Snapped: Women Who Murder - Shajia Ayobi

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

A shocking carjacking may have ties to international espionage, or the murderer could turn out to be someone much closer to home.Season 23, Episode 1Originally aired: January 21, 2018Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WsLCJWqmIebSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Shijia Ioby came to America seeking a new life. She grew up in a fairly conservative community in Afghanistan. In the United States, she had choices.

America was also where she met and married Goulam, a fellow refugee serving his adopted country. His primary duty was to train American soldiers to Afghan culture. You could see that my uncle was truly in love with Shaji. Together, they had four children. They had a beautiful life, happy life. But their happiness would be cut short

by a deadly carjacking. People in the community were scared. It made the news. The search for the killers would leave the investigators wondering, was the shooting simply a random crime? I'm trying to find somebody who wanted to be one, right? Was it a matter of national security? We had a surprise visit from the FBI.

Is this some act of terrorism? Or was there a terrible secret lurking in song, Shijia's marriage? The suicide alert, in my country, you'll be killed. You'll be hung, beheaded, and be killed. Here I want to for this, for this more than anything. The New York Times The New York Times The New York Times The

New York Times The New York Times The New York Times The New York Times Sacramento, California, December 18, 2011.

An hour and a half northeast of San Francisco. California's capital is a quiet, comfortable city of almost 500,000. Very lovely community, green lush, affordable. It's just all around a good, all-American city. It has a nice hometown charm to it that not a lot of other cities in California have. But Sacramento's hometown charms would be shattered a little after midnight, when the police received a hysterical 911 call from 45-year-old Shijia Ayobi.

Shijia Ayobi reported that she had been a victim of car jacking and her husband who was in the car at the time had been shot. Shijia said they were driving home when the two carjackers attacked. Two perpetrators pop up, one's got a gun, and they order her to pull over. These two people in the backseat demanded her husband's wallet.

When he refused or struggled, they shot him. Why are you on the freeway? No, the freeway is going to work! After shooting her husband, the carjackers had apparently panicked, and they ran. Corey and Miss Aobie, the assailants, flee the car on foot. She was able to continue driving and get her phone out and call 911. Are you still driving? Let's go!

Take any breath and pull over to the right shoulder. What exit are you here? Shijia took the exit, and officers arrived on the scene moments later. We're trying to get the description of the more information that the female has been sharing. It's a bit of a terrifying outfit.

Shagia's hysteria was understandable, because when the police arrived, they found her husband, 53-year-old Glam Iobi, sprawled in the passenger seat of the couple's minivan, covered in blood. You're alongobie sprawled in the passenger seat of the couple's minivan, covered in blood. Glam was shot three times in the head. However, while Glam's condition was dire, he wasn't dead.

Mr. Iobie still had some signs of life so he was transported to the hospital. And even as the doctors race to save him, the search for Glam shooters would send the investigators deep into a world of international intrigue, attract the attention of national security agencies, and have the authorities wondering, was there more to the shooting than a simple car jacket? Born in 1966, Shijia was just 13 years old when the Soviet Union invaded her homeland

of Afghanistan. She was from a war-torn country as a young girl. She witnessed atrocities and the trauma of seeing different people in her family be murdered. To escape the violence, Shiger's family arranged for the 17-year-old to immigrate to California in 1984. They also arranged for the teenager to marry an Afghan man already living in the States. So a lot of choice was taken away from this woman. Most of her decisions were made for her, which didn't necessarily sit well with Shijia.

She was very independent and she didn't not want to be attached to anyone or rely on anyone or have to answer to anyone. She wanted to do what she wished to do. However, Shagia didn't dare to fire her family. They had a very close tight-knit family and they were very traditional in some ways. And once married and settled in California, Shagia did fall in love with her new home. And she wanted to be American. And she embraced her new home by doing something

that would have been unthinkable back in Afghanistan. Shagia ended her arranged marriage by filing for divorce. In the United States, she had choices. Free from her arranged marriage, Shagia blossomed in America. She got a job to support herself and even took some college courses. She was such a strong personality

and she was a go-getter. She didn't turn her back on her homeland, though. Instead, she got to know other members of the Bay areas, close-knit Afghan community. My mom was really good close friends with her. She became really good friends with my sister and I. And it was through those new connections in the Afghan community that Shijia would meet a fellow refugee named Ghulam Iobi. Eight years older than Shijia, Ghulam was in his early 20s when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

He'd finished high school in college there. After the invasion, he ended up on the front lines as a rebel fighting the Soviets and as a soldier in the civil war that followed their pull-out in 1989. But as the Taliban's grip tightened, Goulomb eventually fled. He left because our situation was not safe in Afghanistan. Emigrating to Germany, Goulomb spent the next several years helping the rest of his extended family escape Afghanistan. He would work single-handedly, of course, and send money to us.

With Goulomb's help, his sister and her children settled in California where she got to know Shijia. My mom thought that she would be a good match with my uncle. And in 1993, when Goulomb came to the States to visit his sister, she arranged a meeting. My mom kind introduced them, hoping that those two could, you know, meet up and get married. And based on Goulomb's reaction,

it looked like that introduction just might work as his sister planned. He would just rave about Shagia how beautiful she is and how much he loves her. Shagia seemed just as head of her heels too. Looks like it was a match made in heaven. I thought they were the happiest couple. Before Goulomb went back to Germany,

they were formally engaged. They had actually what we call it, Nicole. It's a religious ceremony that we had to do before the men and women get together. And a few months later, Shijia followed her fiance, Abraud. They got married in Germany. The couple spent the next 12 years in Germany and had four children together. Goulomb was very traditional, so that caused her to kind of be the stay-home mom.

He wanted Shijia to be really committed to the children, making sure that they were happy. Meanwhile, Gulam focused on providing for the family. My uncle was working. They had a really, really great life in Germany, but Shijia always wanted to come back to US. And in 2005, Shagia got her wish. After more than a decade of marriage,

the family moved back to the States and eventually settled in the San Francisco area. They lived in the East Bay for a while, closer to my mom. Living in East Bay, Chagia continued to stay home with the kids while Goulomb worked long hours to support the family. He ran a succession of businesses.

He ran a hot dog cart. They had a pizza parlor business in the Bay Area. But then a military contractor approached Goulomb and offered the former soldier a job as a cultural advisor for the U.S. Army. They recruited him to train the American soldiers, get them prepared for being deployed to Afghanistan and serving there. Gulam took the job out of duty to his family. My uncle tried to do whatever he could

to provide for the family. And out of pride, it is newly adopted home. He was a person who respected what this country had to offer. However, Goulomb's new job did require a sacrifice. He was stationed in Louisiana, but I know he traveled outside of Louisiana to train soldiers. He would only come every two to three months for a week at home.

The money was good, though. In fact, Goulomb's generous salary allowed the family to move out of a cramped apartment in the Bay area and into a nice house in Sacramento. My uncle always wanted to have a big house for the kids and always wanted them to live in a better community and go to a better school. With her husband often away and the kids getting older, Shijia kept herself busy too. Thanks to her husband's connections, she did some translating work for the government. Shijia spoke several different languages.

And after almost two decades of focusing on her family, the 45-year-old also went back to school, taking criminal justice classes at the local community college. She always wanted to be independent. She also visited her homeland for the first time since she'd fled justice classes at the local community college. She always wanted to be independent. She also visited her homeland for the first time since she'd fled more than 20 years earlier.

She would travel to Afghanistan once or twice a year. She made a lot of trips by herself. Foreign vacations, a comfortable suburban home in a bright future. By 2011, it looked like Shijia and Goulomb had put their war torn past well behind them. They came here to achieve the things

that they could not in Afghanistan. This family did live in an American dream. But that December, more than two decades after escaping Afghanistan, Shijia and Goulomb would discover that no place is safe from sudden and seemingly senseless violence. Coming up, is the attack on Goulomb simply a robbery gone wrong? Car jackings are very real fear in California.

Or is it a matter of national security? We had a surprise visit from the FBI. On December 18, 2011, 45-year-old Shijia Ioby called 911 in Sacramento, California, and reported that she and her husband, 53-year-old Goulomb Ioby, had been the victims of a violent car-jacking while driving down the freeway. She's driving the freeway. She's directed and pulled off the freeway, and the patrol officers met Mrs. Ioby. The GEO is completely unharmed, but Goulamp is in very critical condition.

He'd been shot three times in the head. Paramedics weren't sure that he was going to make it. While the paramedics loaded Goulomb into an ambulance and rushed him to the nearest hospital, the investigators drove Shagia to the police station to take her statement. I hope you can finish the sales cost now when the hospital is. Yeah, we'll go to our best. station to take her statement.

Shijia began the interview by explaining that her husband was an Afghan refugee, who worked as a cultural specialist for the U.S. Army. and you're okay. So it's calling Lewis's flash role playing. His primary duty was to train and familiarize the American soldiers to Afghan culture. Normalization in Louisiana, Shijia said that her husband had flown home on a red eye the night before. So he barely had been home 24 hours, then?

Yeah. He arrived in Sacramento very early in the morning. And he hadn't seen his kids for six months, so he stayed up all day. And that night, they'd gone to a dinner party hosted by friends. So I just knew this would be a lunch and they'd get to stay home.

But they won't. Shijia said that the party had ended just before midnight and Gouland going on more than 24 hours without sleep had asked her to drive home. I just were driving. And so I got closer to the freeway. And then I heard another voice from the back. I didn't see me at all.

I'm worried we'd do it all the way to back, but I couldn't see it all. He just came out on the set and I just heard the noise first. The car jacker merged from the back of the minivan. And he announced that he was robbing them. I tried to see if I could talk to him, talking to him out of his everybody he wants. So I said, buddy, what do I do?

I don't want money, whatever. You know, we can give it to me please don't do something. They don't have. He said, yeah, he told my husband, give him your wallet. Shagia said that she had told Galom to hand over his wallet, but Galom had refused. He tried to grab him, I think. He tried to resist something. Your husband tried to grab him, I think. He tried to resist something.

He's your husband, tried to grab the guy. And according to Shiger, that's when she heard the first shunt. But I think he did shunt a lot more time. So I'm gonna let you go. I was still over there, some shocked. And according to Shagia, she wasn't the only one shocked by the shooting. As soon as he fired, there had another voice, and there was a little fear of voice. There were two assailants in the back of her minivan.

It was a male female robbery team. She got better at having missed. Call them or something. Say, what? Why did you do? We just won the money. Shajiah said the car-jacker said argued briefly in the back seat and then fled with Goulomb's wallet. He said, we have a quick stop right here. We're going to get off or something.

Don't look for something. Just keep going. He said, or something, though, or something, just keep going. And as soon as I just stopped the judge, of course, the door should be in order to act according. According to Shijia, while the car-jackers had left her unhurt, she said that it had all happened so fast. There was little she could tell the police about the attackers. Did somebody got out of the car?

You might have seen somebody moving around outside. Did you see anybody moving around outside? Yeah, they told you that they're moving out, right? So soon they got out. We shut the door so hard. And I looked back, I didn't see it because it's so dark that the windows are empty and they're all outside different than doors so fast.

And she wasn't sure how they'd gotten in her back seat, either. The car-jackers must have gotten in their van while they were parked at a friend's house for a dinner. Where was your car parked at the house? It was a harrowing story, and it was about to get worse. I'm really sorry, too. I have to tell you that your husband didn't survive. Oh, God. I don't want to let you know we're going to do everything I can to solve this. You can.

I'm very, very sorry. I love you. I love her. I'm over it. And when they got the news later that morning, the rest of Goulomb's family was just as devastated. The first question was, is it true that my uncle has been killed? Murder. Reality hit me. I collapsed.

I laid down on the floor crying. My first reaction was like, it's impossible, this is not true. But when the deadly carjacking made the news, it seemed all too plausible and brightening to the rest of Sacramento. Carjackings are very real fear in California. There are a number of gangs there as well,

that kind of migrate from the Bay area and from the Stockton Area as well. And when crime scene technicians finish processing the family's impounded minivan, what they found also appeared to fit the car-jacking scenario, Shijia, described. The shooting happened inside the van. We have no doubt about that from trajectories involved and the shell casings.

But could they ever track down the shooters? Later that same morning, just hours after the shooting, the investigators got what appeared to be their first big break. There was an apartment complex where a maintenance worker, doing his normal rounds, saw this brand new looking laptop bag right on top of the pile of trash. And when he opened it up, he found a wallet that turned out to have Mr. A. Yobies identification and it was covered in blood.

A 32 caliber pistol was also in the bag. That matched the shell casings that we found in the car. And yet, while they had apparently recovered the murder weapon, there were still some aspects of the crime that puzzled the investigators. It's very odd for people who drive an old freeway and be carjacked in that manner. Usually carjackings happen at intersections. They're approached at gunpoint, told to get out of the car, put the vehicle in par, and antics at the vehicle, and that's kind of how carjackings happen.

There's going to be something more to this case. It was a theory the investigators would explore further a few days later when they received an unexpected visitor. We had a surprise visit from the FBI. Normally the Bureau wouldn't get involved in something like a car jacking, even a suspicious one like Goulomb's death. But the Afghan refugee wasn't a typical murder victim. He was the military contractor training our troops getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan. Could the murder have something to do with Goulong's John? Is this some act of terrorism? The possibility was there, so that actually caused us a lot of concern.

But was that also why the FBI had taken a sudden interest in the case? The answer was not exactly. This agent was a handler for Chagia. And why would Chagia have an FBI handler? It turned out that while her husband worked for the military, training troops as a cultural advisor, Chagia had also been working for the government, as what was euphemistically known as a cultural informant.

The FBI counterintelligence has a program where people who are traveling abroad are recruited to, when they return to the United States, to give a report on basically what people are thinking, what their mindset is, and how they feel about America. Which was a roundabout way of saying that Shagia was dabbling in espionage. Coming up, Shagia takes the international entry to the next level. She said it was a CIA plot.

And according to Shagia, Goulong was the target. It's leaking a lot of information. Hey, listener, it is Jason Bateman. We have been fortunate to attract so many A-list guests to our SmartList podcast, but we've never put together a lineup quite like this. I'm talking about Will Ferrell, Conan O'Brien, Kevin Hart, Mark Cuban, Jimmy Kimmel, Matt Damon, and more available four weeks early and at free on Wondery Plus. If you've seen our docu series, Smart List on the Road, you know we had an incredible time

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Do it, do it, do it. By New Year's 2012, it had been two weeks since Shijia, Iobie's husband, Gulam, had been gunned down in what she said was a deadly car jacking. People in the community were scared. It made the news. But the investigators were starting to have doubts. The story about how a car jacker was concealed inside the car and made himself known while they were in motion. To me, that sounded very Hollywood. But the most Hollywood aspect of the story had to be what the investigators learned about Shijia.

That the 45-year-old Afghan immigrant and mother of four was actually a government-informed working for the FBI. They apparently have a network of people that do that, travel to Afghanistan. Couple that, with the fact that Guelom worked for the U.S. military as a cultural advisor, and the investigators wondered if the so-called car-jacking was simply a cover for something else. Knowing that both, Mr. Ioby and Miss Ioby had worked for the United States government at some point.

It might very well have made them a target for some terrorist type of organization. However, there was one big problem with the idea that Shijia's spying had something to do with her husband's murder. Shijia was completely unharmed, even as her husband was critically wounded and later died. So doubtful that terrorists had anything to do with Goulomb's murder and hoping they might have some insight into who else might want him dead. The investigators turned to his family. Question about Shajia and Goulomb's marriage.

The family told the investigators that the couple had seemed happy. You could see that my uncle was truly in love with Shajia. She was very pleasant, very outgoing, very fun person to be around with. But the family said that Shajia had changed after moving to Sacramento, that she joined a new mosque and turned her back on her earlier American lifestyle. She started following a lot of Islamic rules, started wearing, of course, the work as...

And if the sudden change in Shijia wasn't unsettling enough for Goulomb, the family said she'd forced the children into following her example, too. His children have had simply converted and changed 100% 360 degree from a modern living style, open-minded, and just like any child in the United States, the individuals wearing work as.

According to the family, Shijia and Gulam regularly fought over the issue. My uncle wanted them to be raised as an Afghan-American. To know their culture, but at the same time, I mean, when we live here, we have to adapt American lifestyle. She did not want to hear what my uncle has to say about the kids or her or their lifestyle or the way Shajiah was raising the kids. Informed of the trouble in Shajiah and Gulam's marriage, the investigators brought Shajiah in for more questioning on January 19th.

We've been working very hard to try to solve this case. The forensic evidence that we have is very, very good. But it's required somebody to put it in a perspective, and that's what I'm hoping that you will be able to tell us. But what Shijia had to tell them wasn't at all what they expected. Instead of talking about her marriage or the alleged attackers, the former FBI informant was about to add a whole new level of intrigue to the case.

Over a year ago, I was somebody came to my door and wanted to visit me the morning. It was sometime in November of last year, about 10, a few. Showed me his ID badge, CIA agent said that he was special operation, or test, as well as for something. about operation and the order test. That's for us or something.

And according to Shiger, the CIA agent had come to talk about her husband. He'd explained to her that they had been watching Guilham for a while. He was making a lot of information to outsider. Miss Ayobi's second story was that he had become this sort of double agent. Shiger said that she had been shocked by the news.

I got so scared and I, and he said that they know a lot about him. And according to Shijia, the CIA was prepared to put a stop to go long spying, too. There I see, you can just fire him, you know. If he's not a good person for the job, he said, no, we can't do that, but that's not enough. We have to get rid of him. She said it was a CIA plot to kill her husband. Although according to Shajiya, the agent asked her

to take Gulam out for them. They just hand me a bag, said that OK, save this for right now. And we will notify you next time what to do about it. I just took it and I just I said, let me open it up. He opened it and it was inside of us again. Shijia said that she'd held on to the gun for several months until the CIA agent contacted her again.

He showed up again at the door one day and then we said that I didn't do anything. I said, I don't know what to do. I can't do it. I don't know how to shoot. I don't have the guts to shoot. You know, how am I going to do this? He said, okay, we will help you with this. And according to Shajiya, that's when the CIA agent told her to hide the gun in her minivan.

It was all the investigators could do to keep a straight face. I knew that it was preposterous. I was skeptical about it the whole time. For starters, how many secrets could a mere cultural advisor pass on to the enemy? He wasn't that high-ranking. I don't even know what type of clearance this he had. And even if the CIA had wanted to stop Goulomb, wouldn't they have done it in secret rather than involved Shiger? It's just totally unbelievable. And the investigators let Shia know it, too. Shia, your story does not make sense.

To me, it makes sense. It doesn't make sense. At that point, she was arrested. The fact that Shia had been charged with Guelom's murder didn't exactly take his family by surprise. Court as it is, deep down, I knew Shagia had something to do with it, all along. But was Shagia actually the person who pulled the trigger? Because the next day, after her mugshot and the story of her arrest

made the papers, a staff member from the college where Shagia had taken criminal justice classes walked into the Sacramento Police Department with some urgent information. He said, I need to tell you some details about the story. The man told the investigators, Shagia had been close to one of her classmates, 19-year-old Jake Clark. Jake Clark is a very personable, very likable person.

He's got a very outgoing personality. And according to the school staff member, Jake had approached him a few weeks before Goulomb's murder to ask his advice about something. Shagia was soliciting him to buy a gun. He said that at the time, he'd essentially blown Jake off. He didn't take him seriously

until he saw Shagia's photo in the paper and he thought, you know, there's a connection here. Did Jake have inside information about Guelom's murder? After receiving the tip, the investigators brought the young man in for questioning. He was very cooperative, acted like he wanted to help. And he told the investigators that part of the way through the fall semester, Shijia had pulled him aside

and made a shocking request. She was like, look, I have this problem. My friend's husband has been abusing her daughter and has been abusing it, breaking the daughter and abusing the wife. In my country, you'll be killed. You'll be hung, beheaded, you'll be killed. Here I want some police. Police won't do anything.

I don't want him taking care of him. According to Jake, she'd been willing to pay. As soon as I check, I really need to do this. I will pay you. For $10,000, I will pay you. Jake said he'd refuse Shijia's offer. If that son-ass didn't clear, it doesn't settle well with me. But when the investigators checked Shijia's bank records,

they told a very different story. We found $2,000,000 transactions, one month before the murder, and one a couple of days before the murder. And when the investigators pulled Shia's cell phone records, they found evidence suggesting that the money had gone to jail. The day before the murder, Jake texted his address to her to go meet her. We knew at that point, there was something up.

Jake is more intertwined and involved in this case than met the eye. But could they prove it? The key turned out to be the messenger bag that the police had found dumped in the trash at an apartment complex near the murder scene, a bag that had contained a gun, gulams bloody wallet, and as it turned out, something else. That bag also contained the DNA of Jake Clark. Armed with new evidence, the investigators took Jake into custody. But when the investigators confronted him, Jake maintained that he was innocent. I did not send the vaccine to that car and shoot that man.

But if that was true, how had his DNA ended up on the bag with the gun? According to Jake, it all started with a phone call he received just minutes before Shijia dialed 911 to report the car jacket. Answer it, somebody breathe in the heart, get it, let it go. Okay, so I know you're tripping out. Something must have, something's gone down. Jake said that Shagia, obviously an panic, asked him to meet her at a street corner

not far from his old apartment. His story is that she pulled up in the minivan. He said he saw Mr. A.O.B. was mortally wounded and the front seat. She pulled up, boom, I see him, he swamps, she pushes him back and he should take this. She gave him $100 and the bag, containing the gun. I take that, I walk off, walk into the park, and those are the bag right where you found it.

Because otherwise, if I was, I can't wait to be free in the trash can, in the trash can in the park complex. He said the reason why he did that was to help her get caught. That was my thing, my mind. Now I see him, I see him in the front seat today. I see the murder weapon.

Now you guys have the murder weapon. And according to Jake, that made him a hero. You said you'd actually have medals to people for that, correct? In his mind, he thinks that we'd never would have solved it if we didn't find the bag with the evidence. Coming up, the investigators uncover a powerful motive. So all together it could have equated to $700,000, maybe $1,000,000. And Shagia offers up yet another explanation.

Everything becomes about paranoia, an imminent danger. On April 15, 2013, Shijia Ioby went on trial for murder in Sacramento, California. The 46-year-old Afghan refugee and mother of four was accused of masterminding the murder of her husband Goulomb, a cultural advisor for the US military. Initially, the reports were that this was a carjacking and a carjacking that had gone terribly badly. And when the investigators began to doubt Shijia's carjacking story, she'd made an even more incredible claim. Shajiya said that she was involved in assisting the CIA to murder Gula Meds, basically, a double agent.

But in their opening argument, the prosecution claimed that Gula M's murder had nothing to do with government spies, terrorism, or the war in Afghanistan. She was dissatisfied with the way her life was going. And most of all, according to the prosecution, she was dissatisfied with her marriage. She was happier when her husband wasn't around. Years ago, Shijia had divorced her first husband,

but that was before she had any children. She couldn't leave him, you know, just walk out of the marriage because of the children. And it was also before she joined a new, much more conservative, most. In our culture, and religion, divorce is very bad. Women are not looked good upon if they are divorced. The prosecution believed that that stigma,

I'm getting divorced divorced a second time, would be too much for her to bear. However, avoiding the stigma of divorce may not have been Shijia's only motive. According to the prosecutors, Goulam's murder may have been about money, too. But there was a $285,000 insurance policy out for Goulan. And that wasn't all that Shijia stood to inherit, either.

There were also Goulon's retirement accounts and the family's comfortable suburban home. So all together it could have equated to $700,000, maybe a million dollars. She stood to gain a lot, both emotionally by being able to live her life the way she demanded to, but also to be able to afford to do so. And according to the prosecutors,

that was why Shijia had approached her classmate, 19-year-old Jake Clark in the fall of 2011 and offered him $10,000 in exchange for killing Goulmont. This was premeditated. Shijia had planned, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. And the prosecutors claimed that on the evening of December 17th, when she and Goulomb went to dinner at a friend's house, Shajia put her plan into motion.

I think that Shajia left the van open and told Jake where the van was, and he got into it and waited. Goulomb exhalced it after his red eye flight the night before didn't suspect a thing. He wants Shagia to drive, reclines the seat back to make it more comfortable for the 20 or 30 minute ride home. And according to the prosecutors, not long after Shagia drove off with her husband dozing in the passenger seat, Jake had made his move.

I think it was an execution. I don't think he had time to resist. Then with her husband dying beside her, the prosecutors theorized that Shagia had driven Jake to the apartment complex. And she dropped him off. He immediately deposited the evidence into the dumpster. And whether Jake intended the murder weapon to be found

or not, the text between Shagia and Jake and the $10,000 she withdrew from her bank account shortly before the shooting, all pointed to Shagia being behind the murder. The $2,500 transactions right before the murder are very significant. But would it be enough to convince the jury, despite admitting to hiding the murder weapon, Jake had never agreed to testify against Shagia.

I think he enjoyed the cat and mouse game that he played with us during the investigation. But they did have Shiger's earlier statement where she had claimed to be part of a CIA plot to kill her husband. She conceded to having had some involvement in homicide. That's not disputed. So trapped by Shigeria's earlier statements,

when it was the defense's turn, they offered a new twist. According to Shijia, what she allegedly told Jake about wanting to take out an abuse of husband was true, only it wasn't for a friend. Her story totally changed to say that she suffered years of abuse at the hands of Gula Mayo being. Sejia's defense was that she suffered PTSD.

Not just from her husband's alleged abuse, either. When Sejia took the stand in her own defense, she claimed that she had been battered by life. She had PTSD from growing up in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. And according to Shajiya, that was on top of the trauma she suffered as Gulom's wife. He was described as a very domineering figure in the household.

He was allegedly very abusive, both physically and emotionally. And she testified that her only relief had come when Guelom's new job took him to Louisiana for months at a time. For two to three years, my uncle was in another state. He wasn't living with her. He was barely at the house. Although according to Shijia, the abuse continued whenever

he did return, so much so that she dreaded every homecoming. The defense argues that everything becomes about paranoia. And by December of 2011, Shigea said she had reached her breaking point. Over a long period of time of her having been abused by this man, she finally snapped. To her, there were no options left to her.

That's what Shijia claimed, at least. The defense was that she should be acquitted because it was an act of self-defense. The prosecution and Goulomb's family strenuously objected to Shijia's portrayal of her husband. There was no evidence that he was abusive. They go on that we knew, and she knew just as well, was not capable of hurting even a fly.

But they also worry that Shijia's story of abuse might play into the jury's preconceptions. The story can be really heartbreaking, because women are a lot more oppressed in conservative Islamic society. And Goulomb's family figured that Shijia was playing to that prejudice when she accused him of abuse in the first place.

She's a very intelligent lady. She was very convincing. We were definitely worried that she may get away with this. Coming up, the jury struggles to reach a verdict. They were having a really hard time coming to a unanimous decision. On April 25, 2013, the jury retired to consider a verdict in Shijia Iobi's murder trial. The 46-year-old mother of four was accused of hiring a hitman to kill her husband of 18 years, 53-year-old Goulomb Iobi. Prosecution the defense agreed that Miss Iobie

had orchestrated the death of her husband. They disagreed on the reason that she had done so. At trial, the prosecution argued that Shijia sought to both end her marriage and collect more than a quarter million dollars in life insurance. She stood to inherit $285,000 from that policy if her husband died.

But according to the defense, Shijia had orchestrated the murder to end years of abuse at her husband's hands. She's not a cold-blooded killer. There are circumstances that mitigate what she did that day. Miss Aoby asserted that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

and the death of Gullum was an act of self-defense. But would the jury agree? On April 30th, five days after deliberations began, the jurors sent word to the judge. They were having a really hard time. They couldn't come to a unanimous decision. Was a mistrial in the making? The judge instructs the jury to go back into deliberation

and think about it some more. Or would Shijia's claims of abuse win the jury's sympathy? They had an option of finding her guilty of something less severe than first-degree murder. The answer came the next day on May 1st when the jurors announced that they had finally managed to make a decision. She was guilty of all charges.

The verdict was of indication for Guelom's family and his character. They truly gave Guelom justice. Made everyone see for who Guelom was, not what Guelom was portrayed by Shagia. But at her sentencing hearing on June 14, Sejia stood by her abuse claims. During her sentencing hearing,

she recounted her fear that she was going to come home and find her children or the victims of her husband's abuse and that they would be the ones that ultimately were killed. And that's why she did what she did. But would her claims have any more impact on the judge than they did on the judge than they did on the jury? When she handed down her decision,

the judge sentenced Shajia to life in prison, but with the possibility of parole after 26 years. I would ask for a couple of punishment, but definitely, life without parole is what we were looking for. But while Goulam's family is disappointed with Shijia's sentence, they do take comfort in one thing. We may forgive her, God may forgive her, and, you know,

the authorities may forgive her, but how can she forgive herself? This is something that she's going to have to live with for the rest of her life. This is something that she's gonna have to live with for the rest of her life. Shijia Ioby will be eligible for parole in 2031. She will be 65 years old. Jake Clark was convicted of first degree murder in 2014. It sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 22 years.