Iraqi woman severely beaten in Calif. home dies

[QAF_Rocks]

In the 90's, you could marry very young in California with some sort of state approval--I think you had to personally plead your case to a judge. Perhaps there is a judge who was sympathetic to immigrant traditions. Or, perhaps she was married religiously and did not get the actual certificate until she was of age.

She would have had to be married by 14, maybe even younger. There's something immensely screwed-up about our legal system when 17 or 18 year olds can get arrested for having sex with fellow high school classmates, but authorities look the other way about an adult marrying a child.

[Sunnichick31]

Once again, shewas married in Iraq, not the USA.

Al Awadi immigrated to the United States from Iraq in the mid-1990s.

abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/iraqi-woman-beaten-to-death-in-california-hate-crime-suspected/

She was still too young to be getting married though.

[Coconut Flan]

I live one or two towns away from El Cajon where this was committed. I'm probably less than ten miles from their house. There are not regular hate crime murders against any minority in that area. Around 9/11 there were some issues with Middle Eastern markets but that has long, long since faded away. There is a huge Iraqi population in the county including both Christian (Chaldean) and Muslim. I've actually heard more anti-Chaldean comments than anti-Muslim from people in the area. Many of the stores where I go, there are multiple women in hijab. No one even blinks at it. Frequently we see chadors and again no one cares at all. There would have to be more to the story than the simple fact of being Muslim and wearing hijab. My phlebotomist wears hijab for goodness sake and no one thinks twice about her uniform adaptations.

Talk around the country of marches and such lead to this comment:

But Hanif Mohebi, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Diego Chapter, said the family has nothing official planned and cautioned against moving too quickly before police conclude their investigation.

“As much as we want to do something now,†Mohebi said, “we need to understand there is a family who has lost a loved one and they are coping with that. Our priority should be to help them cope emotionally or spiritually before taking action.â€

If it was a hate crime, why her and why now? What is different about this woman and this family from the thousands of others living in East County? I'm not saying it isn't a hate crime, we have our share of bigots, too, but why would they single her out?

[shesinsane]

I think the note will turn out to be like a crime scene with a backward swastika (something the criminal drew hastily to derail the investigation).

Unlike many commenters on Fox news, I doubt it was an honor killing. Those always seem to have killer(s) at the scene of the crime, telling the cops they did it. Part of the honor restoration is the action of the family, this was someone trying to get away with murder.

I expect/hope the cops investigating are smart enough to still look for suspects within friends and family, and one note won't send them on a wild xenophobe chase.

[luv2laugh]

This story has ruined my night. This is so upsetting. I can never understand why people do such evil. And now there are 5 kids without a mother? That is terrible. The daughter's quote really made me sad.

[Mama Mia]

There is no minimum age for marriage in California. Anyone under 18 has to get judicial approval.

Theoretically a very young teen can marry here.

I know it isn't right to expect the daughter to grieve a certain way, but her statement and demeanor is just reminding me of that white woman several years ago who drove her sons into a lake and said some black man carjacked her car.

[holierthanyou]

I think the note will turn out to be like a crime scene with a backward swastika (something the criminal drew hastily to derail the investigation).

Unlike many commenters on Fox news, I doubt it was an honor killing. Those always seem to have killer(s) at the scene of the crime, telling the cops they did it. Part of the honor restoration is the action of the family, this was someone trying to get away with murder.

I expect/hope the cops investigating are smart enough to still look for suspects within friends and family, and one note won't send them on a wild xenophobe chase.

You might want to google the Shaffia family in Canada. Their infamous trial just wrapped up recently. Quick summary: Honour killing done by family, family members responsible denied it and mourned publically.

[weirdghostboo]

I agree the daughter was acting weird. However, more likely than not, I think it was shock. Shock can make you act pretty odd. I remember back when I was a freshman in high school, my friend's father was killed in a car accident. She said she didn't feel anything for around four days and acted pretty stiff around people who offered their condolences. On the fifth day, she finally burst out crying. I think that's what happened with the daughter here.

[tropaka]

My first response is always look to the husband. Not long ago there was a case in maybe NJ were a husband staged a shooting of his wife to make it look like a hate crime when it was well, just more domestic murder.

An old neighbour of mine had been married to her husband when she was 15 in Iran and they immigrated to Canada not too long afterwards. Weird situation - her parents had arranged a marriage with another man and she hated him, but picked her eventual husband out herself from a number of possibilities. They moved to the States where her husband is an engineer. Quite the happy couple - although I found it weird that when I knew her at age 30 her kids were older than mine, and I was almost 40.

Heck, weren't we just snarking on Tabby, married at 13 to a 21 yr old?

[Coconut Flan]

I found it odd that the 17 year old daughter was being the family spokesperson. It also is a off that she was home and heard nothing when the sliding glass door was supposedly broken and her mother beaten to death. I'm not sure about her reaction as I have seen a few family members of crime victims kind of go off like that but she did seem more rabid than most with more anger than grief than usual. Some of it seemed rehearsed to me.

[celestial]

I live quite close to El Cajon, too, and have worked a bit with the Iraqi population there. How terribly sad this is, no matter who is responsible. I hope her killer is discovered and brought to justice.

[Witsec1]

Only if the marriage and immigration were pre-1995, and even then the woman would have been younger than 14.

I thought Saddam-era Iraq was a relatively less fundie place.

If she immigrated in the '90's they could have been among the refugees who fled Iraq when Saddam put down the Shia uprising after the first Gulf War. They wouldn't have been part of the Saddam-era elite.

[doggie]

I have a bad feeling about this turning into a different kind of hate crime.

[skrmom]

when I first read that an Iraqi woman was beaten to death my thought was an 'honor killing'. It is accpetable in their culture to kill girls and women who do something to displease the father/husband. It can be as simple as talking to an unrelated male.

[holierthanyou]

when I first read that an Iraqi woman was beaten to death my thought was an 'honor killing'. It is accpetable in their culture to kill girls and women who do something to displease the father/husband. It can be as simple as talking to an unrelated male.

Just to clarify, it is not acceptable in "their culture" to kill women and girls. It is a very, very, very small subset of fringe fundamentalism that permits honour killings. I am assuming by "their culture" you mean either Muslim or Iraqi, and neither of those would be true to say that the whole culture tolerates killing women.

[lilwriter85]

I used to be weary of Muslims. I would never be okay with anyone getting murdered or wishing harm on someone who was muslim but I would avoid them if I saw them out and about. I was taught muslims were bad and that's what I believed. Then I met someone who was Muslim and after knowing her for a few weeks I asked her if she was okay with me asking questions about her faith and she was okay and was happy to set straight any misconceptions I may have had. It was really nice and she was really nice about it even with some of the questions I asked that were probably stupid. Now I know better than to judge a group by one persons actions. It was a great lesson to learn and wish I hadn't allowed myself to be brain washed at such a young age.

Yes it was very good lesson and I've experienced similar things before. Sadly, there are always going to be people who will judge an entire group based on the actions of some. The Isalmaphobes on the message board that I used to post on fit into that category and I don't think they would ever befriend or get to know a Muslim . Around the time when the proposed mosque near Ground Zero hit the news, the posters on that message board showed that they really believe that all Muslims are terrorists. I tried to explain the different sects of Islam and they still didn't want to listen. There was one poster who lives in Brooklyn and he tried to explain that there has been different non-extremist Muslim groups in New York for a long time and that many New Yorkers were used to Muslims being around prior to 9/11. He also pointed out that there Muslims that worked inside the World Trade Center and some of them died. The Islamaphobe posters still didn't listen to the Brooklyn guy at all. Sometime after that I left that message board mainly because of the Islamaphobes.

I give credit to anyone who learns lessons like you did.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I think the note will turn out to be like a crime scene with a backward swastika (something the criminal drew hastily to derail the investigation).

Unlike many commenters on Fox news, I doubt it was an honor killing. Those always seem to have killer(s) at the scene of the crime, telling the cops they did it. Part of the honor restoration is the action of the family, this was someone trying to get away with murder.

I expect/hope the cops investigating are smart enough to still look for suspects within friends and family, and one note won't send them on a wild xenophobe chase.

In the recent honor killing case in Canada (the Shafia family), the parents and oldest brother staged a fake accident. They never admitted to doing it directly to the police, although the wiretap evidence was pretty damning.

[theologygeek]

Whenever the police say stuff like this, you know it's going to have an unexpected ending. They know what happened.

"El Cajon Police Chief James Redman declined to discuss the contents of the note Monday, though he said that it has led police to regard the killing as a possible hate crime. He said he was confident the case would be solved.

"I want to stress there is other evidence in this case that we are looking at and the possibility this is a hate crime is just one aspect," Redman said.

"We don't have tunnel vision on this case," he said. "We're looking at the big picture."

Redman said he was confident it was an isolated incident but would not say why."

[shesinsane]

I have learned that sometimes honor kills don't include a confession by the proud restorer of honor. Another educational day on FJ.

I still doubt this was an honor killing, I get the feeling someone else was doing something very bad, the victim found out and confronted the criminal, who then panicked and killed her to keep her silent. Afterward the killer wrote the note to make it look like she was killed for being Muslim (or Iraqi) instead of to keep a secret.

[holierthanyou]

I'm seeing the husband as the most likely suspect. It will be interesting to see how the police's "other aspects" play out.

[BelieveinScience]

Yes it was very good lesson and I've experienced similar things before. Sadly, there are always going to be people who will judge an entire group based on the actions of some. The Isalmaphobes on the message board that I used to post on fit into that category and I don't think they would ever befriend or get to know a Muslim . Around the time when the proposed mosque near Ground Zero hit the news, the posters on that message board showed that they really believe that all Muslims are terrorists. I tried to explain the different sects of Islam and they still didn't want to listen. There was one poster who lives in Brooklyn and he tried to explain that there has been different non-extremist Muslim groups in New York for a long time and that many New Yorkers were used to Muslims being around prior to 9/11. He also pointed out that there Muslims that worked inside the World Trade Center and some of them died. The Islamaphobe posters still didn't listen to the Brooklyn guy at all. Sometime after that I left that message board mainly because of the Islamaphobes.

I give credit to anyone who learns lessons like you did.

Thanks! I grew up in a house where the gays and muslims were evil so that's all I knew and I regret getting sucked into that stupid mindset. If you judge a book by its cover you'll miss out on some very good things. I wish more people could learn the lesson I did.

[EmmieJ]

I'd really love to know more background on the family before saying that, but whenever a child or woman is kidnapped/murdered and a note is left behind I'm instantly suspicious. Honestly, I'm instantly suspicious of the family (namely the father/husband or mother) whenever something like this happens. Usually stuff like this is internal.

I'm sorry to say that this was my first thought on reading this story as well. So often, it is not a stranger who kills someone in this fashion, especially a woman. Whoever the culprit is, I hope that person is found, charged, tried and justice is served. I'm disgusted by the Fox news commentary.

[QAF_Rocks]

Once again, shewas married in Iraq, not the USA.

abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/iraqi-woman-beaten-to-death-in-california-hate-crime-suspected/

She was still too young to be getting married though.

It doesn't say what year she immigrated, though. Mid-90s I would assume includes 1994, 1995, and 1996. She would have given birth in 1995, so the marriage probably would have taken place in 1994 (or earlier), so it could have happened either in Iraq or California. Regardless, I think it can be safely assumed that her husband was a legal adult at the time, and the American authorities either gave permission for a child to marry an adult, or looked the other way when a child married to an adult entered the country.

[Patsy]

Domestic violence murder by a Muslim doesn't necessarily mean 'honor killing'. I'm inclined to think that if the husband did it, it's the former, not the latter.

[Coconut Flan]

No word yet in the local news. I'll try to remember to keep checking.