Episode 263

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Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

So, what happened to your mom there?

Looks like she fell off the building.

How did she fall?

All right, I didn't go into the room.

I just scared

y'all screaming.

Hello, and welcome.

This

is

Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst

monsters

are

in case you're wondering what the hell that was about, well, um,

you should be on our social media.

Because if you're not, you're missing out on all the fun.

Some idiot named James, I don't know what the hell his last name is, but apparently a renowned expert on podcasting came by to drop off his words of advice, you know, to make my podcast better.

You know, he came over to tell me that the long pauses in between words that I

exhibit sometimes when I'm formulating a thought,

that means that I'm a a narcissist because apparently he saw some video online somewhere that told him all the signs to look for in a narcissist and he was hurt by one so he's got to go around telling everyone that they're a narcissist now

so James thanks for that and thanks for all the sales of the mug we made with your tweet on it if you want to find that you just go to store.swordandscale.com and look for the narcissist ceramic mug.

It's got my picture on it.

You'll love it.

And I think that I'm right about the fact that most of you come here for

the sass.

For the smartass remarks that I make, right?

Any idiot can read you true crime stories.

Any moron can pretend to have chemistry with some other moron while they talk about someone's last day on Earth.

But you don't come here for that.

You come here for the narcissism.

You come here for the personality.

They're not here for you, James.

They're not here for the soy-filled husk of a man telling them what's appropriate to say and not to say online.

They're here for my meltdown, James.

So when I started this podcast, I didn't realize I was actually starting a small business.

Yikes.

There's nothing small about a small business.

You're working all of the time.

Thankfully though, I have a partner with all the tools that I need to be successful.

You may have heard of them.

Their name is Shopify.

Shopify's point of sale system is a unified command center for your retail business.

It brings together in-store and online operations across up to a thousand locations.

Imagine being able to guarantee that shopping is always convenient.

Endless aisle, ship to customer, buy online, pick up in store.

All these things are made simpler to customers so they can shop how they want, and staff have all the tools to close the sale every time.

And let's face it, acquiring new customers is expensive.

With Shopify POS, you can keep shoppers coming back with personalized experiences and first-party data that give marketing teams a competitive edge.

In fact, it's proven.

Based on a report from EY, businesses on Shopify POS see real results, like 22% better total cost of ownership and benefits equivalent to an 8.9% uplift in sales on average relative to the market set surveyed.

So if you have a retail or online business, then I'll tell you what, Shopify is a fantastic partner to have on your side.

Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 a month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash sword and scale.

All one word.

Just go to shopify.com slash sword and scale and sign up.

You'll thank me later.

You will shopify.com slash sword and scale.

play a lot of 911 calls here on the show, and naturally, nearly every call has something to do with murder.

Now, we all know that not every 911 call is being placed because someone is being killed or has been killed.

More often than not, the calls coming into dispatch are for things like health emergencies, car accidents, maybe a suspicious person prowling around the neighborhood, or even sometimes things like brush fires and structural accidents.

Any event that requires the immediate response of police, fire, or EMS warrants a 911 call.

Early in the morning of August 21st, 2017, a call such as this came into the Farmington Hills dispatch team, reporting the discovery of a body outside a home on the west side of the city.

This wasn't just any home, though.

It was a nearly two-acre estate built right right alongside the Farmington Hills Golf Club.

These people had money and lots of it.

I'm already on the phone.

I am 911.

What is the exact header for the emergency?

Howard Road, Farmington Hills.

And the farm number 331.

Where's the farm number car?

We need an ambulance.

What's going on there?

Um, I don't know.

We were late for school sounds like my mom.

And I also have the one next to it was opening.

She never opened it.

And she fell.

Her mom's out two stories.

Yeah.

She fell two stories?

How old is your mom?

33 and she fell on concrete.

Okay, 85.

All right.

The caller was 14-year-old Aya Alton's Hawi, who had just discovered her mother lying unresponsive on the ground outside the family's sprawling 10,000 square foot mansion.

Okay, is Ray, is she breathing?

Come on, is she breathing?

I'm not gonna set her up and I don't know.

Is she breathing?

Come on, check if she's breathing.

Pause once you can

hold on one second while I get him on the way, okay?

Hold on.

Okay, I'm not gonna wait for him.

Hold on.

Okay, no,

Okay, I have them on the way.

Are you able to check and see if your mom is breathing?

No moments.

We don't know moms.

Hello.

Hi.

Are you there?

Yeah, we don't know her.

Okay, no, don't do that.

This thing is on the wing.

Is she on her back?

What is?

It appeared to Aya as though her mom had fallen from the window on the second floor, directly above where her body now lay, motionless.

The window was positioned at a considerable height.

Both the first and second floors of the house boasted high ceilings, so this wasn't your typical residential second-story window height.

She fell a significant distance, landing on concrete.

To make matters worse, it remained unclear how long she'd been lying there.

And how old is your mom?

Um, I think she's 33.

33.

No, no, no, I need to to wait to see when they come.

And if she catches that or no?

No, still not.

I don't know how long you've been out here for it.

I know I'm still saying, like, at least 65,

that's when I called her.

I must recognize her.

She didn't enter.

Okay.

All right.

I want you.

You're not sure she's breathing at this point?

No.

Nada Harani was the 35-year-old mother, now lying unconscious on the concrete.

She lived in the home with her three children, among them her daughter Aya, who made the 911 call.

But at this point, Aya's 16-year-old brother, Muhammad, had also come down to investigate the situation.

Additionally, there was Nada's youngest daughter, who was nine years old and still sleeping in the house.

It had been nearly two years since Nada and her ex-Basil Atentali had separated.

Basil no longer lived with the rest of the family.

Our family are divorced and

my brother's longer to be living with him.

Me and my sister will only have his taste away.

Okay.

And you said she fell over two stories?

Yeah, more or less.

Our house is like pretty next to us.

It's three stories out of the two.

Okay.

And that's you, not including the basement.

Okay, this was an accidental fall.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Okay, I want you to get down next to her.

Oh, darling.

Okay, are you next to your mom?

Yeah.

Okay, do you see her chest rising and falling?

No.

You don't?

Okay.

The 911 operator asked Aya if she knew how to give CPR, but for some reason, Aya handed the phone off to her brother, 16-year-old Muhammad.

The operator then instructed him on how to resuscitate his mother, and he started the chest compressions, counting back to the operator.

eight,

nine,

ten, eleven, one, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Let's take up the pace.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Keep going, you're doing good.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, one, two, three.

Jeff, please bear with you.

Yes.

Keep going until they get up next to you, okay?

Keep doing it.

Alright, guys?

Yeah.

Are you going to get the police, the fire department direct them in?

Yeah, we're going to go leave it in.

Okay, so what happened to your mom there?

Looks like she fell off the building.

How did she fall?

I didn't go into the room.

I did just stare at

the screen.

I couldn't look.

Do you know what the how did she tell or what she was doing?

Yeah, she was on the top floor.

She was watching or cleaning the windows.

She was cleaning the windows?

Yeah.

Okay.

Is she always up this early in the morning?

Yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Because we have school today.

You have school today?

Yeah.

Okay, where do you go to school?

It's nationality.

Okay.

Okay.

And what's your name?

My name is Mohamed Al-Safari.

I'm

not the fire at all.

Okay, and what's your last name, Mohamed?

A-L-C.

A-N-T-A-W-I.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, I'm gonna let you go, okay?

Do you have the fire department there with you now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, all right, you did a really good job, okay?

Okay, all right.

Are you okay now, or do you want me to stay with you?

Yes, yeah, we're here, we're good.

Okay, all right, I'll let you go then, okay?

Okay, all right, bye-bye.

Where she at?

Watch out, buddy.

Go out to the driveway, direct the fire department in, alright, guys?

Who else is home, guys?

Okay, go inside.

I'll be with you guys in a minute, alright?

Please.

Okay, who else is home?

Your little sister?

Is she sleeping or is she awake?

She's sleeping.

I'll go.

Let's go to sleep.

You guys, hold on here.

How old are you guys?

14, 16.

14, 16.

Who's the the lady that's injured up back to you guys?

Mom.

That's your mom?

Yeah.

Okay.

What's your mom's name?

Yet.

When's the last time you guys saw your mom?

Last night.

What time?

Uh, like, maybe seven or eight.

She was sleeping early.

Okay.

And when did you guys find her?

This morning.

I called her twice at six because she was going to move up and both of her phone she didn't answer.

So I called her again at 6.30 because we were supposed to be

school by 6.40 6.40 and she didn't answer.

So I went downstairs.

My daughter was on the lights ago because I was getting easier.

I went upstairs and I saw that the

guest room that I was on, which is for sure if it was her makeup.

And I called her she wasn't there.

I checked see if her car was still in the room it was.

And I saw her window looking at chip and then I never was.

And there was like painting stuff and she went to the case because something happened in the morning because she wakes up early.

So I went to look at the window and I thought about like Lucy and Kays.

Maybe I know it's possible, but she was out there and then I called my brother and went upside.

Okay.

So this was around 6.30 this morning, you think?

Okay.

By the time the children discovered their mother's body, it was too late.

Officials took Nada from the scene for an autopsy.

Later on, they located the three children.

They were at Nada's estranged husband, Basilantentawi's home.

They wanted to speak with all three kids again about the timeline and the details of what had happened.

Even more importantly, the Aldentawi mansion boasted 13 different cameras, and police needed passwords to get access to the main security system so they could check to see if Nada's plummet to death was caught on video.

That way they could, you know, confirm that it truly was an accident.

I called up a company called Telus Electronics who installed the system and they said

there is obviously there's cameras all over the house.

If the lights are going, that means it's probably connected to the

camera system, which

rewrites on top of each other.

So if it's recording, then it'll only record for so long.

You have a one terabyte hard drive in there, and basically it'll just always record.

So depending on how what quality you have, how much it's recording, which cameras are on, or whatever, depends on how quickly it cycles through.

Okay, so what we want to do is just take a look at that and just make sure there's nothing suspicious on it.

Obviously this is,

people are calling, okay?

You guys are going through a divorce.

So what we want to do is we want to

just take that, take a look at it,

either have our guys take a look at it or some computer people so they can pull the information off of it and just make sure there's nothing on tape that's suspicious or anything like that.

Yeah, I mean if we don't go with what the people, you know, he say, she said.

I I know.

And this is more,

let's make sure there's nothing on and then just move on with everything, okay?

No problems with that?

I mean, I don't know.

I don't think I have a problem, but like I said, the whole thing is talking to me, and the whole, you know, situation is bizarre.

Absolutely, it is.

We don't deal with this every day either.

You know, it's not something that normally happens, and you can see how,

you know, if you remove yourself out of the situation, you know, and make it and it's not personal, you can see how it would be, oh man, something must have happened, right?

Do you understand that?

This is the F L I R D V R recording system.

Does that sound familiar?

Does it sound right?

You don't remember?

I remember check it.

Okay, you never had record uh

no logon and password or anything.

I don't know about the camera, actually.

They're all over the house.

I don't know.

If you walk around outside, you can see that they're little.

They're about that.

They're black lenses.

Yeah, like, you know, there's one where you put it right over here outside your garage.

Just kind of like main points of entry to the side.

Like on the outside or something like that.

When you pull up the driveway, like when you pull in your driveway, you look up left.

You'll see like a little camera that just kind of points down.

Basil Antentawi, not his estranged husband, seemed not to know much about this security system.

He didn't know how many cameras there were.

He didn't even seem to remember what they looked like.

He did, however, seem very reluctant to trust the intentions of police.

It seemed to him like they were already going down a path of pointing fingers, and he didn't like that.

Later on, police showed up at Bossel's house where the children were staying, hoping to bring them back to the station for formal interviews, but that didn't go too great.

The reason we're coming back is we wanted to talk to you guys, check the station, try to lock everything down

lines and that kind of stuff.

with you?

Speak to your daughter and you and

your son.

And your other moon.

Yeah.

Two daughters move.

You have to have to find them all at the station where we can maybe

have a chance to lock it all down and let's see what's important.

Yeah.

That's just, it's kind of standard procedure, is what we do.

Law enforcement requested that Basel and his three children be interviewed at the police station.

As is standard procedure.

You heard the cop say that quite a few times.

For the girls who were still in school, it was suggested that they be picked up by the school liaison officer and brought straight to the station.

Basil was obviously wary of this idea.

School liaison officers, the school guys who were plain clothes or whatever, they can go.

They can give her a ride to the station.

We may not be there that long at the station.

We just.

I mean, I don't know.

Should I ask what I'm telling you here?

I don't understand what's going on.

We're just.

This is standard procedure when we're trying to.

We have to.

Obviously, it's kind of weird what happened.

We're just trying to find out exactly what the kids might have said.

She might have said she wasn't feeling well earlier in the night.

If there was, you know, she got into an argument with somebody.

I still have no problem.

You guys are calling out today so many times.

We're going to meet

Well, we don't want to scare the kids either.

We don't want to scare anybody.

If you feel more comfortable doing it here, we can talk here.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Sure, I understand.

We're going to wait and see what the boss has to say about that.

We just want to make this as easy and comfortable as possible.

We're not trying to intrude and make people feel uncomfortable.

We don't want to make people experience that.

And I don't just love situation.

I know.

Reluctantly, the detectives decided to interview Basil's son, Muhammad.

He was upstairs in his room.

The evidence from the audio suggests that he had been living primarily with his father, even before this tragic accident occurred.

The girls were staying with him temporarily, as Basil only had visitation rights with his daughters.

Before proceeding, though, the detectives requested that the loud music be turned off.

As they waited for Aya and her younger sister to come back home, the police sat down with Muhammad and asked him some basic questions about the previous night.

Like they said, it's not every day that someone just goes out a window.

Normally they either jump or are pushed.

The Farmington Hills police were pretty certain that one of these two scenarios was the truth.

They just needed to figure out

which one.

So when I started this podcast, I didn't realize I was actually starting a small business.

Yikes.

There's nothing small about a small business.

You're working all of the time.

Thankfully, though, I have a partner with all the tools that I need to be successful.

You may have heard of them.

Their name is Shopify.

Shopify's point-of-sale system is a unified command center for your retail business.

It brings together in-store and online operations across up to a thousand locations.

Imagine being able to guarantee that shopping is always convenient.

Endless aisle, ship to customer, buy online, pick up in-store.

All these things are are made simpler to customers so they can shop how they want, and staff have all the tools to close the sale every time.

And let's face it, acquiring new customers is expensive.

With Shopify POS, you can keep shoppers coming back with personalized experiences and first-party data that give marketing teams a competitive edge.

In fact, it's proven.

Based on a report from EY, businesses on Shopify POS see real results, like 22% better total cost of ownership and benefits equivalent to an 8.9% uplift in sales on average relative to the market set surveyed.

So if you have a retail or online business, then I'll tell you what, Shopify is a fantastic partner to have on your side.

Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 a month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash sword and scale.

All one word.

Just go to shopify.com slash swordandscale and sign up.

You'll thank me later.

You will.

Shopify.com slash sword and scale.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hill, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

On August 21st, 2017, 14-year-old Aya Altantawi discovered her mother, Nada's lifeless body sprawled across the pavement, right outside of their opulent Farmington Hills mansion.

She called 911 and eventually handed the phone to her 16-year-old brother, Mohammed, who rushed outside to see what Aya was screaming about.

The two accepted CPR instruction from the 911 operator and waited.

for the police to arrive.

The next day, police drove over to Basil Antentalwi's house.

The children were to stay with their father while the case was in progress.

The girls were still in school while police knocked on Basil's door.

They would eventually be brought home by the school liaison officer.

While they waited, police questioned Muhammad, hoping to get some information about the family dynamic, people who may have wanted to hurt his mother, and, most importantly, the home's extensive security system.

I'm sorry, what's your name, eat, sir?

Mommy, mommy, I'm Richard.

Um, again, we're sorry about your loss, though.

I'm sure it's tough.

Um, like I said, we're just kind of trying to go through things here to find out what transpired.

If anything, your mom might have said or the way she was acting or anything like that that might have led you guys to believe that you know she was upset about something or anything.

So, you just kind of walk us through, like, did you have school yesterday?

No, no,

you didn't have school yesterday,

okay.

What when you

I guess not yesterday?

The day before it was Sunday, so not that either.

Okay, so did you go what went on start like set Sunday evening?

What was going on Sunday evening?

I mean not really anything.

We all stay in our rooms for the most part.

Like both my sisters on their computers.

I'm on my computer.

I mean we ate lunch

She's just walking around the house.

I think she came back with my sister from getting school supplies

and then I didn't really talk to her much.

She was talking to my sister and then like I said I was paying attention up to my phone eating.

That's about it.

What was she doing the whole time?

She seemed upset.

What kind of mood was she in?

She seemed fine, I'd say.

I mean she like I said she came back with school supplies and went straight to her room so and then she slept like a few hours later.

Your mom did?

So what time does she normally go to bed?

Normally I'd say around 10 maybe

late 9.30.

9 30 or 10?

Do you recall the time she went to bed last night?

Around late 7, maybe early 8, I think.

You know why she would go to bed three hours earlier or?

No.

Like I said we didn't really talk much yesterday so.

How are things between

your mom and your sister's young girls always arguing about something or fighting about something or are you getting in trouble for anything lately?

You know is your mom mad at anybody about anything?

I'd say just a normal like you know teenage stuff?

Yeah parents took it like a couple days ago like my sister her room was pretty dirty so you know my mom told her to clean her room.

It's about it.

You have a beautiful house, yeah.

Does your mom clean it, or do you have a cleaning lady?

Well, we all clean basically what we do, so like if I make a mess, I have to clean it up.

Alright.

How's your sister's relationship with your mom?

It's like

pretty good the same thing.

Like I say, like if they don't do something right, you know, they get in trouble for it.

Not cleaning their room, you know, cleaning your room, stuff like that.

No big arguments or anything with your sister lately?

Nothing I know, no.

By all accounts, Nada was a hard-working, loving, and doting mother.

She woke the kids up for school every day, cooked, cleaned, and did all the normal full-time parenting duties, while also juggling a career as a fitness instructor.

Now, where does your mom work?

Uh, Franklin Athletic Club.

Okay, does she work every day or is she by appointment only?

I'm not as familiar with it myself.

She hasn't really told me about it much, but from what I heard from my sister, it's like she has clients and they schedule it with her, so that's how her schedule kind of works.

Did the people ever come here to work out?

No.

Okay, it's just so.

It's at the gym, yeah.

It's at the gym.

The people who took Nada's classes absolutely adored her.

After hearing of her tragic passing, the gym's Facebook page flooded with comments like this.

Nada was such an inspiring woman.

She truly made so many people's lives happier.

She would always greet you with a smile and knew everyone who attended her class by first name.

She was so so passionate and I am so, so glad I knew her.

Franklin was a place.

She was certainly appreciated.

I do not doubt that she was an amazing mother too.

We spoke with Nada's oldest daughter, Aya, and she filled in the gaps for us on the true Altentawi family dynamic.

My mom, she grew up in Dubai.

She lived there until about like 12th grade, I want to say, and then moved to Syria, where she originally was from.

My dad was born and raised in Syria.

My dad is 11 years older than my mom was.

So she was 18 when they got engaged or married.

And then pretty soon after they moved to the U.S., they went to Pennsylvania first so that my dad could finish up his studies with med school and all of that.

But yeah, they primarily just moved to America for job opportunities, as most people typically do.

Aya's father, Basil, was a physician in Michigan, getting his initial med schooling in Syria back in 1993, a little less than 25 years after the school was founded, he then finished up his fellowship and residency in America.

Soon after, Basel and Nada began building their family.

They started off living very traditionally, with Basil going out to work and Nada staying at home to take care of the children.

My mom was an incredible person.

Everyone loved her.

She was like the definition of, you know, when you hear people saying that, oh, this person like, when they walk into the room, it's like a light walks into, whatever that saying is, I don't know.

But she was a definition of that pretty much.

She was a huge people pleaser, huge extrovert.

So anything she could do to make other people happy, she would do it.

She was always there for everyone.

And I think that was kind of her way of forgetting about her own troubles that were happening at home is by focusing on how she can make other people's lives better.

But she was very, very, very much into the gym.

I mean, I, I, she started going to the gym before I could even remember.

Like, I can't tell you when she started going, but I got into the gym because of her.

She ended up actually teaching at a gym that she would work at, which was really great.

And I don't know.

I mean, you know,

when she was still alive, I was going through my like pre-teen, teen years of being,

you know, a dumb teenager, essentially, and just like wanting my own space and thinking that parents are lame and I don't want to be seen seen with my parents.

Though the family, as they often do, seemed to be pretty normal, happy, successful even on the outside.

Tensions had been brewing for quite a while.

Aya remembers that she first noticed problems in her parents' marriage becoming evident all the way back in 2011.

Honestly, we didn't really see too much of it.

you know, the fighting and all of that.

My parents definitely tried to keep it just between them while, you you know, my siblings and I were still kids.

But as we got older and as the fighting became more tumultuous, more

just happened more often, it was, it got a little bit harder to hide.

I want to say the time that I started to notice things was actually when we were in Lebanon.

Me, my mother, my brother, and my sister were there for a little family reunion from my mom's side.

So my dad was staying in America because he had work.

And I remember we were walking down like a pier and my dad or my mom got a call from my dad.

And so me and my brother, we hung back with my mom while our family walked ahead of us.

And she answered the phone.

And I remember he,

it took my mom a few minutes to like get him to calm down and, you know, figure out what was going on.

But basically what had happened is he had invested a ton of money.

if I remember correctly, it was a quarter of a million into stocks and he lost it all.

And my mom was telling him, apparently, it was a conversation that they had had before.

And he had brought it up to her, and she told him, you know, don't do it.

You don't know what you're doing with money.

You don't know how to invest anything.

If you want to do it, that's fine, but hire someone who actually knows what they're doing.

Obviously, didn't listen to her.

So

from what I remember, it kind of started there, or at least that's when I started to pick up on it.

I want to say that money was a huge stressor in their relationship just because my dad wasn't smart with finances.

So he didn't really know how to manage it correctly.

And especially, you know, given that our family was well off, he just didn't know how to manage it and, you know, make sure that we weren't spending money frivolously.

I think that was the first time that I noticed it.

But then with my mom, it kind of started to pick up when she expressed wanting to get a job and start working, go back to school, that sort of thing.

When they initially began the separation and divorce process in March of 2016, things changed drastically for the Altantawi family.

Since Basil had moved out, Nada trimmed her budget by canceling luxuries like the maid service, and she landed the fitness instructor position so that she could bring in some income of her own.

After all, she and Basil had been separated for nearly two years with no divorce finalization.

Everything was all up in the air legally.

Even if they considered themselves already divorced in the eyes of Islam, their chosen religion.

So my parents weren't legally divorced, but in terms of religion, in our religion, they were divorced by then.

That was like the very first step that they took was getting divorced religiously.

Getting divorced through the American system obviously is a much longer process because you have to figure out kids and you have to figure out finances and houses and cars and whatever, all of that.

But in terms of the religion, they were already divorced.

Nada very quickly began the process of starting a new life without Basil.

Our way of bonding was going to the gym or shopping.

That was it.

And for the last couple months, we purchased a new house and was completely remodeling it.

So anytime she would be going over to the house and I was in high school, I'd be like, oh, I want to come.

So we were doing that a lot, figuring out how I wanted to decorate my room, that sort of thing.

Now, are you guys staying here?

They're planning on selling the house, do you know?

I think, yeah, they're selling the house.

This house.

They They are going to sell this house?

Did your mom have any places she was moving to or been looking around or anything that you want?

She's not.

Not really that

she told me, but yesterday I heard my sister talking about that they got a new house.

So she got a new house.

Oh, you did?

Yeah, that's what my sister said.

Do you know where that is?

No.

Muhammad told police that he heard his sister.

talking about the new house with their mother.

And that's all he knew about the situation.

While it was true that his mother and sister didn't willingly tell him anything about the new house, it was not true that he found out by listening in on their conversation.

No, he, I'm pretty sure he found out on his own because he was like snooping.

So he would go into her room and go through papers and whatever.

He would take her phone.

Essentially, he was trying to act like he was the parent.

He would go through her phone, go through all her belongings, ask her where she's going, when she's coming back, who she's going to see, that sort of thing.

So he, I'm pretty sure he did find out on his own.

Muhammad didn't have much information about the new house, but chances were it would be smaller and quite a bit less opulent than their current abode.

These kids had it made,

and you know, it'd be painful for any kid to give up the amenities they were used to.

It's a lot easier going from rags to riches than riches to rags, that's for sure.

The Altantawi house had everything, from the custom fireplaces, high ceilings, and chandeliers to the features every teen dreams of.

Their own massive bedroom with private bathrooms, high-end computers, walk-in closets, a movie theater in the basement, with a whole separate kitchen and living area, and a home gym and even a sauna.

Needless to say, the house was massive enough.

and had enough features to entertain the kids for days on end.

They could go several days without seeing each other in person.

Like over the weekend, for example.

The night before his mother's death, Muhammad knew his sister Ayah was in her room only by her shuffling noises and the light that emerged through the cracks around her bedroom door.

What are your sisters doing?

Or do you know?

My younger sister,

she's going to sleep.

And then my other sister shut her computer.

And then I'm on the computer.

So you guys didn't normally see each other the whole evening?

No, I don't.

Okay, you're in your room the whole time?

Yeah.

Uh, well, no, I went to pray to the mosque again on my bike.

I came back around...

So I left around 8.30 and I came back around 9.15.

At 8.30, Muhammad said he left the house on his bike to visit the mosque and pray.

The Altantawis were devote followers of Islam when they lived back in Syria, and they continued their practices after settling in Michigan and starting a family.

They instilled the same values in their children, raising them up to be good Muslim kids.

Muhammad himself seemed pretty devout for a 16-year-old, choosing to ride his bike to the mosque multiple times a day to pray instead of getting into trouble with drugs, alcohol, and girls.

Now, forgive me, I'm not

totally knowledgeable about your religion and stuff.

Is this something you do every day or is it

every day?

Five times a day, yeah.

Okay, so you ride your bike to the mosque.

You left the house at 8:30.

And then what time do you get back?

9:15.

9.15.

All right.

And you didn't go with your friend yesterday?

Yeah.

Do the women not have to go and pray?

No.

They don't?

I mean, it's just,

I don't know.

What nationality are you here?

What nationality are you?

I was born here, but like my ethnicity is Syrian.

So the girls don't have to go to pray five times a day?

Yeah, they should pray at home usually.

Okay, so yeah, that's an option you can do.

You can sometimes pray at home.

Okay.

So we definitely, I mean, women could go to the mosque for sure.

It just wasn't, I mean, with men, it's for the five daily prayers, it's mandatory to go to the mosque if you can.

For women, it's if you want to, you can go.

If you don't want to, you can do it at home.

It doesn't really matter.

For the most part, yeah, everything that I learned about my religion did come from primarily my father.

There was a little bit that I learned from my private schools, but

it...

wasn't stuff that like hadn't already been told to me by my father.

I mean, you know, for me growing up, my parents were definitely very, very religious.

That's, it was something that they, my father more so was something that they just pushed upon us.

And, you know, it was fine with me.

I,

the thing that I struggled with is that if I didn't understand something about the religion, I'd want to ask why and I'd want to understand before I,

you know, just did things blindly.

That's just how I've always been.

And whenever I would ask my dad questions, he would just say, well, that's what it says.

So you just have to do it.

And that wasn't really satisfactory enough for me.

How long does a prayer last?

I'd say maybe like 20 minutes max, like 10 minutes for the prayer, and then you have 10 minutes to talk with people, talk with friends.

Okay.

And then they like close the doors?

No, no, no, the doors open all day.

Okay.

Yeah.

Were you there with any friends yesterday?

Yeah, no, I didn't go with them, but I saw a couple people, yeah.

Okay.

You're saying your mom went to bed before you left?

Yeah.

And when you got back, she was not up.

You just assumed she was asleep or whatever.

Here's where this interview gets really good.

So you don't know if your mom had any problems with anybody or anything like that?

No.

All right.

So last night you went to bed about

11.30.

Sunday night, right?

Sunday night, yeah.

Now,

would you know if somebody came over to the house last night?

I mean, if somebody came in the house or anything, would you know?

I should, yeah.

Most likely, I should probably be able to pay attention.

I mean, would there be like a door chime or anything like that?

Yeah.

Muhammad made it clear to police that he didn't hear anyone come into the house after he came in for the night.

Because of their security system, he was sure he would have heard something.

The four of them went to sleep for the night, and early the next morning, just after Muhammad got out of the shower, is when he told police he heard his sister scream from the patio.

down below.

Police then had to determine whether any of the kids knew how the security system worked, whether any of the 13 cameras had a central control panel, and if any of the cameras recorded footage rather than just displaying it live.

No, we noticed that you know there's a security system here.

Do you know how that works?

No, no, I wasn't even like aware of that.

We had more cameras in the back of the house.

You weren't aware there's cameras all around the outside of the house?

No.

No, I knew there was like some like in the garage door door and something like that, but I didn't know any like specifics about it.

Do you know the code to it?

No.

You don't know how to access it or anything like that?

No.

No one has really.

I mean, just kind of there.

No one used anything since we moved here.

Do you know where it's kept?

The code?

The like the hard drive and everything for the.

No.

You don't know where that's kept?

No.

I thought it was in like the Wi-Fi room, but apparently not.

This morning,

you guys went to the fringe and stuff like that.

Okay.

Well we did we took it

and it's working

so everything's on video as to what

transpired

so we're trying to find out if you have anything that you want to say about that or

I don't really know

not really I mean no

okay

well

we're 100% sure that this wasn't accidental.

See what I'm saying?

Okay.

So

we're trying to figure out is what happened and why it happened.

Because watching the video, nobody leaves the house.

Yeah.

So there's your mother.

You,

your sister, and your little sister.

That's what we're trying to figure figure out as to what happened.

If it was an accident, if it was an argument, if it was something that was, you know,

spontaneous, something accidental, that's what we need to know.

Because

we want to get a resolution to this.

I know you do too.

Actions happen all the time.

You know, somebody could be helping somebody with something, holding the ladder, something like that, and something happens.

That's why we want to know what happened.

And that's why we're looking to you because you're the oldest and we've watched the video.

Police went into this interview having already watched the recorded footage from the security cameras.

They already knew the cameras not only saved the recorded footage, but they caught crucial parts of the event in question.

Muhammad didn't even know his family had that many cameras surrounding the house, let alone what they recorded at night.

Muhammad's father, Basil, was nearby for this interview, and when he saw it going a certain direction, he quickly stepped in on his son's behalf.

Then I came back with

their routine.

But now you are telling him that using that he's lying just now.

He can explain it to you.

He's shrouded.

And my eye is the same.

So I don't want them to say anything in front except I have an attorney.

His underage, you know that.

We know that.

That's why we asked you for

no, I need an attorney now.

I don't want to go any further.

I have to talk to an attorney because when I came back, it blew up my mind.

My daughter asked me, What's going on, Dad?

Why did you let us go back to the house?

So, this is actually now it's like an

investigating a child here without.

There was more than what was originally told to us.

So, I mean, you're more than welcome to.

I mean, your son can tell you what he told us.

There was more that occurred that night.

He shot, my daughter shot, I am shot, we're crying day and night.

He he never lied.

My son never lied.

My kids never lie.

I mean, he never lied.

He didn't lie.

He just didn't tell us everything that happened.

So if someone is...

His mom is dead, man.

I understand.

So what you're talking about,

please, sir.

I don't want my kids to talk to any of you anymore.

I mean,

I want to know everything as you want to know.

But the way it is like this, I see there is something putting so much burden on side, and we are not, we didn't eat since the morning and now i come back with my daughter sister my dad while they are not

like we have to get permission to get to come back to the house so she's scared and i'm scared and he's scared and confused and so this is part of our we

had the timelines that didn't quite match up with what was said on the scene and what no you are talking with a child confused we're not talking about like in ten minutes or five your son is not confused

and he's not a child he's a he's a 16 year old he's just not a child okay so when you say a child, it makes him seems like this.

He's your child.

Evidence at the crime scene did not point to an accidental fall.

There was not a drop of blood on the concrete or on Nada's body when she was found, and she landed face up.

What law enforcement saw on the video footage made them turn their attention directly toward Muhammad.

At first, Muhammad tried to insinuate that if his mother was murdered, his 14-year-old sister, Aya, may have had something to do with it because she was allegedly awake before Muhammad was.

The police quickly explained why that theory didn't quite check out.

That was the first day of our second week of school, and we had to go be at like this location where a bus took us to school by 6.30.

And so I had been waking up by like six at the latest to get up and get ready for school.

And i'm the type of person who sets like 20 alarms each within like two minute intervals of each other so i'll i'll hear one of them at some point like i'll wake up um but my brother had been waking up at like 6 30 6 33 which is when we had to be there so we were running late because of him but um that day i didn't wake up until like 6 15, 6 20, I want to say, which was already weird.

And when I woke up, my brother was already awake, which was even weirder.

I mean, now's the time if we're going to, if we're going to be honest about it we gotta be honest about it now because once this gets the ball gets rolling it's up to prosecutors and stuff like that to explain something is an accident or not now's the time we need to do it yeah we know that somebody was in the room

and we're about 99.9% sure it's a male that was in the room from the picture from the video but we have to slow it down and get a snapshot of it and that's what the MSP is doing right now we got it shipped off to the state lab they're going to blow it up and it's going to show who was there

the security camera footage, that's when I was like, oh yeah, he did it.

The footage, which, by the way, you can watch if you're a plus member, clearly shows shadows cast onto the ground from the window above.

A large looming figure can be seen moving around before a smaller figure is seemingly thrust from the window and falls to the ground below.

Given that Muhammad was the only male in the home that night, it was damning enough evidence to make an arrest.

We begin with breaking news, a murder in a Farmington Hills mansion.

The victim, a 35-year-old woman, and we're told there was plenty of family trouble there.

Seven investigators, Jim Kirchner, live on Howard Road, where this happened early Monday morning.

And Jim, we understand it took police a while to figure this one out.

Yeah, this has been going on since Monday morning, but let me tell you, just as we're coming on the air, I just got off the phone with Farmington Hills Chief Neebus, who tells me a 16-year-old son of this victim is now in custody, is now the murder suspect being held at Children's Village here in Oakland County.

That's the juvenile lockup.

The chief says they got a call into 911 at 6 a.m.

Monday morning at this mansion that a woman had fallen from a second story window.

But then they determined this was no accident.

The autopsy is done on this victim, but they're not releasing the cause of death, and that could be because there are other injuries in addition to what would have been sustained from the fall from a second window.

I asked the chief if this 16-year-old is cooperating.

Is he answering police questions?

The chief would not answer that.

Mohamed was arrested, arraigned, and swiftly charged with second-degree murder, all in the same week.

For the time being, he was to be held at Children's Village without bond, despite his lawyer's plea to the judge that Muhammad was a star student with no criminal record.

The prosecutor's office had a different perspective.

Muhammad had murdered his own mother while his young sisters were in the home with him.

He was violent and dangerous and should be kept off the streets.

Here's the kicker, though.

Investigators agreed that Muhammad couldn't have done this on his own,

especially given what Nada's autopsy results would show.

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16-year-old Mohamed Altantawi had been arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of his mother, 35-year-old Nada Haraniye.

And by the time November 2017 rolled around, about three months after Nada's death, the medical examiner released some damning information about the autopsy results.

It was early on in their investigation that police say they realized that the death of the 35-year-old Farmington Hill's mother of three was no accident.

Prosecutors say 16-year-old Mohamed Al-Tanawi murdered his mother.

And today, a forensic pathologist from the medical examiner's office testified that Nada's primary cause of death was asphyxiation from smothering.

You heard it right.

Nada, a 135-pound grown woman, was dead before she went out the window.

In your opinion, doctor, this happened before or after the body falling out of the window.

My observation indicates that it happened before.

I think that the positioning of her body

was not what you would expect from someone falling out the window.

Not only had Nada fallen face up onto the pavement, her feet faced the house.

The medical examiner determined that Nada had likely been smothered with a damp towel or cloth prior to being tossed from the second story.

The only reason Muhammad had thrown his mother's body out the window was to stage the scene and make it appear like an accident.

And why on earth would a devoutly religious 16-year-old suddenly decide to murder his own mother.

Further evidence and Aya's own first-hand testimony explain that also.

The

first domestic violence incident that happened, that was like one of the major ones, if not the most major, we actually didn't end up calling the police, and that wasn't allowed to be talked about in like any of the court stuff.

We came back from London.

My parents were arguing.

My dad had my mom's phone in his hand, and they were on the phone with my mom's dad, so my grandfather, and they were sitting at the top of the stairs.

She was trying to get the phone back from him.

He wasn't giving it to her.

So he ended up pushing her down the stairs and she like twisted her ankle really badly.

I had like a panic attack.

My first panic attack ever, as far as I remember, was that night.

So that was the London incident.

And then about a month later, was the first recorded incident of domestic violence where the police were called and I was the one that called the police.

The second one was kind of along the same lines.

You know, he had her phone.

They were on the phone with her dad.

He wouldn't give it back to her.

He ran into their bedroom to hide and my mom was trying to push the door open.

She had her hand like between the door and he like saw her hand, but then he like slammed the door anyways and he closed it on her hand.

So her thumb got injured somehow.

The third one was just that when the police came and took him away the first time, the time that I called, he wasn't supposed to come back, but he did anyways.

So then my mom called the police and then my dad was like running through the house with my brother and they were, my brother was like talking to him in Arabic and he's like, go hide here, like they won't find you here.

And then I'd be like, oh, they're hiding over here.

And they would be like yelling at me.

It was really funny.

But yeah, so then he got taken away that time and wasn't allowed to come back.

After Basil was ordered to leave the home, Nada filed for divorce.

In a separate case, Basil battled on his own.

He faced charges related to Medicare fraud and two counts of healthcare fraud, which resulted in him having to spend one day in jail and pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution.

Yeah, so with that, that was also something big in the family.

I remember we were driving in Detroit one day.

I don't remember exactly for what, but it was my entire family, both of my siblings and both of my parents.

And We were passing by like the Blue Cross Blue Shield building.

And my dad goes, you know, pray that these people leave me alone.

This was all in Arabic, but that they like get off my back, whatever.

And to me, I didn't really know too much about it at that point.

But my sort of train of thought with everything in that case was, you know, obviously this is a very, very big corporation.

They make a ton of money.

You're one person.

You know, you run your own clinic.

If you haven't been doing something so blatantly wrong, why would they be coming after you in the first place?

So even though I didn't know details about it, I thought that he was guilty of whatever they were accusing him of.

And so when my dad said to, you know, pray that they get off his back, my parents and my brother like were literally praying out loud.

And I didn't say anything.

I kept my mouth shut.

So my brother turns to me and he's like, why aren't you saying it?

And I was like, I'm saying it in my head.

And he's like, no, you have to say it out loud for it to count.

And I was like, no, I can, you know, say it subconsciously and it'll be fine.

He was like, no, you have to say it out loud so I know you're actually saying it.

According to cell phone evidence, Nada was involved in a text conversation where she stated that she had information on Basel that could land him in prison for further financial crimes.

Could that have added another,

even more pressing element to the motive of Nada's murder?

His medical license was suspended by the state of Michigan in February, state officials citing negligence, incompetence, lack of good moral character, a criminal conviction, and unethical business practices.

Police say he is not involved in the murder.

This is the thing that really bothered me, I think, especially like within the divorce case, is that his license was suspended.

I believe it was for about six months, maybe a year.

But once the term ended, he always had the option to go back and apply for it to be reinstated.

It was never like a, it's done, you can never get it back type of thing.

He just chose to never go and get it reinstated because he used that as a strategy in the divorce case to be like, I shouldn't have to pay child custody.

I shouldn't have to pay any bills because I don't have a job.

In the throes of these very adult problems, Muhammad chose aside.

He was angry at his mother for divorcing his father and blamed both his sister and mother for trying to ruin his father's life.

He thought that his mother was trying to take all of his father's money.

And he thought Aya was trying to ruin his reputation by doing things like, oh, I don't know, calling the police.

when Basil became violent.

So when the police came and took my father away both times, my brother immediately just started to turn on me and my mother even more because they were like, They were both saying, you know, what are you doing to him?

Like, this is my brother and my father were saying, What are you doing to my dad?

Like, this is ridiculous.

Like, he's done everything for you.

They're going to take him to jail, this and that.

And

so, my brother felt really bad for my dad.

And, like, he, when the police came and took him, like, he was bawling his eyes out.

According to Ayah, Muhammad had a strained relationship with his mother and sisters even before the separation.

But once Nada filed for divorce, things got much worse.

So when he, when my dad wasn't allowed to come back, he literally did say that, okay, now that dad's gone, like, I'm the only man in the house.

I'm the one who's in charge now.

Like, what I say goes.

And that translated into everything.

So what we ate, what we dressed, where we did, where we, he would just try to control everything.

And when my mom, growing up, we never were really like disciplined by my mom or like grounded, things like that.

Like we never had our phones taken away.

So

when my brother was contacting my dad and like sending him pictures of what my mom was doing, like things like that, just being like his little spy, essentially, my dad was not allowed to have contact with any of us unless it was through like a third-party supervised person.

He could request that and then they would set it up.

He never requested it.

He would just.

sneak my brother out.

My brother would sneak out of the house.

They would see each other like that, but he never requested seeing my sister and I and I never requested to see him.

So it was fine.

But yeah, so my mom you know tried to take his phone away To discipline him and be like you're not supposed to be texting your dad like you can't be sneaking out of the house things like that and at that point my brother started getting really into working out and like building muscle and like taking these protein shakes and powders and whatever it was so he was

a lot stronger than my mom at that point so her trying to take his phone from him and like discipline him would result in a physical altercation and so at one point she you know she knew that it wasn't gonna work out and so she just stopped.

She kind of just let him do his own thing.

And he just, he started to get like a, he was very, very, very short-tempered.

He was very, very assertive, very

violent.

And he was just always like a ticking time bomb.

You never knew what was going to set him off.

You never knew when he was going to be set off, but at any moment, he could just blow up at you.

Muhammad was very easily influenced and manipulated by his father, the only person he cared to try to earn approval from.

During the early morning hours, the day his mother's body was found, Muhammad had numerous phone calls back and forth with Basil.

This all occurred well before Muhammad told police that he was awake.

Even more telling was his mother's contact name and his phone.

Muhammad had her listed under B

for bitch.

Yeah.

That's the Muslim way right there.

You just call your mom a bitch.

Hmm.

When Muhammad finally went to trial in 2022, his charges by this point had escalated to first-degree murder, and he was being charged as an adult.

His defense attorney's main argument was that Muhammad could not have pulled this off on his own.

The attorney stated that it was, quote, inconceivable.

that Muhammad killed Nada.

The scene was set up so professionally to look like an accident both before and after the killing took place, it just couldn't have been done by a 16-year-old.

Though he may not have had physical help inside the home while he set up the cleaning supplies and the ladder, events which were also backed up by the security camera footage, he may have had instruction from his own father.

Why was he on the phone with his dad in those early morning hours, including times right before and right after Nada was thrown out the window?

Here's another damning piece of circumstantial evidence.

Both Basel and Nada were scheduled to give depositions for their divorce just two days after Nada was murdered.

You might be wondering why on earth was Basil not charged with anything related to this crime.

But it's not enough to convict him.

I mean, it's all circumstantial, I think.

So they, I mean, they're, they wanted to get my dad more than anything.

I think, I mean, I wanted that too.

I was like, if you can get my dad and let my brother go free, then that's the only way, like, do it.

My dad is the actual culprit of everything.

He's the one who manipulated my brother.

And that's not to say that I don't blame my brother because I do.

I mean, regardless of how much he was manipulated or brainwashed or whatever term you want to use, he was still at the end of the day, he was 16 years old.

Even if he was eight years old, like, you know that killing someone, much less your own mother is very very wrong like that you know what is right and what's wrong so yeah he's definitely at fault but he's also

not

the

person that's been behind everything you know like yeah he took away my mother's life and that's huge that's definitely he needs to pay for that but at the same time like my dad put my mother through years and years and years of hell and he got my brother to kill her if he had the ability to kill my mother i absolutely 100 without it out believe that he would have done it but because he couldn't do it, he had my brother do it.

So,

yeah, throughout the entire case, they have been trying to find anything to use to get to my dad.

But they're,

my dad is stupid, but he's smart in picking a scapegoat and making sure that he doesn't fall for his own actions.

So, he was able to get away with it.

And while his son was in prison for crimes he may have orchestrated himself, Basil went about the community begging and pleading for sympathy.

And

you guessed it,

money.

The whole not being good with finances thing didn't stop with my mom.

It continued on with him.

So whenever all the money was split up, he,

while my dad, while my brother was sitting in jail, okay, refusing to say a single bad word about my father, my father went on during like winter break in like December, went to Las Vegas and gambled away a quarter of a million dollars in one night.

I mean, when everything was still happening, this was when I was like 16, 17, still having to do mandatory visitations with him.

And people in our community still had like a good perspective of him and sympathized with him.

He went around collecting money from the community saying that it was to help pay for legal fees for my brother.

And people were giving him money.

Guess what he goes and does with the money?

Buys a brand new sports car.

So then at that point, people were like, what the hell is wrong with you?

Like, we're going to stop giving you money.

It's like he's not a smart person.

The same community that was silent during Nada's domestic violence violence experience initially stood up to both defend Muhammad and Basil.

Funny how that happens in some communities.

It took an act so blatantly ungrateful and greedy to finally turn his own community against him.

All the while, Basil made the same claims over and over.

His son, Muhammad, was innocent.

My son never lie.

My kids never lie.

Apparently, to Basel,

his son would never lie.

But I guess we should disregard what his daughters had to say, right?

Is that how that works?

After all, it kind of contradicts the whole idea that Muhammad is innocent.

You know, I

haven't been able to be like this happened to me and my family, but I wasn't allowed to know anything about what was being said.

I wasn't allowed to know anything about the trial until it was over.

And so it was just everyone giving me their opinions on it.

And like I said, that's fine, but you can't sit here and tell me that what I went through is incorrect.

Like I, I lived through it.

You didn't, you know, and so I wouldn't just re-emphasizing, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be doing this if there was no reason to be doing this.

You know, I don't, I didn't wake up one day and decide, hey, let me go ruin my brother and my father's life.

Like, no, they did that to themselves.

It's the consequences of their own actions.

Maybe they didn't expect to be caught or they didn't expect to have repercussions, but like, wake up, you're, you're an adult.

This is what happens when you do things like this.

You get in trouble for it.

So I don't know.

I mean,

I've, I've made my peace with everything.

I've put it all behind me.

I've moved on.

This is to me just another step in my healing journey is, you know, actually being able to give my voice and tell people everything that I went through and my mother has gone through as opposed to just having everyone be like, oh, this is what you went through and this isn't what you went through.

Basil himself is someone who seems to be preoccupied with getting money, either legally or illegally, and spending it frivolously.

He used Islam as a way to control people around him and keep them under his thumb.

He was very quote unquote old school or extreme in the belief system he taught his family.

My dad,

in the trial and like everything, every aspect of his life was very, very religious, very, very cultural.

If our religion or our culture said something that contradicted like American law, you listen to the religion, you ignore the American law.

Like, that's to the extent that he was at with it.

And so,

you know, a lot of things that were said online is that we were forced to like dress a certain way, or we couldn't work because of the religion.

And none of that is true.

I mean, my dad had an issue with the way that I dressed, and it wasn't even like breaking religious guidelines at that point at all.

But that was just more of a cultural thing.

Same with working.

There's nothing in our religion at all that says that woman can't work.

But I think for him, he just used that as a tactic to maintain control over us.

And so, and he was just very, very old school in his thinking.

I mean, I remember when I brought up telling him that I was going to go to college one day and I was still in middle school at this point.

He responded that, no, you know, we'll, we'll discuss it when you get to that point.

And I said, okay, like, yeah, for sure.

But just so you know, like, I am going to go to college.

I'm going to become a lawyer.

And he's like, No, you know, your job as a woman is just to stay home and take care of the kids.

And once again, like, nothing about the religion says that.

If anything, our religion emphasizes women having financial and like just independence in their life in general, not having to be reliant on anyone.

And so, whatever you do to get to that point, great.

My dad was just, no, women have to stay home, men are in control, and that's about it.

Anything that kind of, I guess, like in the media was portrayed as us becoming more Americanized, anything that kind of made it seem that that was the case, he was very much against.

And it was kind of ironic to me when I first saw the very first time I read a headline that said that he had issues with us becoming Americanized.

I just kind of laughed to myself because I was like, if you had issues with us becoming Americanized, why would you move to America to start your family?

You know, like, just.

What are you expecting?

Especially given that he was born and both of them were born and raised in Syria.

That's where they grew up.

You should know that when you move to America and you give birth to your kids in America and that's where they're being raised, they're going to adapt things that

they see around them and their culture and the environment.

So obviously it's going to be, our upbringing is going to be extremely different.

If you were going to have such an issue with it, you shouldn't have moved to America in the first place.

That's kind of on you.

So I'm not religious.

I do practice some aspects of it, but it definitely...

just doesn't have anything to do with my father.

I think it just for me, relearning the actual religion itself as opposed to what my father has taught me, which is a very twisted version of it.

The same grandiose and manipulative attitudes followed both Basil and Muhammad into the courtroom in early 2022.

A jury deliberated for just a few hours before finding Muhammad guilty of his crimes.

When sentencing rolled around, Muhammad 21 years old by this time, decided to fire his legal team and represent himself.

During his sentencing hearing, both Muhammad and his father caused numerous disturbances.

Muhammad himself wasted hours of time raising objections to words and phrases that were used in his pre-sentencing investigation report.

Some of his objections related to the portrayal of his family's Syrian culture and their faith in Islam, claiming law enforcement was prejudiced and bigoted.

How many times have we heard this shit before?

He brought up his father's domestic violence history and explained why he thought it was all unfair and untrue.

And he even tried to challenge a report that referenced a time police were called to the house because Muhammad was, quote, playing with knives.

He thought that was irrelevant, I guess.

You'd think with nearly five years to think about what he'd done, Muhammad would have found some crumbs of virtue left inside of him, somewhere rattling around.

Something to bring forth and finally take accountability for what he had done.

But I guess for some people, that's asking for far, far too much.

Well, this past March, a jury needed just three hours to find Altantawi guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.

He says he's innocent.

Pamela Osborne has been following today's hearing.

This did not go smoothly, Pam.

It did not.

There were several outbursts in that courtroom today.

It took the judge four more hours to even get to the sentencing part.

Here's a look at some of what played out in court.

Five years ago, I got arrested for, as I said,

the worst crime imaginable.

Oh, man.

And for her to die at 35 years old, a terrible death by any means.

MDOC's requested sentence for 40 to 80 years.

I don't care.

I don't know, but honestly, I don't know what you would want to see from it because it was just four hours of him rambling.

Like for until we actually got to the sentencing part, it was literally four hours of him rambling.

It was ridiculous.

I was falling asleep.

I was playing games on my phone.

Like, I was, I didn't want to be there.

I was like, I thought I was showing up to say my piece, hear his sentencing, and then leave.

I didn't expect to be here for the entire day.

So,

yeah, no, it was, it was a mess.

Muhammad maintained his innocence throughout the hearing, exclaiming that someday his conviction would be overturned.

A lot of arrogance there.

I guess that's pretty obvious.

When it came time for victim impact statements, Basil Alton Tawi took the stand, speaking not about the true victim in this crime, but about his

oh-so-innocent son.

He was a loving, and he's still a loving, caring, supportive human being.

That he's been convicted, wrongfully

convicted.

Also, that impacted me.

And his sister.

That's not what the victim impacts me.

He, I said, he, not I.

But if he's talking about you, sir, he's referring to you as a victim.

You are not the victim here.

His mother wasn't taken away.

She wasn't killed.

He murdered her.

Murdered her.

And the evidence backed it up.

A jury took no time at all to convict.

And this judge did not have a good impression of Muhammad or his father.

Not after that massive waste of time in the courtroom.

As a result, she handed down a sentence of 35 to 60 years in prison.

I really liked her.

I thought she was really fair.

I talked to the prosecutors about, you know, why she gave him somewhat of a lighter sentence.

It wasn't a light sentence by any means, but it wasn't the maximum.

And she was being really strategic because everyone knows that my brother is going to appeal the case.

And I was also asking why she let him ramble on for like five hours.

But yeah, it was all part of strategy, I guess.

And she knew that he was going to appeal.

So she didn't want to give him any basis that he could.

appeal the case on and have the verdict be overturned or have the sentence be shortened.

So by letting him ramble, by letting him say anything anything and everything he wants to say, he can't go back later and be like, oh, well, the judge wouldn't let me speak, or she wasn't letting me represent myself.

And then, with the sentencing, nobody can be like, oh, well, you gave him the maximum sentence, and for whatever reason, that wasn't fair.

She gave him a fair sentencing, very fair trial.

So he has no leg to stand on in terms of the appeal.

If all of his future parole hearings result in denials, Muhammad may end up spending the entire next 60 years in prison.

Chances are though, some parole officer will let him out.

Poor kid, right?

Give him another chance.

I mean, all he did was murder his own mother.

As for Aya, she moved on to bigger and better things, and is still planning to go to law school.

Because all of this happened when Aya was just 14,

She and her sister were put into foster care.

At some point, Aya aged out of the system.

Her little sister was placed back in the care of their father, where she remains today.

Yeah, I don't get sucked her at all.

For the first, until I was 17, around that age, I had to do court-mandated supervised visits with my father.

And so he would sometimes bring my little sister.

And yeah, there was like no safety risk, but

You know, you can tell that she wasn't being cared for.

I mean, hygiene with her was non-existent.

She was, she had gained a lot of weight.

In the summer, she'd be wearing like winter rain boots, things like that.

She wasn't being taken care of, but do I think he was being abusive to her?

No.

But so yeah, so he would bring her every now and then, but he would be brainwashing her as well to hate me.

So when he would get up to go to the bathroom or something, she would turn to me and be like, my dad said that you're a liar and that I have to hate you.

So I hate you.

Like things like that.

And I'd sit there and be like, okay.

So yeah, basically I haven't, I haven't talked to her since I was like 17.

last i heard which was at the sentence saying he was living with my little sister in his friend's house so like he's not living a good life

he may not be living a good life right now but bossel still has just a suspended medical license as far as we know he could renew it at any time and resume his career as a physician.

Think about that.

Next time you go in for a checkup.

Let's hope that his reputation precedes him, though, in all of his future endeavors.

This entire time, I have always heard, well, he's your brother, he's your dad, like they love you.

They would never do this to you.

Like, why are you doing this to them?

Once again, why would I do this to them if it wasn't true?

You know, like they're my family.

I wouldn't make up lies to this extent about anyone, much less my own brother and my father, if it wasn't true.

You know, like,

I'm not a child.

My brother's spending his life in jail.

I haven't had contact with my dad in years.

That's not by choice.

It's because that is what's best for me considering what they've put me through.

So it just, I mean,

everyone obviously is entitled to their own opinions, but no one has the right to sit here and tell me that, well, you, you don't know what you're talking about or you're making things up or your feelings are invalid because you didn't live with my family.

I grew up when I was raised by them.

Like this is, this is my family.

Unless you have lived with them, you don't know what actually went on behind closed doors.

You only saw what we wanted you to see, and that's about it.

So, you have your opinion.

Yeah, you can voice it, but it's completely invalid if you're telling me that I'm wrong about what I went through.

You know?

Aya's entire family of five have been ripped to shreds.

Muhammad and his father both seem to have blamed Nada for the initial dissolution of their family unit.

But how then, I ask,

could they possibly have thought in their stupid little brains that murdering her would solve the problem?

How fucking idiotic!

Muhammad Altantawi may have been a miner when he killed his own mother, but he knew exactly what he was doing.

It's just that getting caught wasn't part of the plan.

Depending on when you hear this, you may or may not already know.

Episode two of Sword and Scale Television drops May 1st.

It's really a fucked up story.

Stay safe.

Hey, Mike, Mark Waus here from Clarkston, Michigan.

I've been with you since season one, but unfortunately only became a member in 2023.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you how much I love the show.

It's a must-listen, and I look forward to new episodes.

I just wanted to tell you, you know, some people have a destiny,

have a job that they are good at, but they don't know it at the time.

And your

management and

production skills on Sword and Scale is the job you are destined for.

There is no other podcast that comes close to you.

I've listened to a lot of them and they're garbage.

You guys are top-notch the best.

And I want to thank you for that.

I look forward to many more years of enjoyment and I hope you stay safe and I just love what you guys do.

Take care, my friend.

Bye-bye.

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