00:00:05
[Music]
00:00:08
even before the attack on the World
00:00:10
Trade Center in New York intelligence
00:00:12
agencies were watching a number of
00:00:14
suspected terrorist cells throughout the
00:00:17
United States the FBI uncovered evidence
00:00:20
of a terrible crime by some individuals
00:00:23
using the cover of a St Louis grocery
00:00:26
store but it took a forensic autopsy and
00:00:30
a tape to reveal the entire story
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:44
[Music]
00:00:55
[Applause]
00:01:01
[Music]
00:01:02
16-year-old Tina Issa was the kind of
00:01:05
daughter most parents dream of she was a
00:01:08
high school athlete popular a straight A
00:01:11
student and wanted to attend college and
00:01:13
become an airline pilot Tina wanted to
00:01:17
be American Tina wanted to be
00:01:19
independent she wanted to have a career
00:01:21
she wanted to travel she wanted to be
00:01:23
her own
00:01:25
person her mother and father Zayn and
00:01:28
Maria Issa were imig immigrants from
00:01:30
Palestine and ran a small grocery store
00:01:32
in downtown St Louis like most
00:01:35
immigrants the Palestinians went into
00:01:37
the food business that's a tradition in
00:01:40
America food service is one of the
00:01:42
easiest types of business to
00:01:45
operate what was especially appealing to
00:01:48
the esas and their relatives is it was
00:01:51
another way to rip off America they
00:01:53
could avoid paying taxes they would play
00:01:56
little games with food stamp fraud
00:01:59
grocery coupons I mean zann even said he
00:02:02
loved America because there were so many
00:02:04
ways to rip it
00:02:05
off on November 6th
00:02:08
1989 Tina was working the night shift at
00:02:11
a fast food
00:02:13
restaurant according to the eses Tina
00:02:16
arrived home around midnight and there
00:02:18
was an argument Tina said she wanted to
00:02:20
live on her own and demanded that her
00:02:22
parents give her $5,000 to support
00:02:25
herself when they refused they said Tina
00:02:29
pulled a knife from her backpack and
00:02:31
threatened them in the tussle Zayn said
00:02:34
he turned the knife on his daughter in
00:02:37
self-defense father was saying it was
00:02:39
self-defense and the wife was saying yes
00:02:41
it was self-defense I was standing there
00:02:43
watching it so the only two witnesses to
00:02:46
the crime had their stories kind of get
00:02:49
together that that their daughter had
00:02:51
attacked them and in defending them
00:02:53
themselves they the father had killed
00:02:55
her news of Tina issa's death stunned
00:02:59
her friend friends and classmates just
00:03:01
her Charisma her um just her attitude
00:03:04
overall period I mean she was just too
00:03:07
nice of a person for anything like this
00:03:08
to happen to you why would he want to St
00:03:10
his own child it's terrible I feel so
00:03:14
bad Dina's classmates told police that
00:03:17
Tina often rebelled against her parents
00:03:20
and their old world
00:03:22
Traditions they also said the ISA
00:03:25
objected to Tina's choice of a boyfriend
00:03:28
he was an honor student he was very very
00:03:31
bright he was at the magnet schools
00:03:33
which is a sophisticated program in St
00:03:35
Louis Public Schools he was an artist he
00:03:38
painted he drew he wrote poems I don't
00:03:42
think it was just that he was black I
00:03:43
think the real issue was that she had a
00:03:45
boyfriend and they could no longer
00:03:47
control her when the FBI heard about
00:03:50
Tina's death they called lead
00:03:53
investigator Harry heger with some
00:03:55
astonishing
00:03:57
news us intelligence had photo red zann
00:04:00
Issa attending a meeting with known
00:04:02
terrorists in Mexico all had ties to the
00:04:06
Palestine Liberation Organization and
00:04:09
international Terror broker Abu
00:04:12
Nadal Abu Nadal means father of War Abu
00:04:16
father nidal war and he was one of the
00:04:20
most vicious terrorists around he's
00:04:22
responsible for simultaneous bombings in
00:04:26
Vienna
00:04:28
Rome over a 2-year period Zan Isa
00:04:31
traveled overseas 14 times to Caracas
00:04:35
Athens London Israel Zurich and Madrid
00:04:38
the FBI among others were maintaining a
00:04:41
watch on Middle Eastern families some
00:04:45
that might presumably have connections
00:04:47
with terrorist cells the esas were
00:04:51
maintaining What Might Have Been a safe
00:04:53
house for one of the Middle Eastern
00:04:55
terrorist groups so the ISA family were
00:04:58
well known to us
00:05:00
intelligence as a federal undercover
00:05:02
said to me these people are as organized
00:05:05
as the mafia not nearly as
00:05:08
lovable investigators now wondered
00:05:11
whether there was more to the story of
00:05:13
Tina's death and her mother and father
00:05:15
were
00:05:19
[Music]
00:05:28
saying Tina's parents insisted that her
00:05:31
death was in self-defense because she
00:05:34
had attacked them with a
00:05:35
knife Tina's father was covered in blood
00:05:39
and had cuts on his hands which he said
00:05:41
were defensive wounds that resulted from
00:05:44
his daughter's knife attack when I
00:05:46
reviewed the little bit of history that
00:05:48
I knew at the time it sounded extremely
00:05:50
uh suspicious to me medical examiners
00:05:54
have long referred to the autopsy as the
00:05:57
Silent Witness a way for the victim to
00:06:00
tell her story things that the suspects
00:06:03
in a crime usually leave
00:06:07
out at Tina's autopsy forensic
00:06:10
pathologist Dr Philip Burch started his
00:06:14
examination with a forensic technique
00:06:16
known as wound pattern
00:06:19
analysis I didn't look just at one wound
00:06:22
in this case I looked at all of the
00:06:24
wounds as a whole Tina sustained six
00:06:28
deep stab wounds to the solar plexus all
00:06:32
in close
00:06:34
proximity Dr Burch believed that any one
00:06:37
of them could have caused her
00:06:39
death the serious injuries to her were
00:06:42
all tightly clustered right around her
00:06:44
lower Central chest and abdomen and I
00:06:47
was told that she was supposedly
00:06:49
involved in a wild free-for-all type
00:06:51
fight uh with a knife and that seemed to
00:06:54
be very odd that all of the Fatal
00:06:56
injuries were very tightly clustered
00:06:58
within a a specific car the
00:07:00
body that's because stabbing victims
00:07:04
usually move during an attack I didn't
00:07:07
feel that she was involved in a fight
00:07:08
where she was able to move her
00:07:10
extremities uh freely that is either she
00:07:14
stayed stock still of her own valtion
00:07:16
for whatever reason or she was unable to
00:07:18
move or she was actually
00:07:20
restrained Dr bur's theory was supported
00:07:23
by paramedics who said Tina's arms were
00:07:27
above her head on the floor as if she
00:07:29
had been
00:07:31
restrained Zayn couldn't have held her
00:07:33
he was not a big man his daughter was
00:07:35
probably as big or bigger than he he
00:07:38
could not have inflicted that kind of
00:07:40
injury pattern on her and held her at
00:07:42
the same
00:07:44
time the only other person in the room
00:07:47
was Tina's Mother
00:07:50
Maria Maria said she was on the sofa
00:07:52
when the fight occurred but the forensic
00:07:55
evidence indicated
00:07:57
otherwise there was body hair and blood
00:08:00
from the girl on the insides of a white
00:08:03
sweater that Maria had been wearing at
00:08:05
the time and that supported our theory
00:08:08
that Maria was holding her while Zay
00:08:11
stabbed her stop moving it went beyond
00:08:14
self-defense this was like driven by
00:08:16
anger or passion or some purpose other
00:08:19
than
00:08:21
self-defense investigators then took a
00:08:23
closer look at the wounds on Zayn's
00:08:28
hands wounds that he said were
00:08:32
defensive this story didn't match what
00:08:34
we saw was a small like like I said it
00:08:36
looked like a paper cut I think that in
00:08:39
stabbing her his hands were so bloody
00:08:41
and slippery that what really happened
00:08:42
is he his hands slipped down on the
00:08:44
blade of the knife and cut it cut it
00:08:46
right across the uh outside of his palm
00:08:49
there right below the little
00:08:50
finger this explains why Zayn's blood
00:08:54
was found on the handle of the knife
00:08:56
found beside his daughter
00:08:59
but prosecutors had a problem would a
00:09:02
jury believe that a father and mother
00:09:05
would kill their own child simply
00:09:08
because she had an outside job and the
00:09:11
boyfriend sounds so aberant so strange I
00:09:14
mean she was a model student but we're
00:09:17
talking about absolute control zann Isa
00:09:21
still mentally was listening to tapes
00:09:23
from Circa 1945 in a Palestinian Village
00:09:27
and that's the way he thought his
00:09:28
daughter should
00:09:30
behave and the FBI discovered secret
00:09:34
information that Tina Issa may have
00:09:37
known some family secrets her father
00:09:39
didn't want
00:09:49
revealed the forensic evidence clearly
00:09:52
showed that 16-year-old Tina Issa had
00:09:56
not been killed in self-defense as her
00:09:59
parents
00:10:01
claimed Dr Victor LaVine is an expert on
00:10:04
the Middle East and says Tina's death
00:10:07
sounded tragically
00:10:09
familiar Zan Isa comes from a small town
00:10:14
in in Palestine and he carried with him
00:10:16
that whole
00:10:17
baggage every day there are dozens and
00:10:21
even hundreds of women who are in some
00:10:24
fashion killed for the commission of
00:10:26
some crime involving the sexual honor of
00:10:29
the
00:10:30
family although dating is common in the
00:10:33
United States it's discouraged in parts
00:10:35
of the Middle East where arranged
00:10:38
marriages are the norm when a man and
00:10:40
his family have daughters daughters are
00:10:43
the purity of these women of these
00:10:45
daughters then guarantees a
00:10:48
marriage you see and the delivery of the
00:10:52
girl intact virginy intact which then
00:10:56
commands a higher dowy a girl who has
00:10:59
been
00:11:00
violated does not command a daer in fact
00:11:02
may not be able to find a
00:11:05
husband Tina's death may have been part
00:11:08
of an old
00:11:10
tradition the honor killing she stained
00:11:14
the family's honor and blood Zan would
00:11:16
say blood must cleanse
00:11:19
blood in societies where honor killings
00:11:22
are common it is generally a killing
00:11:25
done by a male member of a family
00:11:28
presuming
00:11:29
to avenge a depredation on the honor of
00:11:33
a female member of the
00:11:35
family she had a black boyfriend and
00:11:38
this was enough to cause the anger of
00:11:41
her family and of her father to arise to
00:11:43
the boiling point where indeed he felt
00:11:46
that the family had been so shamed by
00:11:48
her indiscretion that the only way to
00:11:51
avenge it was to kill
00:11:53
her prosecutors were convinced she had
00:11:56
been murdered in Cold Blood by her own
00:12:00
parents but they knew a conviction would
00:12:02
be difficult it would be the Issa story
00:12:06
of self-defense against the opinion of
00:12:09
the medical
00:12:10
examiner but soon investigators got an
00:12:14
unexpected
00:12:15
break the FBI admitted they had
00:12:18
wiretapped the isa's home because of
00:12:21
Zayn's suspected ties to known
00:12:25
terrorists wir Taps were put in under
00:12:28
the foreign intelligence surveillance
00:12:30
act known as fisa fisa allows the FBI to
00:12:35
tap You wir tabs that run real toore 24
00:12:40
hours a day 7 days a
00:12:42
week Issa was not considered important
00:12:45
enough to monitor these wir Taps 24
00:12:48
hours a day so the FBI wasn't sure what
00:12:52
was on them and they would need to be
00:12:55
translated since the esas spoke Arabic
00:13:00
fortunately the FBI used the best
00:13:02
listening devices
00:13:04
available they're very they're top of
00:13:06
the line they could pick up a whisper at
00:13:08
50 ft some of these things if they're
00:13:10
placed
00:13:12
properly placement of any listening
00:13:15
device is crucial after breaking into
00:13:18
the Issa apartment agents did not have
00:13:20
much time to plant the
00:13:22
bug they needed not only a place to hide
00:13:25
the device but also a power source
00:13:30
a battery operated device is the easiest
00:13:32
to plant but with a long-term
00:13:35
surveillance the battery would need to
00:13:37
be replaced
00:13:39
periodically get in there once you're
00:13:41
lucky you get in there twice you're even
00:13:43
luckier and the third time you're get
00:13:44
bound to get
00:13:45
caught the FBI had been able to connect
00:13:49
the devices to Electric inside isa's
00:13:52
apartment and prosecutors learned that
00:13:55
the wir Taps clearly picked up the
00:13:57
altercation between Ina and her
00:14:00
parents but the FBI was concerned about
00:14:03
releasing the tapes for a public trial
00:14:06
fearing they would compromise their
00:14:08
electronic surveillance of other
00:14:10
suspected
00:14:13
terrorists ultimately the Attorney
00:14:16
General of the United States at the time
00:14:18
Richard thornberg decided to release
00:14:26
them it was the most chilling cold
00:14:29
blooded horrifying thing I'd ever heard
00:14:32
or ever probably will hear you don't
00:14:34
have to have it translated you don't
00:14:36
have to turn the volume up in fact at
00:14:39
several times you want to turn the
00:14:40
volume
00:14:42
down but would the tape reveal whether
00:14:45
Tina Issa was killed in
00:14:48
self-defense or murdered in Cold Blood
00:14:55
[Music]
00:15:02
prosecutors now had something almost
00:15:04
unheard of in the history of American
00:15:07
Justice an audio recording of the events
00:15:11
before during and after Tina isa's
00:15:15
[Music]
00:15:17
death several weeks before the murder
00:15:20
the FBI surveillance recorded this
00:15:23
telephone conversation between Zayn and
00:15:25
his relative in which they discussed way
00:15:29
to make Tina's death look like an
00:15:32
[Music]
00:15:33
accident as you have said she threatened
00:15:36
me and I killed
00:15:37
her she threatened me and I'll put the
00:15:40
knife in her hand after she falls leave
00:15:43
the story to
00:15:45
me 5 hours before Tina's death Zayn
00:15:49
called his daughter from a previous
00:15:52
marriage one can fight the whole world
00:15:54
but who wants to fight an enemy in your
00:15:56
own house
00:15:59
when the news comes to me I will put on
00:16:01
my best dress and go out my worries will
00:16:04
be gone forever in the Middle East shame
00:16:07
is something which is felt collectively
00:16:10
by a family it is the discovery of the
00:16:13
act you've done something bad the
00:16:16
community knows about it your entire
00:16:17
family is
00:16:20
shaped the tapes reveal the esas were
00:16:23
angry Tina took a job at a fast food
00:16:26
restaurant without their approval and
00:16:28
they were all also upset she continued
00:16:30
to date her
00:16:35
boyfriend when Tina arrived home this
00:16:38
was the welcome from her
00:16:43
mother that's going to be the last time
00:16:45
she's ever going to leave that
00:16:49
[Music]
00:16:51
apartment Zayn and Maria then confronted
00:16:54
Tina about her boyfriend
00:17:11
[Music]
00:17:15
the argument
00:17:23
escalates the evidence suggests zann
00:17:26
went into the kitchen and grabbed a
00:17:28
knife Tina then screams pleading with
00:17:31
her mother to
00:17:34
[Music]
00:17:36
help Tina pleading mother please help me
00:17:40
mother can't you make him
00:17:44
stop and then he said die my daughter
00:17:46
die when she was
00:17:52
dying Maria held Tina while Zayn stabbed
00:17:55
her to death and the telltale signs was
00:17:59
the mother's response what help no shut
00:18:04
up nowhere on the tape did Tina demand
00:18:09
$5,000 and there was no reference to
00:18:11
Tina having a
00:18:14
knife the tape also reveals the esas
00:18:18
waited for close to 30 minutes to call
00:18:21
police after the
00:18:24
murder Zayn and Maria Issa were both
00:18:27
charged with first degree murder sir
00:18:30
what did your brother say to you you
00:18:31
know with all the respect I do respect
00:18:33
the news media but I think you're
00:18:35
overdoing it authorities speculated that
00:18:39
the esas were afraid of what Tina might
00:18:41
reveal to others had there been a
00:18:44
permanent Rift in the family this
00:18:46
indictment alleges that there were other
00:18:48
reasons because of her knowledge of
00:18:50
their terrorist activity and her plans
00:18:52
to talk about those activities their
00:18:54
concern that she might talk
00:18:56
about Ellen Harris wrote a book about
00:18:59
this case called guarding the
00:19:02
secrets the prosecution offered Zayn a
00:19:06
deal that if he plad guilty to murder in
00:19:09
the first degree they would go lighter
00:19:11
on Maria and he refused to do
00:19:14
so so he had no interest in Saving his
00:19:17
own
00:19:18
wife after hearing the tapes and the
00:19:21
medical examiner
00:19:23
report the jury found Zayn and Maria
00:19:26
Issa guilty the they were both sentenced
00:19:30
to
00:19:31
death Zayn died in prison of natural
00:19:34
causes in 1998 before his execution
00:19:38
could be carried
00:19:40
out Maria's death sentence was later
00:19:42
reversed on a
00:19:44
technicality but she will spend the rest
00:19:46
of her life in prison without
00:19:49
parole as for Tina Isa those who knew
00:19:53
her are left to mourn Tina was a natural
00:19:57
born leader she would have done great
00:20:00
things for this community and the Arab
00:20:03
Community had she
00:20:05
lived had it not been for Zan isa's
00:20:08
suspected ties to
00:20:10
terrorism the prosecutor's theory about
00:20:13
what happened to Tina Issa would have
00:20:16
been just
00:20:17
that but the audio tape proved what many
00:20:21
jurists would have found difficult to
00:20:24
accept you can hear in her voice her
00:20:27
parents were murdering her
00:20:30
there's not a whole lot you can say it's
00:20:31
it's just as I said earlier the most
00:20:33
horrifying thing I ever hoped to hear
00:20:35
and and
00:20:38
um it's just it's
00:20:41
incomprehensible it's the kind of thing
00:20:43
that once you hear it you cannot forget
00:20:46
it and once you hear it you don't want
00:20:49
to hear it
00:20:50
again the medical examiner did not hear
00:20:53
the audio tape until sometime after the
00:20:55
trial
00:20:59
but he wasn't surprised by what it
00:21:01
revealed I was able to parallel the
00:21:04
information that was provided on the
00:21:06
tapes with information that I simply saw
00:21:08
with my own eyes looking at the dead
00:21:10
body on the morning that I did the
00:21:12
autopsy as far as I'm concerned that's
00:21:14
intentional homicide
00:21:17
[Music]
00:21:26
[Music]
00:21:46
[Music]
