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