpected message on her cell phone i got a text from somebody that i
27:02had
27:02gone to middle school with and he had texted me saying i am so sorry for your loss um but
27:08do you
27:08think he did it and i was like do i think who did what he said i'm so sorry you
27:12didn't hear you're
27:13they're charging your brother i found out from a middle school classmate that my brother was being
27:20charged with the death of my mother i was in shock it was more like an out-of-body experience
27:27where okay
27:28yeah i went through this and i'm telling you all about it but i'm not feeling the emotions that are
27:33connected 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
27:52news not his 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
28:07processing 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
28:28he has to step up and be the man and put us in our place my brother was in contact
28:36with my dad
28:37a lot just became a little like spy essentially for my dad because this was during their divorce case
28:49i had an encounter with muhammad that led me to believe that muhammad had taken his father's side
28:57in 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
29:23the only thing i could think of that made sense under the circumstances that he was going to be
29:27reporting to his father so he was trying to find anything he could to give to my dad to use
29:34as
29:34leverage is my guess in the divorce case so it made sense that he did it so i still thought
29:41okay maybe
29:42somehow he accidentally did it or he didn't mean to do it or i don't know i guess i didn't
29:47fully believe
29:47that it was 100 intentional aya 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 her
30:00brother'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
30:14mother his father basil hired a veteran defense attorney named michael sciarno one of the first
30:21things that michael did was highlight that the day after nada died muhammad was interviewed by three
30:27police officers without his dad or an attorney present he could have been coerced by the officers
30:34he hadn't been read his rights and that whatever he said in that interview couldn't then be admissible
30:39in the court case the court ruled in their favor meaning prosecutors were unable to call in muhammad's
30:46kitchen table interview for the trial but in november 2017 during a preliminary court hearing new details
30:57of nada's autopsy report were revealed to the public for the first time the key finding which investigators
31:04were already 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 in the very beginning of the divorce case our mother
31:34would ask him where he was going when he was going to meet up with our dad and he wouldn't
31:38tell her but
31:39then he would ask us where we were going and expect answers or when she would try to take his
31:44phone
31:44because he was texting our dad and he wasn't supposed to he would not let her and it would turn
31:48into
31:48its own physical altercation and he would then take her phone instead it was just very bizarre
31:56despite her brother's arrest and his murder charge aya was still holding on to that hope
32:02that he might be innocent i lost my dad long before my mom died i lost my mom i didn't
32:09want to lose
32:10my brother too i think that's part of the reason why i was not fully accepting that it was 100
32:15percent intentionally premeditated murder there has to be some other explanation maybe he did do it
32:21but how do you kill your mother how do you kill anyone much less your mother
32:29after extended legal wranglings over the use of a police interview muhammad altantawi spent years
32:36awaiting trial for the murder of his mother nada harania who had been suffocated
32:42before being pushed out of a second floor window in march 2022 nearly five years after nada's death
32:50muhammad altantawi murder trial began muhammad altantawi would go on trial charged as an adult
32:57with first degree premeditated murder i was not at the trial i had at that point moved uh jobs and
33:09moved
33:10back to the prosecutor's office who was prosecuting muhammad so i had nothing to do with the prosecution of
33:17the case by order of the uh prosecutor although muhammad altantawi was only 16 years old when he killed his
33:25mom
33:25he was tried as an adult because michigan state law allows prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults
33:32in cases of serious offenses such as murder a case like this is extremely rare and there's a name for
33:40it matricide maternal homicide where a child kills his or her own mother the death of a mother at the
33:48hands
33:48of a child almost unheard of in opening statements at the trial prosecutors focused on the motive and
33:57also the family dynamics that muhammad had a hatred for his mother her growing need for more independence
34:03her new americanized lifestyle and the timing nada was set to give a deposition against muhammad's father
34:11in the divorce he wanted to stop that nava came to my office on a friday before she passed away
34:20to prepare
34:21for a deposition that was to be held the next week where basil's attorney would question nava and i in
34:29turn
34:30would question basil and i got the impression that she did not think that the deposition was ever going to
34:37take place why that is i don't know i was very concerned about it and i assumed that nava 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
34:59because now that 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 part of the
35:30prosecution's case focused on inconsistencies at the crime scene the prosecutor explained to the jury
35:37that this was not an accident that nada had been suffocated before she fell and that the scene had been
35:44staged the ladder next to the window with a cleaning bottle of solution on top of it one detective
35:50testified that's not a solution that's used to clean windows and next to nada's body on the patio below
35:58was a towel a cloth that had some solution in it it 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 nada's body
36:28would 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 one two three four one two three
37:03four
37:06prosecutors suggested that this was because muhammad already knew his mother was dead
37:15then they highlighted key evidence from muhammad altantawi's phone prosecutors knew it would be
37:22extremely difficult to convince a jury that a 16 year old son would kill his own mother but they had
37:28more
37:29good circumstantial evidence including muhammad's phone records in fact he had his mother in his phone
37:35as a contact named dog to call somebody a dog and your own mom nonetheless who did nothing to deserve
37:45that just why muhammad saving his mother's name as dog in his phone is incredibly misogynistic language
37:55and really implies a hatred not just towards his mother but to women and i think we can really see
38:03a potential influence there from his father's own attitudes and behaviors towards women in his life
38:09and 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 just weeks before she was killed
38:22nada texted her son muhammad to tell him she would have to testify in the divorce case she would have
38:28to
38:28say truthfully about what happened with abuse and misconduct prosecutors argued that muhammad wanted
38:35to protect his father that this had serious legal and personal implications that he wanted to stop
38:42nada from testifying to protect his father but there was more strong evidence prosecutors presented to the
38:49jury that muhammad took pictures of the guest room and that open window and sent them to his father
38:56three weeks before nada was killed also revealed was further evidence from his phone in the early
39:02morning hours of the day that nada died there were phone calls between muhammad and his father he had
39:09told police he was asleep before learning of his mother's death even though the trial raised some questions
39:16about what basal knew about what muhammad was planning to do to nada basal altantawi has never been charged with
39:24anything in connection to her murder aya testified at the trial about what was going on in their family
39:30five years earlier when she was only 14. i didn't see it as testifying against my brother i was there
39:38to testify and tell the truth and that was it one of the things that i addressed in court while
39:44testifying
39:45was the fact that my brother saw the divorce as being a splitting the feeling to two sides he and
39:51our
39:51father and the other being my mother and i and that our agenda was to destroy our father's life to
39:56take
39:56his money to take his house to ruin his career his life which wasn't the case in response to the
40:04prosecution muhammad altantawi's defense team laid out their arguments in an attempt to introduce reasonable
40:11doubt to the jury they pointed out that there was no way of proving that the person in the window
40:17was muhammad or even the size age or sex of the person casting the shadow the defense also made
40:25the case that muhammad was skinny and there was no way he could overpower his own mother who had been
40:31working out in a gym the defense attorney argued the timeline was too tight not his body fell at 5
40:3853 in
40:39the morning the children woke up at six not enough time to commit the murder to clean up the scene
40:45and to
40:46hide evidence on monday march 14th 2022 after deliberating for only two hours the jury found
40:56muhammad altantawi guilty of first degree premeditated murder six months later at sentencing muhammad
41:05continued to declare his innocence then came the victim impact statements from aya and muhammad altantawi's
41:13father basil he was trying to use everybody else's story to gain sympathy and he didn't even talk
41:19about how he was sad about our mom he didn't talk about our mom at all as basil left the
41:26courtroom
41:27aya followed him to the lobby to confront him i got in his face and i started yelling at him
41:34and i would
41:34have gladly punched him if i didn't have six deputies holding me back and i wouldn't have regretted it
41:41i don't think he understands why i felt that way i don't think he ever will understand why i felt
41:47that way because i don't think he's capable of empathizing with anybody i don't think he's capable
41:52of thinking about how other people could be affected from his actions it's sad for me to think about
42:01being related to such pathetic people
42:06muhammad was sentenced to 35 to 60 years in prison with the judge saying he understood the
42:13consequences of his actions and was deserving of such a stiff penalty i have not had any contact with
42:20my brother since the trial or his sentencing ended have i thought about it yes and the only reason that
42:27i would talk to him again not because i want to but because she was also his mother and i
42:31recognize
42:32that i am the only person who would be able to offer him the opportunity for me to go to
42:38her grave
42:38and have him be on the phone and say whatever he would want to her and it doesn't mean that
42:44i like him
42:44that i love him that i support him that i want anything to do with him that i want a
42:48relationship with
42:49him it means absolutely nothing other than i'm presenting you with an opportunity that i don't think
42:53anybody else would give you since her mother's death in 2017 and the pain of the trial aya has
43:02committed herself to helping other victims of crime find justice for their loved ones my career plans
43:10are to go to law school um become a criminal prosecutor and if somebody's going through something
43:17like domestic abuse or whatever the case might be where and they feel like they can relate to
43:22me or my mom or any part of anything that we went through i want people to know um and
43:30see that
43:30i might be biased but i don't think i turned out too terribly all things considered and your life
43:37isn't defined by what happens to you what people do to you your life is what you want it to
43:42be what
43:43you make of it and that's all that 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 but
44:19knowing that she can't be hurt anymore is that's enough for me
44:28so
44:39so
45:07Transcription by CastingWords
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