A Serial Murderer of Women?
Following the murder of three more women, in separate incidents, in Tehran, Iranian families are again troubled by the events. The murdered women, Mitra, Mina and Shohreh are the recent victims of serial killings in Tehran. One wonders if the killing of women that has been going on in other Iranian cities has now moved to Tehran. During the last two months, bodies of two young girls murdered by knife stabs were found on Tehran highways. Police calls the killings serial because there is a similar pattern in all of them.
The commander of Tehran’s law enforcement force has said that all three victims were dressed in formal outfits and their bodies show no signs of any resistance. He added that the crime scenes indicated that the victims were threatened to death by their murderers and had been tied with red ropes, finally killed by knife stabs to their necks.
Similar killings had occurred in the past two decades and the truth behind those murders was never revealed. In the period between 1980 and 1984, 43 women were killed. In the early years of Iran's 1979 revolution, bodies of female victims that were killed by white rope around their necks were found in Oroumieh, Tabriz, Karaj, Tehran and Lahijan. Five years after those murders, a man who had confessed to 43 murders committed suicide in prison.
The murder of 19 women in the religious city of Mashad in the summer of 2000 was one of the most controversial serial killings in Iran. Investigators claimed that the murderer who had killed the 19 women in a period of one year had strong religious beliefs. Officials announced that the criminal had claimed that his motivation for the murder of the women was to combat moral corruption. He was put on trial and hanged in the summer of 2001.
In the mid-90s, “Night Owl” was the most controversial serial murderer of Tehrani women. He was later charged with killing 9 females in the west of Tehran. He eventually accepted responsibility for the murders, was put on trial and hanged while the reality behind his motives was never revealed to the public and media, as he was reported to have had some connection to certain government offices from where he obtained the photographs of the women victims. One of the bizarre aspects of the trial was that some of the ultra-conservative newspapers were sympathetic to the murderer on the justification that what he was doing was fighting immoral women.
The three recent victims are all from well-off Tehran families and police suspects that because all three worked for Gold Quest Company, all three had their computers stolen, and all had put separate ads in the morning newspapers for the sale of their houses, the murders are connected and the criminals must be the same individuals.
Officials have not provided media with additional details of the killings to clarify some of the mysteries of the case. The ambiguities however have caught the attention of the media and some have focused on the history and details of earlier murders of women for clues. Fifteen years ago when Salam newspaper first reported suspicious elements in the murders of women at the time, the press was not keen on following the cases up. But since the revelations of the serial killings of the Ministry of Intelligence about ten years ago, such murders are now reported as being organized murders. While such a conclusion has never been officially supported, the fact that the case of one of them, an air stewardess by the name of Fatemeh Ghaem-Maghami whose body was found inside her car on Passdaran Avenue, was never pursued raised more questions of possible involvement of some organizations in the murder.
The commander of Tehran’s law enforcement force has said that all three victims were dressed in formal outfits and their bodies show no signs of any resistance. He added that the crime scenes indicated that the victims were threatened to death by their murderers and had been tied with red ropes, finally killed by knife stabs to their necks.
Similar killings had occurred in the past two decades and the truth behind those murders was never revealed. In the period between 1980 and 1984, 43 women were killed. In the early years of Iran's 1979 revolution, bodies of female victims that were killed by white rope around their necks were found in Oroumieh, Tabriz, Karaj, Tehran and Lahijan. Five years after those murders, a man who had confessed to 43 murders committed suicide in prison.
The murder of 19 women in the religious city of Mashad in the summer of 2000 was one of the most controversial serial killings in Iran. Investigators claimed that the murderer who had killed the 19 women in a period of one year had strong religious beliefs. Officials announced that the criminal had claimed that his motivation for the murder of the women was to combat moral corruption. He was put on trial and hanged in the summer of 2001.
In the mid-90s, “Night Owl” was the most controversial serial murderer of Tehrani women. He was later charged with killing 9 females in the west of Tehran. He eventually accepted responsibility for the murders, was put on trial and hanged while the reality behind his motives was never revealed to the public and media, as he was reported to have had some connection to certain government offices from where he obtained the photographs of the women victims. One of the bizarre aspects of the trial was that some of the ultra-conservative newspapers were sympathetic to the murderer on the justification that what he was doing was fighting immoral women.
The three recent victims are all from well-off Tehran families and police suspects that because all three worked for Gold Quest Company, all three had their computers stolen, and all had put separate ads in the morning newspapers for the sale of their houses, the murders are connected and the criminals must be the same individuals.
Officials have not provided media with additional details of the killings to clarify some of the mysteries of the case. The ambiguities however have caught the attention of the media and some have focused on the history and details of earlier murders of women for clues. Fifteen years ago when Salam newspaper first reported suspicious elements in the murders of women at the time, the press was not keen on following the cases up. But since the revelations of the serial killings of the Ministry of Intelligence about ten years ago, such murders are now reported as being organized murders. While such a conclusion has never been officially supported, the fact that the case of one of them, an air stewardess by the name of Fatemeh Ghaem-Maghami whose body was found inside her car on Passdaran Avenue, was never pursued raised more questions of possible involvement of some organizations in the murder.
posted by shahram @ 8:09 PM
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