Hend Bustami (LVMPD), Bustami’s hands following her arrest and inside the home where she attacked fatally stabbed her mother (Clark County District Court)
A 29-year-old woman in Nevada who piqued national interest last year when she claimed she was arrested for being “so good-looking,” will spend at least 15 years behind bars for killing her mother, stabbing the 61-year-old woman multiple times inside of their home last year.
Clark County District Court Judge Jacqueline M. Bluth on Tuesday ordered Hend Bustami to serve a sentence of 15 years to life in a state correctional facility for the slaying of Afaf Hussanen, authorities confirmed to Law&Crime.
In September, Bustami formally pleaded guilty but mentally ill to one count of second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon. While the court found Bustami competent to stand trial for murder, a psychologist determined that she had been experiencing “intermittent exacerbations of psychosis,” and concluded that she was “in need of continuing psychiatric treatment.”
During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Bluth reviewed Bustami’s documented history of mental illness, which includes multiple diagnoses for psychoses and other disorders, Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV reported. The judge further confirmed that she would get credit for time already served and would continue to receive mental health treatment during her incarceration. The earliest she will be eligible for parole is 2037.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Bustami attacked her mother inside their Las Vegas home, then called 911 and calmly confessed to her murder before getting in her car and fleeing out of state.
Officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at approximately 2:34 a.m. on Oct. 26, 2022, responded to a 911 call about an injured person inside a residence on June Flower Drive. The caller — later identified as Bustami — requested medical assistance as she matter-of-factly stated that she’d just “murdered” her mother.
“Do you need police, fire, or medical?” the 911 dispatcher said in the brief audio clip.
“Uh, medical,” Bustami responded, adding, “I think I killed my mommy.”
The dispatcher then asked the caller for her address, which the caller provided, before questioning her about her mother.
“Why do you think you killed your mom?” the dispatcher asked.
“Because I did. I murdered her,” Bustami replied.
“How did you do that?” asked the dispatcher.
“I broke the table on her head and I broke it,” Bustami appeared to say, though some parts of the audio are difficult to decipher.
When asked where she was calling from, Bustami told the dispatcher that she was still at her mother’s home, and again offered to provide the dispatcher with the address before they returned to the topic of killing her mother.
“OK, what did you do to her?” the dispatcher asked.
“I killed her,” Bustami said, maintaining a monotone voice throughout the back-and-forth.
“How did you kill her, you said something about a table?” the dispatcher asked.
“I broke the table on her head. I broke the table on her head and I cut her neck off,” Bustami responded.
Upon arriving at the address, first responders found an unresponsive adult female — later identified as Hussanen — who appeared to have sustained “multiple lacerations,” police said. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
Investigators said evidence indicated the victim “was involved in a verbal dispute with her daughter” just before she sustained her fatal injuries. Authorities said Bustami killed her mother and fled the scene, leaving the state.
Not long after the victim’s body was discovered, officers with the Barstow Police Department and the California Highway Patrol located and detained Bustami in California. When authorities enacted a traffic stop, they said that Bustami was “covered in blood” and again admitted to killing her mother.
While speaking with investigators, Bustami said that she and her mother were fighting and she stabbed the older woman with “shards of glass” from a broken table.
The arrest for her mother’s murder was not Bustami’s first run-in with the law. She was previously arrested last summer at Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport, which is when police say Bustami claimed her detainment was due to her being “so good looking.”
Authorities on Aug. 31, 2022, were called to the airport in regards to an adult female who left a Chili’s restaurant without paying her bill.
“[O]fficers working D gates were notified by TSA that [a] female matching that description was observed sleeping near the security checkpoint, hindering their operations,” a probable cause affidavit stated.
Bustami was later located near the baggage claim area and became “belligerent with officers, saying she was being harassed because cops [had] never seen anyone as pretty as her,” according to the affidavit. While being placed under arrest, Bustami allegedly said that “she was going to spit on all [the officers] and that officers were perverts and were trying to rape her because they [had] never seen anyone as good-looking,” police wrote.