Dad Who Was 'Obsessed with Possession and Control' Convicted of Luring, then Murdering Teen Daughters

Yaser Abdel Said will be spending the rest of his days in prison now that a Texas jury has convicted him for the 2008 capital murders of his two teen daughters.

Online records confirm the jury returned its verdict on Tuesday.

The 65-year-old father spent more than a dozen years on the run before his capture by the FBI in Justin, Texas, nearly two years ago.

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

Jurors agreed with prosecutors that Said brought his daughters — 18-year-old Amina and 17-year-old Sarah — for a drive in his taxi on New Year's Day in 2008, "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.

Prosecutors said that Said killed his daughters because he did not like that they were dating American boys.

Despite being shot 9 times, Sarah Said 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 in the taxi.

KXAS-TV covered the trial, which lasted a week.

The prosecution told the jury during closing arguments that when it came to Amina and Sarah, Said was "obsessed with possession and control."

They said the two sisters had become "very scared for their lives" and decided to leave after he had "put a gun to Amina's head and threatened to kill her."

On Monday, Said took the stand in his own defense, according to the station.

Speaking his native Arabic through an interpreter, the father said he loved his two daughters, but went on the run because he didn't believe he'd receive a fair trial.

Said insisted he wanted to take his daughters out for dinner, and that as they were driving to the restaurant, he noticed someone following them.

Said testified that he assumed the person following them wanted to harm him, so he got out of the car at an Irving Transit Center, leaving the girls behind.

"I told them the car is yours," he said. "You do whatever you want since you know how to drive. I left the car for them."

Later, Said said he'd heard about an accident and that his daughters had been murdered. He said he regrets leaving them alone but continued to deny he had anything to do with their deaths.

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Said testified that investigators never caught the girls' real killers because they immediately zeroed in on him as the sole suspect.

Jury deliberations lasted less than three hours.

After the verdict was read, Said's ex-wife and the victims' mother, Patricia Owens, delivered a victim impact statement.

"You deserve a lot more than what the judge gave to you," Owens said. "You deserve to die. At this time, you are nothing. You are a prisoner and a murderer and the devil."