A man has been found guilty of murder after fatally shooting his two teenage daughters and evading police for over a decade.
Yaser Said, 65, was convicted of capital murder yesterday for killing 18-year-old Amina and 17-year-old Sarah in 2008.
He was arrested 12 years later in Justin, Texas after being placed on the FBI 's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The Dallas County jury reached their verdict after deliberating for three hours and Said was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty.
Said, a former cab driver, murdered his children because he was upset that they were dating and wanted control over them, prosecutors claimed.
During closing statements, a prosecutor said: "He wouldn't even let these girls go to a movie. He wouldn't let them date", reports ABC News.
Gail Gattrell, the sisters' great-aunt, had described their deaths as "honour killings" - the killing of a relative, especially a female, who is perceived to have brought dishonour on the family
A police report at the time of the double killing also said a family member told investigators that Said had threatened "bodily harm″ against Sarah for going on a date with a non-Muslim.
The sisters were found with multiple gun shot wounds in a cab outside a motel in Irving, a suburb in Dallas.
One of the girls called 911 from a cell phone and told the operator she was dying.
Police later determined it was Sarah.
A crying voice on the 911 recording at 7.33pm revealed she said: "Help. I'm dying. Oh my God. Stop it."
Police said much of what Sarah said in the recording was unintelligible, and repeated requests from the operator for her to provide an address went unanswered.
An hour later 911 received a call from a person who had discovered the sisters' bodies in the cab.
The caller said: "They don't look alive."
Following the guilty verdict, Amina and Sarah's mom, Patricia Owens told her ex-husband on the stand: "You deserve to die now, not in prison.
"You took my life. You took my family all in one night."
Said had been place on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list in 2014 "for the heinous act he committed against his daughters," FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno earlier said.
After he was arrested in 2020, Irving Police Chief Jeff Spivey said: "Even after 12 years of frustration and dead-ends, the pursuit for their killer never ceased.
"The arrest of their father, Yaser Said brings us closer to ensuring justice is served on their behalf."
