Texas Dad Allegedly Lured Teen Daughters with Promise to Take Them to Restaurant Before Murdering Them

Testimony has begun in the trial of a Texas taxicab driver, charged with murdering his two teenage daughters in 2008.

Yaser Abdel Said had spent a dozen years on the run before his capture by the FBI in Justin, Texas, nearly two years ago.

Said, 65, had spent six years on the bureau's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List prior to his arrest in 2020.

Said stands accused of killing his teenage daughters, Amina and Sarah, back in 2008.

According to investigators, Said allegedly took 18-year-old Amina and 17-year-old Sarah for a drive in his taxi on New Year's Day "under the guise of taking them to get something to eat." Instead, he allegedly drove them to Irving, Texas, where he shot them inside the vehicle outside a hotel.

Despite being shot 9 times, Sarah managed to call 911 for help.

"Help, my dad shot me!," she said to the 911 dispatcher. "I'm dying, I'm dying!"

But her injuries were too severe, and she and her sister, who was shot twice, died.

The girls were students at Lewisville High School. Said allegedly killed his daughters because he did not like that they were dating.

An arrest warrant was issued for Said a day later. He is charged with two counts of capital murder as well as unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Said has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he will receive an automatic life sentence.

KXAS-TV was in the courtroom Tuesday for the start of the trial.

According to the station, the teens and their mother fled their home in Lewisville about a week before the murders; they went to Oklahoma, in order to get away from Said, prosecutors said.

The sisters had become "very scared for their lives," and the decision to leave was made after Said allegedly "put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her," the prosecutor told jurors, KXAS-TV reports.

Authorities allege Said later told his daughters he was a changed man, and convinced them to return home. The evening they were killed, Said said he wanted to take the two girls out to a restaurant — just the three of them.

The station's report indicates jurors will hear testimony about sexual abuse allegations the two girls made against their father but later recanted.

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The girls' boyfriends testified in court Tuesday that they had to keep their relationships a secret so as not to incur Said's wrath.

But defense attorney Joseph Patton said in his opening statement the government's evidence was circumstantial. Patton, according to KXAS-TV, said police were too quick to focus on Said as the killer, and suggested an anti-Muslim bias steered the course of the investigation.

"It is wrong for the government to generalize an entire culture, criminalize an entire culture, to fit their narrative, and to fit their objective," Patton said. "The state wants to convict Yaser for being Muslim in 2008."

Patton told jurors the girls' mother was never considered a possible suspect in the killings, nor was Amina's boyfriend. "They were the last people to see Amina and Sarah alive," Patton said.