Patricia Owens, Yaser Said’s ex-wife, hadn’t seen him since New Year’s 2008 — when she took their daughters Amina, 18, and Sarah, 17, out to dinner and insisted they go alone to talk. Instead, prosecutors say, Said shot the girls multiple times in the taxi he was driving and left them dead outside a hotel in suburban Irving. Owens testified that she and the girls had just returned home to Lewisville, Texas, from Oklahoma, where they had gone to get away from Said. She testified that she knew the girls were dating – and that Said would have been furious if he had known. “I just thought he would want to, punish them, take their phone and stuff like that,” she said. But long before 2008, Owens testified, she and her daughters were abused by Said. She told jurors how she married Said in 1987, when she was just 15 and he was 29. She gave birth to Amina, Sarah and their brother Islam in the first three years of their marriage. Patricia Owens called her ex-husband Yaser Said a “devil” for allegedly murdering their two daughters at his trial in Dallas on August 4, 2022. Liesbeth Powers/The Dallas Morning News via APSaid allegedly killed his two daughters, Amina, 18, and Sarah, 17, in 2008 for dating American women. Liesbeth Powers/The Dallas Morning News via AP Owens claimed she left Said several times during the marriage and described him as controlling. In 1998, while living near Waco, Texas, Owens filed a report with the Hill County Sheriff’s Office accusing Said of sexually abusing the two girls. She took all three children and left him for months, before returning and telling the girls to retract their story. “I was scared of not coming back,” Owens explained. “Yasser was abusive.” Said allegedly shot the two girls and left them for dead outside a hotel in Irving, Texas. Owens alleged that Said abused her and their daughters. Liesbeth Powers/The Dallas Morning News via AP In late 2007, Owens and her daughters fled again to Tulsa, Okla., after the girls feared their father would kill them if he found out they were both engaged to their boyfriends. Owens said Said had previously threatened Amina with a gun. The mother and daughters returned to Texas to finish school with the promise that Said would leave the family home. Even then, Amina refused to return home, fearing the repercussions. When prosecutors asked Owens if she knew what would happen when they returned, she replied: “Part of me did. A part of me didn’t.” Photos of Sarah and Amina Said surfaced at the “honor killing” trial. Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News via AP Earlier this week, prosecutors played a recording of a 911 call Sarah made after she was shot but still alive. “My father shot me. I’m dying,” Sarah said in the recording. Said, who was arrested in August 2020 after more than a decade, has maintained his innocence and his lawyer has argued that he is being targeted by law enforcement because he is Muslim since September. 11 people. He will automatically serve life in prison if convicted.
