Said Had Been Accused of Sexual Abuse

While the national media continue to ignore the "honor killings" of Amina and Sarah Said, more details have emerged painting Yaser Abdel Said as a total monster who was investigated for sexual abuse ten years ago.

Sarah Said's final phone call rang into the Irving police dispatcher about 7:30 p.m. on New Year's Day: "I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying ..."

About an hour later, a man walked up to an orange cab parked at the Omni Mandalay Hotel in Irving. He discovered carnage – the bullet-shredded bodies of 17-year-old Sarah and 18-year-old Amina Said, honor students and athletes at Lewisville High School.

Almost immediately, police issued an arrest warrant for the girls' father, 50-year-old Yaser Said, an Egyptian-born cab driver who family members said was given to fits of violence, threats and gun-waving rants about how Western culture was corrupting the chastity of his daughters.

In the week since their murders, friends and relatives on Patricia Said's side of the family say they have been haunted by that final phone call, a cry for help that went unanswered for years. They say Mr. Said physically and emotionally abused his children.

In October 1998, when Amina and Sarah were 9 and 8 years old, they accused their father of sexual abuse.

The allegations were reported to the Hill County sheriff's office, where the girls told a detective their father had been touching them inappropriately. Amina told authorities she had been penetrated at least once.

Their mother swore in an affidavit that the allegations were true.

In early January 1999, the two girls told authorities that they had lied about the allegations because they didn't want to attend rural Covington schools and wanted to go live with their grandmother. A district judge later dropped the charges of aggravated sexual assault against Mr. Said.

George Burnett, a fire chief in the small town of Covington, visited the Saids' homestead a few times when their cows got out. He said the girls "were sent home several times from school with lice problems and asked not to return until they got it straightened out."

He said authorities in the town about 45 miles south of Fort Worth are on alert.

"We're keeping an eye out," he said. "We know he knows the area."

Mr. Said often espoused his version of traditional Middle Eastern values, prompting speculation the murders were "honor killings," an ancient Arab tribal custom in which the man of the family kills women he believes have shamed the family. The practice is now widely repudiated.

Read the rest of this incredibly disturbing report.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Bryan at Hot Air.