Man beats daughter to death, denies it was murder (UPDATED)

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-31 02:56am

Including other injuries, coroners found evidence of a fractured skull from previous beatings. Today in court, I just heard on the radio that he claimed he meant to beat her savagely but not kill her, so he should not be prosecuted for murder.

Toronto Star wrote:A short life of endless turmoil

JIM COYLE

Farah Khan was just settled into senior kindergarten and bracing for her first Canadian winter in early December, 1999. She was 5 years old and, at only 35 pounds and a shade under 40 inches tall, tiny even for her age.

She'd arrived in Toronto from Pakistan that April, and though her middle name was Jahan, it might easily have been change. In her short life, Farah Khan had already been taken from her birth mother, had her given name changed from the original Maryam, had been moved halfway across the world and, in less than eight months in Canada, had already moved three times.

That fall, Farah had pictures taken with her schoolmates in Miss Cartwright's class at Second St. Public School in Etobicoke. She was wearing a peach dress with white frills. And she apparently loved those pictures.

A Superior Court jury was told yesterday — at the opening of the first-degree murder trial of her father and stepmother — that Farah's passion to own them may have cost her her life.

On Dec. 7, 1999, her dismembered body parts were found buried in green garbage bags in two Etobicoke parks.

A few weeks later, in the apartment in which her father and stepmother were living, police found the peach dress cut into more than 100 pieces.

Crown Attorney David Fisher told the jury that evidence he plans to call will show that "under our law, both Kaneez Fatima and Muhammad Arsal Khan are criminally responsible for the first-degree murder of Farah Khan."

Among other things, Fisher said, the evidence will show that Fatima, 48, the girl's stepmother, told a friend after the slaying that Farah wanted the pictures but that her father, Khan, 39, refused to pay the $10.

"She persisted and she persisted and that got him angry. And Khan took Farah and began to beat her," Fisher said.

Fatima tried to intervene, Fisher said, but was told the girl wasn't her daughter and she sat on a sofa while the beating continued, ending "with Farah's death."

Fisher said Khan would later tell police that he and his wife had left the girl at home alone to watch cartoons on television and had returned to find that she had committed suicide by slitting her throat with a knife. Khan told police he dismembered and disposed of the body because he didn't think anyone would believe him, the crown said.

Like most of what Khan told the police, Fisher said, "the suicide story" will be shown as "a series of elaborate lies."

Over the murmur of Urdu translators speaking quietly into the defendants' ears, Fisher told the jury that Khan was married in April, 1993, in an arranged marriage in Pakistan to Shahida Jabeen, a woman he met for the first time on the day they were wed.

They moved into his parents' home. Soon, his wife was pregnant. And almost as soon, Khan began accusing her of infidelity and claiming the child was not his. Within four months, the couple had separated. On Feb. 4, 1994, the girl who would become known as Farah Khan was born.

Khan and his wife were granted a divorce in the summer of 1994 and, though he had made no inquiries about his child nor visited her since his separation, he was awarded custody of Farah by village elders.

"Shahida Jabeen never saw her daughter again," Fisher said.

In 1997, Khan was introduced to Kaneez Fatima, a woman 10 years older who had been living in Canada, had acquired citizenship, been married and divorced, and had returned to Pakistan.

After Khan and Fatima married, she returned to Canada and arranged to sponsor the immigration of her new husband and stepdaughter. As part of the process, medical examinations were required. In November, 1998, Farah Khan was pronounced a healthy 4-year-old. And on April 20, 1999, she arrived in Canada.

"Just 7 1/2 months later," Fisher said, "Farah Khan was killed, her body was dismembered and her body parts were hidden in five different locations in two public parks in the city of Toronto."

Evidence will show, he said, that a woman named Mary Smith, walking her dog in Colonel Samuel Smith Park on the morning of Dec. 7, 1999, passed by a man and woman banging on rocks off the trail and acting strangely.

She suspected that they were hiding drugs. After they left, she returned with her dog to root about in the area where they'd been digging. She found a green plastic garbage bag. Inside the first of two bags, she found blood. She then thought that they'd been disposing of the body of an animal.

When she opened the bag, she found a child's arm, then a child's leg. Court will hear, Fisher said, that police found three body parts in the bag, and the next day, with the help of dogs, found more body parts in other bags nearby.

They had a description of the man and woman but no idea who they might be.

Fisher said it took painstaking police and forensic work by Detective Sergeant Rolf Prisor and his team over the next few weeks — and a few lucky breaks — to identify Farah and locate and arrest the couple.

DNA analysis soon told police the victim was a little girl, Fisher said. But Mary Smith had described the man and woman as being of Spanish descent and that is the description police made public. Hundreds of tips were received, but "they led nowhere," Fisher said.

What police were able to do, however, was take fingerprints from the body. In early January, 2000, they got a break. Further DNA tests determined the ethnic background of the victim. And police now said the child was of South Asian background.

That morning, teacher Heather Cartwright had been listening to the news.

There had been a 5-year-old girl from Pakistan in her senior kindergarten class, but she had not seen Farah Khan since Dec. 3. A few days later, her stepmother had visited the school to say Farah's mother had fallen gravely ill in Pakistan and the entire family was returning that very night to that country.

Cartwright had not connected Khan's departure with what was said to be a missing Spanish child. But when she heard police now thought they were looking for a South Asian child, she remembered the tiny girl in the peach dress. As it happened, two detectives were in the school that day on another matter, Fisher said, and Cartwright told the officers about Farah Khan.

Now police had an address for the girl's parents. But when they got there, they found the couple had moved on Christmas Eve from the apartment they'd only moved into in September.

Eventually, a search by Detective Sergeant Prisor of Bell Canada records showed phone service newly installed for Khan in a basement apartment in another home, Fisher said.

Meanwhile, back at Second St. P.S., Heather Cartwright had provided police with some of Farah's belongings. Police were able to lift fingerprints from her workbook. And the prints were "a clear match" to those taken from the dismembered body.

They had a victim — Farah Khan. They had two suspects.

For five days, the Khan apartment was kept under surveillance. And on the morning of Jan. 19, 2000, police arrived at the apartment with arrest warrants.

Evidence will show, Fisher said, that Kaneez Fatima pointed at her husband and told police, "It was him, it was him."

Khan would later lead police to where the head and torso of his daughter had been buried. She was "obstinate," he would tell them. "Very stubborn." "Temperamental."

Fisher said a pathologist will testify that the body parts of Farah Khan showed two dozen sets of fresh injuries that had occurred within two days of her death. It will also show, he said, old injuries that include a fractured skull.

The jury will also hear, the crown said, what Fatima told police the morning the couple was arrested. "This occurred because God wanted it to happen."

2004/04/24 UPDATE: the trial has now ended and the verdict is in. See page 3.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-01-31 03:01am

Foreigner. I can't say I'm surprised. I'm no racist, but there are a lot of places less enlightened than the Western world with regards to the treatment of wives and children.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-01-31 03:01am

Oh, forgot.

Shoot his child-abusing stupid ass.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-01-31 03:04am

Canada doesn't have the death penalty, does it? Perhaps he can have a little "accident" in prison.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-01-31 03:09am

A five-year-old girl committing suicide by slitting her throat... That lie alone is preposterous and disgusting.

He should not be allowed to live for even a second longer. May he rot in Hell.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-01-31 03:12am

Oh..Pakistan. That explains it all.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-31 03:18am

I think that this guy's ideal punishment would be several years of increasingly savage beatings until he finally dies. I still remember when local TV broke the news about the body parts being found. And now, this fucker's lawyer is holding press conferences to complain that he's being railroaded by the government.

His entire defense so far is "I've beaten her lots of times, and she never died before."

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-01-31 03:23am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:A five-year-old girl committing suicide by slitting her throat... That lie alone is preposterous and disgusting.

He should not be allowed to live for even a second longer. May he rot in Hell.

Y'know, your current avatar is particularly well suited to that last statement...

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-01-31 04:06am

Lemme whip out my notes from Criminal Law class..

well lesse, he had guilty state of mind, because he fully and knowingly intended to beat the shit out of her and admitted to it. Whether he intended the murder or not is irrelevant, he is guilty. The question is, of what. I'd like to get him for 1st or 2nd degree, but I suspect he'll get Involuntary Manslaughter. Voluntary Manslaughter at the most.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-01-31 04:09am

This is as digusting to me as when one of the people I worked with was arrested by the FBI for purchasing a 14 year old slave....

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2004-01-31 04:12am

His defense is a line from the movie Predator 2. Thats fucking wrong.
I hope he gets made someones bitch. See how he likes to live in terror of the next beating.
Milton's grandest visions of burning darkness do no justice to this sick fuck.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-01-31 04:59am

Rogue 9 wrote:
Spanky The Dolphin wrote:A five-year-old girl committing suicide by slitting her throat... That lie alone is preposterous and disgusting.

He should not be allowed to live for even a second longer. May he rot in Hell.
Y'know, your current avatar is particularly well suited to that last statement...

My current avatar is catgirl Knuckles from a Sonic the Hedgehog Doujinshi...

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2004-01-31 05:22am

Well, dispite the spookiness of knowing what the hell Spanky's avatar actually is, this guy is still a sick fuck. I have said it before, and I will say it again, we need the Punisher. Vigilantes to scare the fuck outta criminals.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-01-31 06:10am

What a fucker.

I especially hated the part when he allegedly told his wife she shouldn't intervene because the child wasn't hers, but previously broke up with the kid's mom because he accused her of infidelity and didn't think it was his, either. Leave self-consistency to the wind.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-01-31 06:33am

I've been exposed to a lot of horrible true-crime shit via books and the internet, but for some reason this has really gotten to me.

Finding the dress cut up into "more than 100 pieces" just makes my imagination go into overdrive as to what her last days must have been like.
She was just a fucking baby!

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2004-01-31 11:34am

kojikun wrote:Whether he intended the murder or not is irrelevant, he is guilty. The question is, of what. I'd like to get him for 1st or 2nd degree, but I suspect he'll get Involuntary Manslaughter. Voluntary Manslaughter at the most.

This is Canada, the fucker's almost guaranteed to get nailed for 1st degree murder.

Shaidar Haran · Post by **Shaidar Haran** » 2004-01-31 12:29pm

kojikun wrote:Lemme whip out my notes from Criminal Law class..

well lesse, he had guilty state of mind, because he fully and knowingly intended to beat the shit out of her and admitted to it. Whether he intended the murder or not is irrelevant, he is guilty. The question is, of what. I'd like to get him for 1st or 2nd degree, but I suspect he'll get Involuntary Manslaughter. Voluntary Manslaughter at the most.

Dude, I doubt there's any where in the civilized world he'd get less than Murder in the Second, and more than likley Murder in the First. You don't beat a little kid to death, chop her body up, and the get a slap on the wrist.

And of course the fact that he seems to be a fundamentalists dirt bag that doesn't appear to realize this is Shitstakistan isn't going to help either.

Demiurge · Post by **Demiurge** » 2004-01-31 02:43pm

Somebody needs to be sodomized with an anchor.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-01-31 02:58pm

he chopped her body up? ah. I should read the article, yeah.

2nd degree seems likely, then. possibly even first.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-01-31 03:02pm

I see more ammo for the feminists in Canada's moslem population. Basic human rights, and not treating women like property just because you can back in "The old Country" seems to be their biggest demand.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-01-31 03:10pm

Dark Hellion wrote:Well, dispite the spookiness of knowing what the hell Spanky's avatar actually is, this guy is still a sick fuck. I have said it before, and I will say it again, we need the Punisher. Vigilantes to scare the fuck outta criminals.

We need the Saints.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-01-31 04:13pm

We need Rorshach.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2004-01-31 04:14pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:We need Rorshach.

Who?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-01-31 04:24pm

Iceberg wrote:
DPDarkPrimus wrote:We need Rorshach.
Who?

isn't that the guy that did the ink blot tests? or made them up anyways?

Post by **Dalton** » 2004-01-31 04:24pm

Iceberg wrote:
DPDarkPrimus wrote:We need Rorshach.
Who?

Inkblot test dude.