Biyad told Louisville police of attack in case with many twists and turns
Monday, April 18, 2011
Said Biyad who is accused of killing his children. (Oct 7, 2006) / Michael Hayman |
It has been an unusual case from the beginning, when defendant Said Biyad walked into Louisville Metro Police headquarters on Oct. 6, 2006, and calmly told officers: “I just killed my family.”
Police soon discovered the bodies of four children, their throats cut while they were in their rooms.
In the 4 1/2 years since, Biyad's actions have created a number of surreal headlines.
At one point, Biyad, a Somali immigrant, told psychologists that “Arabs” were trying to kill him and get his money and that he was a multimillionaire with “celebrity status.”
In one court hearing in November 2009, he insisted that his attorneys ask the presiding Jefferson County judge for permission to leave jail to see his “agent” and get a check to post his bond, a request that was denied. In another, he asked to leave to go get a PIN number to get the money out of an ATM.
The trial — which begins today after years of delay, mostly because of questions over Biyad's mental competence — figures to provide more twists.
For starters, there will be no jury.
Both sides agreed to let Circuit Judge James Shake hear the evidence and render a verdict, a rare event in Jefferson County, especially in a murder case.
Also, although Biyad is accused of killing his four children — Goshany, Khadija, Fatuma and Sidi Ali, ages 2 through 8 — as well as raping and assaulting his wife, Fatuma Amir, he isn't eligible for the death penalty.
Instead, if convicted, Biyad could be sentenced to life in prison.
When Biyad turned himself in the day of the murders, he told police he killed his children and beat his wife, because she had a “secret marriage,” according to court documents.
Biyad told police that he and his wife were fighting when she tried to push him out of their home. He allegedly raped her and beat her with a hammer before she was able to lock herself in a room.
Biyad said he then went to the rooms of each of his children, cutting their throats, before throwing the knife in a garbage can, according to court documents.
“It is not right; I did bad things,” Biyad told police, according to transcripts.
The commonwealth's attorney's office wouldn't comment on why it agreed not to seek the death penalty, but local attorneys who aren't affiliated with the case speculate that it was part of an agreement from Biyad's attorneys to allow Shake to hear the case instead of a jury.
Since Shake has already ruled that Biyad is competent to stand trial, prosecutors won't have to worry about a jury deciding he is insane.
For the defense, the agreement avoids a potential death penalty from a jury that would hear the prosecution argue that a father had viciously killed his children.
Defense attorney Alex Dathorne, a former assistant commonwealth's attorney, said it's a good move by both.
“Any opportunity to remove the death penalty as a possible sentence, as a defense attorney, is something you definitely should explore,” he said.
Mike Lemke, one of Biyad's defense attorneys, would not comment on the agreement, but he said Shake's decision that Biyad is competent to stand trial is different from determining whether he was insane at the time of the murders.
Perhaps the oddest portion of the trial, however, could come when the defense presents its case –— with Biyad and his attorneys potentially making opposing arguments.
Biyad has said that he never confessed and that he is innocent.
When a psychologist met with Biyad in 2007 and asked him what his best defense would be, the defendant said that he loved his children and “it's not possible for me” to kill them.
Lemke would not say whether Biyad would testify, but he said if Biyad asked to do so, “he would have the absolute right to.”
“Nobody can make him or keep him from it,” Lemke said.
The defense will argue that Biyad was insane and will present the testimony of a psychiatrist who earlier this month found that Biyad was mentally ill at the time of the murders, suffering from schizophrenia and delusions.
Dr. Walter Butler said Biyad believed people were plotting against him, trying to poison him and “was actively psychotic at the time” of the slayings through at least March 2008.
The commonwealth's attorney's office is expected to put on evidence that an evaluation at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center near La Grange found that Biyad was sane at the time of the killing.
Reporter Jason Riley can be reached at (502) 584-2197.