All language subtitles for Pushed.to.Death.S01E03.Killer.in.the.Shadows.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A fatal fall
from a second floor

window of a Detroit mansion.

I start screaming and I
run to my brother's room.

A devoted
mom's life cut short.

Bassel arrives, sees
his estranged wife dead,

and he drops in shock.

Was it simply
just tragic misfortune?

The physical
examination did find

fractures consistent
with a fall of this kind.

Or murder?

Nada Huranieh
have moved here to Michigan

from Syria in the Middle East.

Her husband, Bassel Altantawi,
was a medical doctor

and set up a practice
here in Metro Detroit.

Nada and Bassel
had come to the United States

from Syria.

They were raising
their children

in Farmington Hills, which is
a very nice suburb of Detroit.

They
were devout Muslims.

They were members
of a local mosque,

and they had three
children-- their son Muhammad

and two daughters,
including Aya.

My name is Aya Altantawi.

My mom was a very,
very kind person.

She put everybody before
her and she loved us.

She loved her kids.

She and I, we had a pretty
good relationship.

We bonded over makeup.

She was very, very good at it.

She was very passionate
about the gym,

about working out, just
feeling like the best

version of herself.

Such was
not as love of fitness

that she eventually turned
her passion into a career,

working as a personal
trainer at her local gym

in Farmington Hills.

She was
becoming more independent.

She was actually living her
life for the first time.

She and I would go to the gym,
I would do my session,

she would be working
out, or she would

be teaching her own clients.

And then we'd work out
for a little bit at the end

and then we'd go home.

Nada
embraced the sense

of freedom and independence
that her new career gave her.

But her husband, Bassel,
wasn't so supportive.

He
didn't like it.

He didn't think it
was necessary for her

to be independent.

He thought that his
role for the family

was to be the provider,
so there was no need for her

to be independent, because we
all were reliant on him

and he was there to provide
everything we needed,

so he didn't like that.

He wanted, I think, us
to be just lost without him.

My dad was very old-school in
his thinking, to put it nicely.

So my mom wanting to get
a job, to work at the gym,

to live her life, to him was
she's becoming Americanized.

And he didn't want that.

There became
turmoil in their marriage

based on Nada's desire
to become more Westernized,

and Bassel's desire
to have a traditional wife

within their religious
practices.

He did say that
once she removed

the hijab, that she wasn't
really a person anymore.

He didn't consider
her to be a person,

and that was the part
that really disturbed me.

They
would have arguments,

but at first it was
always "don't talk

about it around the kids,
wait until the kids are gone."

But eventually that
pretense dropped

and it was just all out
in the open, constant

yelling and screaming
for my dad towards my mom.

He was becoming violent,
uncontrollable in his fits

of anger, and he wanted
to put us in a little box

and hide us away
and lock the key.

He was a man who
was used to being in control,

and that included
in his tradition

being in control of his wife.

And he was losing
that control, and

it was very upsetting to him.

In early
2016, Bassel and

Nada's volatile relationship
escalated to whole new levels.

Around Valentine's Day, I
remember I woke up to hearing

them screaming and arguing.

And I opened my door
and I went to the railing

to look down and see
what was going on.

And my dad was
holding my mom's phone

and he was like walking
around the house trying

to get away from her and, like,
he wouldn't give her her

phone back.

And he went
to their bedroom and he

was standing behind the door.

And my mom put her hand in the
door to try to pry it open,

and my dad slammed
it shut on her hand.

Eventually, I called the police
and they arrested him.

They took him
to police station.

They put a tether
on him, an ankle monitor.

So he wasn't allowed
to come back to the house

under any circumstance.

Bassel
would eventually be charged

with domestic violence.

He would plead no contest,
but it would be the beginning

of the end of their marriage.

Bassel was also
issued with a protective order,

banning him from
the family home.

Shortly after his
domestic violence charge,

Nada started
divorce proceedings

while juggling her career
alongside parenting

three young children
as a single mom.

This divorce
between Bassel and Nada

was definitely what I would
call a high conflict divorce.

There was a lot of contention.

I was concerned about
Nada's general safety,

but there was a court order
in place that protected her.

A lot of times
nobody knew what

she was going through
because she didn't

want to talk about her issues.

She wanted to talk about
what was bothering the people

that she loved, so that
she can try to help them.

Most of the time, we didn't
know what the details

of what she was going through.

Approximately 18
months after the incident

between Bassel and Nada, on the
morning of Monday, August 21,

2017, 14-year-old
Aya was preparing

for her usual school day.

It was the second week of my
sophomore year of high school.

I was excited.

But that day, I woke up late.

Normally my mom would
already be awake.

She would have had her
coffee or whatever.

I think I remember hearing
my brother's shower on,

but nobody else was
awake in the house.

So I thought, "OK, let me
get ready and then I'll see

where everybody else is at."

I finished getting ready and I
sat on my bed and I was like,

"OK, this is really strange."

It's like 6:15-ish.

Nobody else seems to be awake.

We're going to be late.

So I called my mom
but didn't get a response.

So I was like, "OK,
I'm going to go find

her and see what's going on."

I went to the guest bedroom.

That was where she would do
her makeup every morning.

The window was open and I
thought, "maybe, just in case,

let me go look out there."

The guest bedroom was

towards the back of the house.

It was two floors up and looked
out over a concrete patio,

which was 22 feet down.

Inside
that guest bedroom,

a stepladder, a bottle of
cleaning solution on top of it.

Next to it, a bucket of water.

All right next
to that open window.

When Aya looked out
the window, two floors below,

she saw the lifeless
body of her mother, Nada,

on the patio, face up, still
dressed in her pajamas.

I start screaming and I
run to my brother's room.

I open his door and I
said, "our mom's outside.

Our mom's outside."

He was like, "what?

What are you talking about?"

I think he was falling
behind me at this point,

and I was running out the
garage to go around the house,

and I just kept--

I was telling him,
"come on, we have to go.

Our mom's outside."

Despite
how distressing

this was, Aya just
seen her mother.

She was able to get her brother
to come down to the patio

where her mother was,
and she called 911.

Oakland County Police
officers raced to Nada's home,

while a 911 operator stayed
on the line with Aya.

Aya gave her brother Muhammad
the phone at this point.

He then started following
the dispatcher's instructions

to give CPR to his mom.

At around 6:40 AM, as Muhammad
was performing CPR on his mom,

the police arrived.

Aya
directed the officers

as they arrived, while
the 911 operators probed

Muhammad on what had happened.

Officer Nathan Jordan
was the first one

to arrive on the scene.

He checked Nada.

She was still
warm to the touch,

but she would later be
declared dead on the scene.

After mother of three
Nada Huranieh fatally fell from

a second floor window, her
14-year-old daughter Aya,

who had found her
mother's body,

was unaware that she had been
pronounced dead at the scene.

When they took
her, I was under the impression

that she was going to the
hospital to be worked on.

I thought, "OK, she's
going to be in the ICU,

obviously critical
condition," but not death.

I thought, "we
probably wouldn't get

any update
for a couple of hours,

but she was still alive."

But no, she was declared
dead on the scene.

But I didn't know that
until hours later.

Aya's younger
sister had been asleep

during the whole incident,
so the only people

who were there at the time were
Aya and her brother Muhammad.

So they were both interviewed
by police at the scene.

In the guest bedroom, there
were streaks on the window

as well as an iPhone left
on top of the dresser.

There was no immediate signs
of a struggle or forced entry

that the police could see,
so they assumed that this

had been a tragic accident.

Whilst Nada had been cleaning
the window, she'd fallen.

They were
asking us a lot of questions.

They were asking what
our mom's normal routine

was, if it was normal
for her to clean the windows.

I said, "no,
that's not normal."

Any cleaning that
she would do would

be like washing leftover
dishes from the night

before, but not cleaning
the outside of a window.

She would normally hire
a company to come do that.

And then they were also
asking about my mom's history,

if she ever attempted
to harm herself.

And I adamantly,
immediately said no.

And my brother was
like, "Aya, you

didn't know this but, yeah, she
tried to kill herself once."

And I turned to him
and I was like,

"what are you talking about?

No, she didn't."

And he's like, "Aya,
you didn't know this.

But yeah, she tried
taking a bunch of pills."

I just didn't
think it was true.

I thought there would have been
no way I didn't know about it

if our mother overdosed.

It didn't make sense.

No matter which way
I tried to spin it,

there was no
plausible explanation.

As Aya
and her siblings

were all under 18 and alone,
emergency services

called their estranged
father Bassel to come

and look after the children.

Bassel arrives and he
sees his estranged

wife dead on the patio, and he
drops to his knees in shock.

At this point, Aya still didn't
know that her mother was dead.

It was
the first time Bassel

had returned to the family home
since the protective order.

His behavior and comments
to his daughter Aya

raised suspicions
among investigators.

That day I had gym,

so I was wearing leggings
and a shirt and the back of it

had an open back cutout.

My dad comes into the house,
and he's like,

"Aya, what are you wearing?

You're going to go to hell if
you keep dressing like that."

And I'm just thinking,
"what is wrong with you?

This is the first time you're
seeing me in over a year and

a half, and the first thing
you're saying to me is,

Aya, you're going
to go to hell if you

keep dressing like that?"

Aya's
father, immediately commenting

on her state of dress after Aya
has just witnessed this very

traumatic experience, and is
a child who actually needs

consoling, is very telling
about his sort of attitude,

approach to family, and I
believe attitude towards women

as well.

Still unaware that
her mom Nada's fall was fatal,

Aya was desperate to find
out her condition.

My dad took us to a bunch
of different places that day.

I think we were
coming back from one

of his friends' houses.

We were in the car,
my dad driving,

and he was on the phone with
his mom talking in Arabic.

And we were pulling up
into our driveway and he said,

"oh, Nada's dead."

Everybody gets out of the car
and I say to my dad,

"when were you
planning on telling

me that our mother was dead?"

And he turns to me
and his face drops.

He starts crying.

He turns to me and he--

he's like, "Aya, we
have to stick together.

We only have each other now.

We have to be there
for each other."

And he's hugging me and I just
have my arms down at my sides.

I'm not hugging him back.

I didn't trust him.

I didn't feel safe with him.

I didn't-- I didn't
want to be around him.

I think it just reinforced
that any hope I had for him

changing, becoming empathetic,
becoming a father was gone.

Security
and stability are key pillars

of any child's upbringing.

Just needs, basic,
fundamental needs.

And for Aya, all
of that has been ripped

away in a matter of hours.

Her mom has passed.

She already has a very
complicated relationship

with her abusive father.

And so that's really got to put
her in such a difficult and

emotional position, which
is a huge amount to try

and comprehend
at just 14 years old.

On August 22, the
morning after Nada had died,

the medical examiner carried
out an initial autopsy

on her body.

She had suffered
scrapes and fractures

consistent with
a fall from height,

but there was no blood
found under her body.

She also had a scrape
on her head, which had not

bled as profusely as would
have been expected,

and no bleeding on the brain,
meaning her heart

had stopped pumping before
she went out the window.

That means
she couldn't have jumped.

She couldn't have
accidentally fallen.

She died before she
fell on the patio below.

They went back to run further
tests, and at the same time,

police returned to the house
with a search warrant.

There were six security
cameras around the outside

of the house, and they
confiscated the equipment

for further review.

Unfortunately,
none of the cameras

looked directly
at the guest bedroom,

but there was a bit
of footage found that blew

the investigation open.

Detectives came
across surveillance of the spot

where Nada's body was found.

And on footage recorded at 5:54
AM, they saw Nada's body

falling to the ground.

But when they
looked at it again,

they spotted something
chilling in the shadow

of the second floor bedroom
from where Nada fell.

On the left
of the frame, a light

appears to come on,
followed by a curtain

opening in the guest bedroom.

A person with short hair could
be seen opening a window,

before something heavy
was dragged over to it

and thrown out of the window
just before Nada's body

fell to the patio below.

This is not someone
who's accidentally

fallen to their death,
they're on their own.

Someone else is there
and is involved.

This fundamentally
changed the investigation.

This was now a homicide,
not an accident.

They could clearly see
somebody had pushed

Nada's body out of the window.

But whose shadow was it?

The first person
who came to mind

for many was Nada's estranged
husband, Dr. Bassel Altantawi.

Bassel's history
of domestic violence

after slamming a door
on Nada's hand,

stood out as a red
flag for detectives.

The police immediately
look at Bassel as a suspect

and you can understand why.

In the US, it's estimated
that up to nearly 50%

of all female
victims of homicide

have been murdered by intimate
partners, past or current.

And so combining that
with Bassel's history

of domestic violence
and abuse can really

highlight why he was a probable
contender for police suspicion

and why they wanted
to ask him some very

significant questions.

Investigators
were also aware

that during divorce proceedings
between Bassel and Nada,

he had become the subject of
another criminal investigation.

Bassel had found himself
in some serious legal trouble

after there had been an
investigation into his clinic.

Bassel was
convicted of health fraud

in the state of Michigan.

That was handled by the
attorney general of the state

of Michigan at the time.

He had to pay
a heavy fine, and

he lost his medical license.

But investigators were

shocked to discover that
their prime suspect,

Bassel, had an airtight alibi.

As part of his
protective order,

Bassel wore a GPS tracking
ankle monitor that fed his

location to authorities 24/7.

Turns out he was
20 miles away when Nada died.

Bassel Altantawi
was not the killer.

After detectives
spotted a shadowy figure

on a surveillance camera
pushing the body of 35-year-old

mother of three Nada Huranieh
from a second floor window,

investigators began to narrow
down their hunt for her killer.

They now knew that her
abusive, estranged husband

had a rock solid alibi.

So the investigators now
needed to know the whereabouts

of the children
at the time of the murder

and try to work
out if somebody had

broken in to kill their mom.

The day after Nada was killed,
police wanted to interview

both Aya and Muhammad.

And their dad,
Bassel, suggested

that the best place to do
that would be the family home.

Aya went to school.

And when Bassel
went to pick her up,

Muhammad was being
interviewed by police.

Sat
at the family's dining table,

detectives quizzed 16-year-old
Muhammad about his mom.

Muhammad's attitude towards
his parents' divorce comes up,

and he acknowledges that there
was some difficult feelings

there, which is understandable
and happens, I'm going to say,

in pretty much every
case of divorce

where children might find
that situation difficult.

So nothing raises initial
significant alarm bells.

Muhammad still seems to have
a pretty strong relationship

with his father, and certainly
stronger than that his sisters

have with him.

And perhaps that just
expresses that this

is a very young person who
maybe doesn't understand

the violence that's occurred
between his mother and father,

because clearly
that's disrupted

the relationship between
his father and his sisters,

but doesn't seem
to have between them.

Police knew that
it was only the children who'd

been in the house that day.

So they began
to question Muhammad

about who this figure that
they'd seen on the CCTV

could be.

Although Muhammad
claimed his sister was awake

before him, investigators
already knew it couldn't have

been her in the guest bedroom.

The investigators
had a crucial detail

from this footage that
the person had short hair.

So that ruled out Aya.

Although
Muhammad denied

being in the guest bedroom
with his mother that morning,

police continued to press
him about his whereabouts.

Muhammad's story

has now shifted significantly.

Now, this throws into question
all of the account

that he's made prior,
because it's impossible

now to know which elements
have been fabricated,

which elements are
based in truth.

Under pressure, Muhammad's
story really starts

to fluctuate quite a bit.

He admits that he was
in the room with his mom.

He was helping her out
while she was cleaning,

holding the ladder for her.

But then when she
fell, in shock,

he took himself
off to the shower.

When you're looking
at a police interview,

there is a very key
difference between someone

adding in additional
pieces of information

and changing information.

And what we're
starting to see here

is that Muhammad is starting
to err on changing information,

and that can be a real red
flag for potential deceit.

At this point,
Bassel arrived home

and stopped the interview.

Following Muhammad's
shock confession

that he was in the room
at the time of his mom's death,

police interviewed
the children separately

to avoid them communicating
or corroborating

on one version of events.

Aya used her police
interview as an opportunity

to explain that she didn't
want to live under the care

of her abusive father.

When we
got to the police station

and we were being
questioned, that

was when I was able to make
that very clear that

regardless of what
happens, I am

not going back home with him.

And yeah, I chose
to go into foster care.

Me and my sister were going
to go live with a family

relative who I knew, had known
for the majority of my life,

and I trusted and I
felt safer with them.

So it was a no-brainer for me.

On August
24, 2017, three days

after Nada's fatal push, Aya
received an unexpected message

on her cell phone.

I got a text
from somebody that I had gone

to middle school with,
and he had texted me saying,

"Aya, I am so sorry
for your loss,

but do you think he did it?"

And I was like, "do I
think who did what?"

He said, "I'm so sorry,
you didn't hear?

They're charging your brother?"

I found out from
a middle school classmate

that my brother
was being charged

with the death of my mother.

I was in shock.

It was more like
an out-of-body experience

where, OK, yeah, I
went through this,

and I'm telling
you all about it,

but I'm not feeling
the emotions

that are connected with it.

I'm just-- I don't know, I--

On the day
this case happened,

I went out to the family home,
tried to talk to neighbors,

but they didn't know
this family very well.

The family kept to themselves.

But after a few days
of it being in the news,

Nada's friends started
calling police.

Nada would tell them
that Muhammad, her son,

blamed her for the trouble
in the family

and that she would always
have her daughters,

but she was dead to her son.

Processing
the news that her brother had

been arrested and charged for
the murder of his own mother,

Aya reflected
on Muhammad's behavior

in the lead up to Nada's death.

He was becoming a lot more
assertive, a lot more violent.

I think he genuinely thought
that now that our dad's out

of the house, he has
to step up and be the man

and put us in our place.

My brother was in contact
with my dad a lot.

Just became a little like
spy essentially for my dad

because this was during
their divorce case.

I had
an encounter with Muhammad

that led me to believe that
Muhammad had taken his father's

side in the divorce.

It's actually a blizzard
here in Michigan,

and I parked my car
close to the house.

I met with Nada.

I had not seen Muhammad.

And then when I went to leave,
when I went to get into my car,

Muhammad was actually
standing right behind my car,

and he seemed to be
recording my license plate.

The only thing I
could think of that

made sense under
the circumstances

that he was going to be
reporting to his father.

So he was
trying to find anything

he could to give to my dad
to use as leverage is

my guess in the divorce case.

So it made sense
that he did it.

So I still thought, "OK, maybe
somehow he accidentally did it

or he didn't mean to do
it," or I don't know,

I guess I didn't fully believe
that it was 100% intentional.

Aya is a young
and vulnerable girl

in this situation, whose
entire life has been torn

apart in a matter of moments.

And so, of course,
she's clinging on

to the hope of her
brother's innocence

because she's already lost
her mother and her father,

and now this is her potentially
losing her brother, too.

While
Muhammad awaited trial

for the murder
of his own mother,

his father, Bassel,
hired a veteran defense

attorney named Michael Ciano.

One
of the first things

that Michael did was highlight
that the day after Nada died,

Muhammad was interviewed
by three police officers

without his dad
or an attorney present.

He could have been
coerced by the officers.

He hadn't been read
his rights, and

that whatever he said
in that interview

couldn't then be admissible
in the court case.

The court
ruled in their favor,

meaning prosecutors were unable
to call in Muhammad's kitchen

table interview for the trial.

But in November 2017, during
a preliminary court hearing,

new details of Nada's
autopsy report

were revealed to the public
for the first time.

The key finding,
which investigators

were already aware of, was that
Nada had died by asphyxiation.

She had been
smothered to death.

Armed with evidence that
Nada had been murdered,

investigators continued
to build their case

and discovered that
Muhammad resented his mother

for the failure of his
parents' marriage,

and had taken his father's
side during the divorce.

In the very
beginning of the divorce case,

our mother would
ask him where he

was going, when he was going
to meet up with our dad,

and he wouldn't tell her.

But then he would ask
us where we were going

and expect answers.

Or when she would try
to take his phone because he

was texting her dad
and he wasn't supposed to,

he would not let
her, and it would

turn into its own
physical altercation,

and he would then take
her phone instead.

It was just very bizarre.

Despite her
brother's arrest and his murder

charge, Aya was still
holding on to that hope

that he might be innocent.

I lost my dad long
before my mom died.

I lost my mom.

I didn't want to lose
my brother, too.

I think that's part
of the reason why I was not

fully accepting that it
was 100% intentionally

premeditated murder.

There has to be some
other explanation.

Maybe he did do it, but how
do you kill your mother?

How do you kill anyone,
much less your mother?

After extended
legal wranglings

over the use
of a police interview,

Muhammad Altantawi spent
years awaiting trial

for the murder of his
mother, Nada Huranieh, who

had been suffocated
before being pushed

out of a second floor window.

In March 2022, nearly five
years after Nada's death,

Muhammad Altantawi's
murder trial began.

Muhammad Altantawi
would go on trial,

charged as an adult
with first-degree

premeditated murder.

I was
not at the trial.

I had, at that
point, moved jobs and

moved back
to the prosecutor's office,

who was prosecuting Muhammad.

So I had nothing to do with
the prosecution of the case,

by order of the prosecutor.

Although Muhammad
Altantawi was only 16 years old

when he killed his mom,
he was tried as an adult

because Michigan State law
allows prosecutors to charge

juveniles as adults in cases
of serious offenses,

such as murder.

A case like
this is extremely rare,

and there's a name for it:
matricide, maternal homicide,

where a child kills
his or her own mother.

The death of a mother
at the hands of a child?

Almost unheard of.

In opening statements
at the trial,

prosecutors focused
on the motive and

also the family
dynamics, that Muhammad

had a hatred for his
mother, her growing

need for more independence,
her new Americanized lifestyle.

And the timing,
Nada was set to give

a deposition against Muhammad's
father in the divorce.

He wanted to stop that.

Nada came
to my office on a Friday

before she passed away to
prepare for a deposition that

was to be held
the next week, where

Bassel's attorney
would question Nada,

and I, in turn, would
question Bassel.

And I got
the impression that she

did not think that
the deposition

was ever going to take place.

Why that is?

I don't know.

I was very concerned
about it, and

I assumed that
Nada knew something

that I didn't know
that was going

to happen between the meeting
in my office on Friday

and the deposition, which was
scheduled for the next week.

As it turned out, we'll never
know because Nada passed

away a couple days later.

This case wasn't just
about the physical facts

of who was where and when.

It was about a family
split down the middle,

and whether hatred between
a father, wife, and a son

could really cause
someone to kill.

The big
question for prosecutors

was whether they would
be able to convince

a jury that a son was capable
of killing his own mother.

Part of the prosecution's case
focused on inconsistencies

at the crime scene.

The prosecutor
explained to the jury

that this was not
an accident, that Nada

had been suffocated
before she fell,

and that the scene
had been staged.

The ladder next to the window
with a cleaning bottle

of solution on top of it.

One detective testified,
that's not a solution

that's used to clean windows.

And next to Nada's
body on the patio

below was a towel,
a cloth that had

some solution in it
that may have also

been used to suffocate Nada.

Then it was time for
the prosecution's key evidence:

the surveillance video footage.

Prosecution showed the jury,
the video evidence, the shadows

from the surveillance cameras.

A person with short hair
dragging something over

to the window, then
hoisting it out the window

just moments before Nada's
body would hit the ground.

They also pointed
out that inside

the house were only
the three children

and only one had short hair--

Muhammad.

At one
point in the video,

Muhammad could be seen
giving his mother CPR.

But according
to the prosecution,

only half-heartedly.

Furthermore, while on the phone
to emergency services,

he was not giving her
chest compressions at all

and was simply counting.

1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Prosecutors
suggested that this

was because Muhammad already
knew his mother was dead.

Then they highlighted
key evidence

from Muhammad
Altantawi's phone.

Prosecutors knew it would be
extremely difficult to convince

a jury that a 16-year-old son
would kill his own mother,

but they had more good
circumstantial evidence,

including Muhammad's
phone records.

In fact, he had his
mother in his phone

as a contact named "Dog."

To call
somebody a dog and your own mom

nonetheless, who did nothing
to deserve that, just why?

Muhammad saving his mother's
name as Dog in his phone

is incredibly
misogynistic language

and really implies a hatred
not just towards his mother,

but to women.

And I think we can really see
a potential influence there

from his father's own
attitudes and behaviors

towards women
in his life and how

that might have impacted then
on Muhammad's own opinions

and behaviors, too.

The prosecution
also used Muhammad's phone

to demonstrate motive.

Just weeks before
she was killed,

Nada texted her son
Muhammad to tell

him she would have to testify
in the divorce case.

She would have to say
truthfully about what happened

with abuse and misconduct.

Prosecutors argue that Muhammad
wanted to protect his father,

that this had serious legal
and personal implications,

that he wanted to stop
Nada from testifying

to protect his father.

But there was more
strong evidence.

Prosecutors
presented to the jury

that Muhammad took pictures
of the guest room and

that open window and sent
them to his father

three weeks before
Nada was killed.

Also revealed was further
evidence from his phone.

In the early morning hours
of the day that Nada died,

there were phone calls between
Muhammad and his father.

He had told police he was
asleep before learning

of his mother's death.

Even though
the trial raised some questions

about what Bassel knew about
what Muhammad was planning

to do to Nada,
Bassel Altantawi has

never been charged with
anything in connection

to her murder.

Aya testified
at that the trial

about what was going
on in their family five years

earlier, when she was only 14.

I didn't see it as testifying
against my brother.

I was there to testify and tell
the truth, and that was it.

One of the things that
I addressed in court

while testifying was
the fact that my brother

saw the divorce as being
a splitting the family

to two sides.

He and our father, and the
other being my mother and I,

and that our agenda was
to destroy our father's life,

to take his money,
to take his house,

to ruin his career, his
life, which wasn't the case.

In response
to the prosecution,

Muhammad Altantawi's
defense team

laid out their arguments
in an attempt to introduce

reasonable doubt to the jury.

They pointed out
that there was no way

of proving that
the person in the window

was Muhammad, or even the size,
age, or sex of the person

casting the shadow.

The defense also made the
case that Muhammad was skinny,

and there was no way he could
overpower his own mother, who

had been working out in a gym.

The defense attorney argued
the timeline was too tight.

Nada's body fell
at 5:53 in the morning,

the children woke up at 6:00.

Not enough time to commit the
murder, to clean up the scene,

and to hide evidence.

On Monday,
March 14, 2022,

after deliberating
for only two hours,

the jury found
Muhammad Altantawi

guilty of first-degree
premeditated murder.

Six months
later at sentencing,

Muhammad continued
to declare his innocence.

Then came
the victim impact

statements from Aya and
Muhammad Altantawi's

father, Bassel.

He was trying
to use everybody else's story

to gain sympathy, and he
didn't even talk about how

he was sad about our mom.

He didn't talk about
our mom at all.

As Bassel
left the courtroom,

Aya followed him
to the lobby to confront him.

I got in his face and I
started yelling at him,

and I would have
gladly punched him

if I didn't have six
deputies holding me back,

and I wouldn't
have regretted it.

I don't think he understands
why I felt that way.

I don't think he
ever will understand

why I felt that
way, because I don't

think he's capable
of empathizing with anybody.

I don't think he's
capable of thinking

about how other people could
be affected from his actions.

It's sad for me to think
about being related

to such pathetic people.

Muhammad was
sentenced to 35 to 60 years

in prison, with
the judge saying

he understood the consequences
of his actions

and was deserving
of such a stiff penalty.

I have not had any
contact with my brother

since the trial or his
sentencing ended.

Have I thought about it?
Yes.

And the only
reason that I would

talk to him, again,
not because I want to

but because she was
also his mother.

And I recognized that I
am the only person who

would be able to offer
him the opportunity for me

to go to her grave and have
him be on the phone

and say whatever he
would want to her.

And it doesn't mean
that I like him,

that I love him,
that I support him,

that I want anything
to do with him,

that I want
a relationship with him.

It means absolutely
nothing other

than I'm presenting
you with an opportunity

that I don't think anybody
else would give you.

Since her
mother's death in 2017

and the pain of the trial,
Aya has committed herself

to helping other
victims of crime

find justice
for their loved ones.

My career plans are
to go to law school,

become a criminal
prosecutor, and

if somebody's going through
something like domestic abuse

or whatever the case might be,
when they feel like they can

relate to me or my mom
or any part of anything

that we went through, I
want people to know and see

that I might be
biased, but I don't

think I turned
out too terribly,

all things considered.

And your life isn't
defined by what happens

to you, what people do to you.

Your life is what you want it
to be, what you make of it,

and that's all that matters.

I remember my mom as somebody
who was incredibly selfless

and kind and caring.

And she put
everybody before her

and didn't want
anybody to ever worry

about what she
was going through

and didn't tell almost anybody
what she was going through.

And I know she
would want everybody

that she loved, everybody
in her life to be happy

and to not dwell
on what happened to her.

And it sucks that
I don't have her,

but knowing that she
can't be here anymore is--

that's enough for me.