0:01

Tonight on Dateline. I go inside and

0:03

I see the rice burning on the

0:05

stove. I went through the house.

0:07

She wasn't home. I called her

0:09

phone. It was off. My

0:11

mind goes to the worst place possible.

0:15

They said, we found your mom's car burned. And

0:18

I said, what? That's

0:21

a heavy, heavy phone call.

0:23

Very, very heavy. You

0:26

are discovering this tense relationship. Correct.

0:29

Yes. Based on text messages. Messages

0:31

like, leave me the F alone. Yes.

0:35

She called to tell me that I

0:37

feel like someone is following me. Our

0:39

minds are churning. These Google

0:42

coordinates led you pretty far out of

0:44

town. They actually led a suburban moat

0:46

area. This was a game changer,

0:48

what you discovered here. They're

0:51

wearing masks. They grabbed her. And

0:53

they wrestled her. At

0:56

that moment, all the world came

0:58

crashing down. This

1:01

was an evil act. Heartbreaking.

1:04

A buried secret, a

1:06

savage attack, and a

1:08

sinister saga stretching halfway across

1:10

the world. I'm Lester

1:13

Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's

1:19

Andrea Canning

1:23

with The

1:26

Ultimate Betrayal. On

1:33

the banks of the Mississippi River, an

1:36

only in America story of hard

1:38

work, ambition, and financial reward. But

1:42

percolating just beneath the surface, this

1:45

success story had a dark side. Money,

1:49

power, and greed. This

1:52

is one twisted family drama. From

1:54

beginning to end of it. Before

2:03

the ending, with all its horror

2:05

and heartbreak, there was a simple

2:07

dilemma. A son trying to get

2:09

out of dinner with his mom. I

2:11

got a text message from her that said,

2:14

you know, I wouldn't be cooking kebabs tonight.

2:16

What time are you coming home? I said,

2:18

I'm still at work. Not sure. Ahmed

2:21

Gethsemane and his mother Tahara lived together

2:23

in a comfortable house in one of

2:25

Baton Rouge's better neighborhoods, a long

2:28

way from their native Iran. Tahara

2:30

was a doting mom who often cooked for

2:32

her adult son. She expected

2:34

him to be home a lot. But

2:37

for a 38-year-old man, all that attention

2:39

could be smothering. It

2:42

was to the point that I was feeling

2:45

like my mom wanted me

2:47

to just work and come

2:49

and stay in the house and

2:51

do nothing else. So

2:53

on the night of April 11, 2015,

2:56

Ahmed decided to blow off dinner. Instead,

2:58

he met friends for drinks at a daiquiri

3:01

bar, then later went out for sushi. What

3:04

time did you come home? I didn't come

3:06

home till later on. And

3:09

when he pulled into the driveway, something

3:11

didn't seem right because her car

3:13

wasn't there. Ahmed

3:15

says he went inside and found a pot of

3:18

rice cooking on the stove, but no sign of

3:20

his mother. Most people do not

3:22

leave hot pots on a burning

3:24

stove. Under this, the thing was very,

3:26

very low. So I kind of thought

3:29

about it and I said, okay, maybe

3:31

she left without turning the pot off.

3:35

He turned off the stove and looked around. What

3:38

about her phone, her wallet, her purse? I

3:40

didn't look for any of

3:42

those at the time.

3:44

I called her phone. It was off. I

3:48

went through the house. Everything was, you know, where

3:51

it's supposed to be except for my bed cover,

3:54

which she had told me that she was going

3:56

to go be buying me a new bed cover.

3:58

So it's missing. So it's missing. He

4:01

says it wouldn't have been the first time his mother spent

4:03

the night at a girlfriend's house. He figured

4:05

maybe that's where she went. So

4:08

you're not in a huge panic at

4:10

this point that your mom's not there? No. The

4:14

next morning, Hamid still hadn't heard from her.

4:17

That's when he noticed her purse was in the house.

4:20

He says she never went anywhere without it. Did

4:22

you try calling your mom again? Not

4:24

till that afternoon. And then it didn't...

4:27

no answer. So I called

4:29

her work and they said, oh yeah, Miss

4:31

Sarah, she was here. Okay. So

4:34

you're thinking she's fine. She's fine.

4:36

She just met because, you

4:38

know, I didn't come home last night on time,

4:40

so she's not answering me. But

4:43

when she didn't come home again that night, he

4:45

says he finally started to worry. He

4:48

called her friends. None of them had

4:50

any idea where Tahara might be. So

4:52

the following morning, he drove to the Walmart where

4:55

his mother worked. I went to

4:57

her work at 5.45 in the morning and, you

4:59

know, I asked to check the schedule and the

5:01

manager comes in and I say, hey, you know,

5:04

I called yesterday and y'all told me my mom

5:06

was at work and I haven't

5:08

heard from her. And they went through the record and

5:10

they said no. So she really hadn't been

5:12

there? So she hadn't been to work. So it was a mistake.

5:15

That gives me chills that this whole

5:17

time you're thinking she's fine and you got

5:19

some bad information. Yes. And right

5:22

away I contacted the police and the police

5:24

came to my house. Captain

5:27

Todd Morris of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's

5:29

Department would become the lead investigator. He

5:31

focused on the fact that Tahara's car was missing,

5:34

a 2004 blue Jaguar. Are

5:37

you thinking that maybe someone stole her car?

5:39

Well, it could have been. She could have

5:41

been a victim of an armed robbery or

5:43

carjacking. But after a quick look

5:45

around, he decided that didn't make sense. Why

5:48

would she leave her purse? Why would she leave her identification?

5:50

Okay, if she was driving her vehicle. We have personal items

5:52

that you would normally take with you and you leave to

5:54

go visit a friend or go to the store. Ahmed

5:57

told the investigator he hadn't seen his mom since...

6:00

Saturday morning and now it

6:02

was Monday. Did you feel like

6:04

two days was a lot to wait to call

6:06

the police? Well, it's kind of unusual if

6:08

you have a close relationship with your mother. Are

6:10

alarm bells going off for you as an

6:12

investigator with everything you're seeing and hearing? Yeah, things

6:14

were not adding up in our mind of what

6:17

happened here, what could have happened to Miss Kissimmee.

6:20

Morris entered the missing woman's car into the

6:22

police database and within a few hours,

6:25

police had their first real break in the case. The

6:28

night before, Tahara's blue Jaguar was

6:30

discovered abandoned in an industrial part

6:32

of town. And that

6:35

wasn't all. At two o'clock in

6:37

the morning, we have her vehicle that was burned

6:39

up. The car had been

6:41

torched, but was she in it? The

6:58

Harrogate's Hummies missing car had been found,

7:00

but in a condition that alarmed the

7:02

investigators who were searching for her. We

7:06

have her vehicle that was burned up,

7:08

you know, six or seven miles

7:11

from her residence at two o'clock in the morning.

7:13

Was her body in the vehicle? No, it was

7:15

not something that has gone wrong with this. Something

7:18

bad had happened, but still no

7:21

sign of Tahara. To

7:23

find her, they needed to know a lot more about her. Hamid

7:28

describes his mother as both traditional

7:30

and adventurous. She

7:32

loved mountain climbing when she was back home.

7:34

She was actually the head of mountain climbing

7:36

of the city of BAM. Really? The woman's

7:39

division. Good mountains in Iran? Beautiful

7:41

mountains in Iran. And she climbed just about

7:44

all of them. Tahara had

7:46

married young. She was already pregnant when her

7:48

husband left Iran to study in the U.S.

7:51

She named their baby Hamid, in honor

7:53

of his father Hamid. My

7:56

whole childhood was always me wondering, where is my

7:58

dad? Where is my dad? Was it

8:00

the family's belief that your

8:03

dad would eventually bring both

8:05

of you over to America? Over to

8:07

the old time, yes. But that was complicated

8:09

and time consuming. Hammed

8:11

was 18 years old by the time his father

8:13

secured a visa and moved him to Baton Rouge.

8:17

Another 10 years went by before Hammed became a

8:19

U.S. citizen and was able to bring his mother

8:21

here. She climbed the biggest mountain

8:23

by coming to America. That

8:25

was a mountain to climb. Definitely. She

8:28

was very persistent to do

8:30

something. Good friend

8:32

and fellow Iranian immigrant Aisha Ismail said

8:34

Tehera was determined to grab a small

8:36

piece of the American dream. She

8:39

quickly mastered English and found a job at

8:41

Walmart. Anything she put her

8:43

mind to it, she was very small. She

8:46

really worked her way up at

8:48

Walmart. She did, yes. She really

8:50

was a hard worker. The

8:53

marriage that had been long distance for two

8:55

decades didn't survive the transition. Tehera

8:58

and her husband broke up. But

9:00

she soldiered on, got a promotion, became

9:03

a manager at Walmart, and

9:05

hoped to one day start her own business. She

9:08

loved cooking, but she was best at baking.

9:10

And she said, this is my dream, that

9:12

one day I would open

9:14

my own bakery. Tehera

9:17

often brought her pastries to Aisha's

9:19

gatherings. Every time I had

9:21

a party, she was there. She would spend the

9:23

night and then we would meet at Harvard, we would

9:25

sleep in the living room. You were

9:27

like girls, like sleepover. Exactly.

9:29

Did you see Tehera as kind of

9:32

a sister? Yes,

9:34

I would say so. Now

9:37

Tehera was missing and police were talking

9:39

to the person closest to her, her

9:42

son. You also are

9:44

discovering this tense relationship between mother

9:46

and son. Correct, yes.

9:49

The single mother had apparently grown

9:51

dependent, even possessive of her

9:53

only child. I could say

9:56

they didn't get along as much because

9:58

they were two different generations. The

10:00

tension was evident when police looked

10:02

at Hamid's phone. Just

10:04

the day before Tehera disappeared,

10:06

he'd sent her a text in Farsi

10:08

cursing her out. We're talking about text

10:10

messages like, leave me the F alone,

10:12

I'm moving out. I

10:15

mean, they were really, really, really, really, really,

10:17

really, really, really, really, really,

10:22

really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,

10:25

really, really, I

10:28

mean, they were really butting heads. Yeah, there

10:30

was definitely tension between he and his mother.

10:32

And so we were trying to figure out

10:34

what is the issue here between him and

10:36

his mom. Captain Morris still

10:38

wondered why Hamid had not called the

10:40

police sooner. He thinks you may

10:42

be at a friend's and then you start

10:44

checking up and calling friends and then you

10:46

stay away. What did Hamid tell you as far

10:49

as what he did that night after he came

10:51

home and realized his mom was missing? Well, when

10:53

he said that he returned home and worked, they

10:55

didn't go anywhere. He stayed at the residence. But

10:57

you come to learn that's not true. Yeah,

11:00

as we went back over

11:02

his timeline and started questioning him more.

11:05

And when they did, a crack in

11:07

his story emerged. Turns

11:09

out, when Hamid talked to investigators,

11:11

he'd left something out. He

11:14

didn't tell them that once he realized

11:16

his mother wasn't at home, his night

11:18

of partying continued. So he

11:20

went back out. He went back out, yes, he

11:22

did. Captain Morris wasn't sure

11:24

what to make of that or if it

11:26

had anything to do with the missing woman. Still,

11:30

that's always very concerning to us when

11:32

we catch him and mistruths. Detectives

11:35

now considered Hamid to be a person

11:37

of interest. We want to kind of

11:39

really lock him in on his timeline and

11:41

verify everything that he had originally told us.

11:44

Once we had the cooperating documents and support

11:46

from the cell phone records, the interview, the

11:48

friends, just make sure there's nothing else that

11:50

was missing. And there was

11:52

something else, something big that

11:54

investigators learned Hamid had not told

11:56

them right away. Just recently, after

11:59

years of learning, living separate lives, Ahmed's

12:01

mother and father had finally divorced

12:03

and Tahara had come into money.

12:07

A lot of it. We

12:09

were thinking, okay, who has the most to

12:11

gain now from the recent settlement from the

12:13

divorce and the money and of course the

12:15

first person would be in line for that

12:17

would be Ahmed, the son. And

12:20

detectives were about to uncover an important

12:22

piece of video that would have them

12:24

asking what the son could tell them

12:26

about this. We could see

12:29

the silhouette of a driver in that vehicle. For

12:37

true crime fans, nothing is more chilling

12:39

than watching Dateline. Have you ever seen

12:41

such a thing before? For podcast

12:43

fans, nothing is more chilling

12:45

than listening. What goes through your mind

12:48

when you make a discovery like that?

12:50

And when you subscribe to Dateline Premium,

12:52

it gets even better. Excuse

12:54

me, I sound a little skeptical. Every

12:57

episode is ad-free. Wow,

13:00

this could be reasonable. And

13:03

not just ad-free, you also get

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what were you afraid of? Dateline

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Premium. Subscribe now on

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what's coming? Hello,

13:25

I'm Keith Morris. It will

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tell you about something we think is pretty cool.

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A new one-stop destination

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originals and start listening now.

14:12

The mad kassimi at first told police he'd

14:14

come home and stayed home on the night

14:16

his mother Tahiro went missing. But

14:19

investigators quickly realized that wasn't the

14:21

whole story. Why

14:24

lie to the police? Because I didn't want my

14:26

mom to find out that I went back out

14:28

and be more upset that I went out when

14:30

I knew that she wasn't home. He

14:33

doesn't deny there was tension in

14:35

the mother-son relationship. Was

14:37

she smothering you? A lot. A

14:41

lot. It was just a

14:43

constant fight. So the police are seeing a

14:45

possible motive here. Right. That she's

14:47

controlling, you know, maybe you got tired of that

14:49

and took care of it and also had a

14:52

financial gain. Right. And you wouldn't

14:54

be the one to get all the money that she just got

14:56

from your dad. Right. Well, you

14:59

want to hear something funny? I didn't know that. I

15:01

had no idea that, you know, I

15:03

was going to be getting the money. But you're her son. Where

15:05

else would it go? I didn't know the rule,

15:07

the laws here of how they work. Either

15:11

way, police now considered Hammed a

15:13

person of interest and he knew it. Was

15:16

it tense? It was nerve-wracking.

15:21

But I knew I had nothing to

15:23

do with it. So I wasn't, you

15:25

know, I was all worried about me. I was

15:27

just worried about finding my mom. As

15:30

police grilled him, he mentioned something that

15:32

happened just a few weeks earlier. He

15:35

said he'd been at his favorite daiquiri bar and stepped

15:38

outside to get something from his car. As

15:40

he left the vehicle, two men jumped

15:42

him so quickly he didn't see their

15:44

faces. I got attacked in a parking

15:46

lot and I went

15:48

to the hospital and received about 14 or 15

15:52

pictures in the back of my head. In

15:54

fact, he said the reason his mom planned to buy

15:56

him a new comforter was that his wounds had blood

15:58

on the old one. Detectives

16:00

had to consider the possibility that someone

16:03

was targeting the family. Tahara's

16:05

friend Aisha remembered something eerie she'd

16:07

recently told her. She said,

16:09

I feel like somebody's following me. I thought

16:12

it was she was imagining. It felt like

16:14

she was being dramatic. Yes, that's

16:16

what I thought. Now she

16:18

believed her friend was right. And

16:20

investigators discovered something that supported that

16:23

theory. We were checking some

16:25

businesses on the backside of her

16:27

residence. They have several offices, office

16:29

complexes there. And so we began

16:31

looking at video systems there. Security

16:35

camera footage captured this Chevy Tahoe in a

16:37

parking lot on the other side of the

16:39

fence from Tahara's backyard. The

16:41

time stamp was from the night she disappeared.

16:45

It pulled into the area there and turned

16:47

off its lights. And so we

16:50

said, OK, who is this? Can you see faces

16:52

in the vehicle? Can you get a license plate?

16:54

We cannot get a license plate. We can see

16:56

the silhouette of a driver in that vehicle. When

16:59

detectives asked him about the Chevy Tahoe, he

17:01

said he'd never seen it before. Police

17:04

took a screenshot and posted it on the

17:06

local Crime Stoppers site. Almost

17:08

right away, they seemed to strike

17:10

gold. They're looking for this Z71

17:12

packaged Tahoe. And

17:14

that's our Tahoe that we traded. I know that's

17:17

the car. Baton Rouge

17:19

car dealers Tommy Brignak and Zeke

17:21

Avsi immediately recognized the Tahoe. It

17:24

was a 2002 model with unique

17:26

features. The Z71 has

17:28

fender flares, running boards, different wheels.

17:30

So that's what made it distinctive.

17:32

You still got like a unicorn.

17:36

What are you thinking? Our minds are churning.

17:38

We actually went to the sheriff's office together

17:41

to report a look. This may be our

17:43

vehicle that we actually have in

17:45

our inventory. But here was

17:47

the detail that caught the attention of investigators.

17:50

They knew that Tahoe's ex-husband owned a

17:52

luxury car dealership in town called

17:55

Import One. And that's

17:57

the dealership where Tommy and Zeke worked. A

18:00

vehicle identified as coming from in

18:02

Port 1 owned by

18:05

Hamid Gassimi. And so within, okay, we need

18:07

to get some more information here. Lots

18:10

of people in the sheriff's office already knew

18:12

about Hamid Gassimi. He was

18:15

popular and admired in Baton Rouge,

18:17

the embodiment of the immigrant success

18:19

story. I find it pretty

18:21

remarkable that you can move here from Iran with

18:23

no money and then ending up

18:26

opening a car dealership. Yes,

18:28

yes. Hard work. When

18:31

Hamid arrived in Baton Rouge in the 80s,

18:33

he had little money, but a lot of

18:35

ambition. You open up a

18:37

little small pizza shop. Rainbow pizza. People

18:40

really liked it. They really did. Soon,

18:42

the industrious entrepreneur began offering customers more

18:44

than what was on the menu. He

18:47

took that money from the pizza store, started

18:49

buying cars. And selling them right

18:51

outside of the store. It wasn't long before

18:53

he left the pizza business altogether and opened

18:56

a dealership. What kind of cars are

18:58

we talking about? Lexus,

19:00

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi.

19:03

If you sell good cars in a very small

19:05

town like Baton Rouge, everybody talks. We

19:08

had like 15 employees. We went from selling 30

19:10

to about 65, 75 cars a month. He

19:14

was very personal with all his clients.

19:16

They would oftentimes let me take cars

19:18

home. And I'd keep them for a

19:20

day to figure out what I really

19:23

wanted. Louisiana State

19:25

Representative Denise Marcel not only

19:27

bought several cars from Hamid, they became

19:29

friends. Hamid knew

19:31

she was an enthusiastic churchgoer. Hamid

19:34

used to send you scripture every

19:36

day? Yes. I thought it

19:38

was very nice. And it would help

19:41

me during the day a lot of times. Detectives

19:44

headed over to Import One to see if they could

19:46

find that Tahoe from the security video. State

19:50

told his staff to help them look through the

19:52

inventory, but the vehicle was gone. The

19:54

Tahoe that employees Tommy and Zeke remembered had

19:57

recently been sold at auctions. told

20:00

Captain Morris he was praying for her

20:02

safe return and added the investigator to

20:05

his prayer circle. He started sending me

20:07

his morning prayers after our initial contact.

20:10

It would not be their last contact. A

20:13

mysterious phone call was about to bring

20:15

the detective closer to finding Tehara. That

20:18

phone call stuck out because that

20:20

number was not on any of the family members'

20:22

phones. It's

20:31

inevitable that detectives looking for a

20:33

missing woman would get

20:35

around to looking at her ex-husband. And after

20:38

investigators learned about a possible connection between that suspicious

20:40

SUV behind Tehara's house and her ex's

20:42

car lot, they

20:45

dug in. It didn't

20:47

take long to find out that Tehara and Hamid's

20:49

relationship had a complicated history. Remember he left her

20:51

behind in Iran years earlier to study in the

20:54

East. With

20:57

the promise of bringing her over once he was settled.

21:10

But once here, he married an American

21:12

woman and became a U.S. citizen, a secret he

21:14

kept from his family in Iran. Then he

21:16

divorced that wife and started dating a woman

21:18

at work named Heather Rangely. He

21:20

kept that relationship a secret

21:22

too. For

21:27

years, Hamid made excuses for not arranging Tehara's move

21:29

to the U.S. That responsibility fell on her

21:31

son. The

21:41

only reason that I stayed in the United

21:43

States was to be able to bring her

21:45

to America, because I knew that was

21:47

her only dream at that

21:50

point. By

21:52

then it was 2005 and her husband was married to

21:54

yet another woman. Aisha

21:56

says it was a shock when Tehara finally realized

21:58

he never really knew. really wanted her here. When

22:02

she came, she found out that he was

22:04

married. Oh, that must have been so hard

22:06

for her. Of course. She

22:08

was so heartbroken. That

22:10

wasn't the auto dealer's only strange relationship.

22:13

His son worked for him at the dealership when

22:15

he was younger, and the two fought bitterly. He

22:18

had no problem whacking him across his face

22:20

in front of everybody. I remember talking to

22:22

my mom on the phone, and the phone

22:24

bill being expensive one month, and he took

22:26

it out of my paycheck. By

22:29

the time his parents were divorcing, Hamid says

22:31

he was firmly in his mother's camp. I

22:34

just wanted my mom to get what

22:36

she was deserving and nothing else. My

22:39

mom asked him from day

22:42

one for $1,500 a month

22:44

alimony, a car, and a

22:46

place to stay. That wasn't a lot to ask

22:48

for. Attorney Tommy

22:51

Gibbs represented Tahira in the divorce. He

22:53

just didn't want to give her a nickel. The

22:56

divorce dragged on for close to eight years.

22:59

Hamid objected to the proceedings on

23:01

novel grounds. He claimed they shouldn't

23:03

be considered married at all. His

23:06

initial defense was they could not

23:08

be legally married because they were

23:10

first cousins, and under Louisiana law,

23:13

first cousins cannot marry. In

23:16

Iran, there's no such law, and it's not

23:18

unusual for relatives to marry each other. That

23:21

particular issue had to go all the way

23:24

up to the Louisiana Supreme Court before it finally

23:26

decided. They recognized that a marriage

23:29

that took place legally in

23:31

another country or state or whatever it

23:33

might be is recognized

23:35

under Louisiana law. So

23:37

in early 2015, three months

23:40

before Tahira went missing, Hamid was

23:42

ordered to give her more than a million

23:44

dollars as well as two properties. He

23:47

told detectives looking into his ex-wife's disappearance that

23:49

he'd had nothing to do with her since.

23:52

But Captain Todd Morris wasn't so sure.

23:55

Do you subpoena Hamid's cell records? Yes,

23:57

ma'am. We subpoenaed his cell phone. to

24:00

see who he was communicating with. One

24:03

call jumped out. It came into

24:05

Hamid's phone just after midnight on the night

24:07

Tahira disappeared and lasted only 17 seconds. When

24:11

detectives traced it, they learned it was from

24:13

a man named Tyler Ashbaugh. That

24:16

phone call stuck out because that number was

24:18

not on any of the family member's phones.

24:20

You needed to find out who this Tyler

24:22

was. We needed to see what Tyler's connection

24:24

was to Hamid. Tyler was

24:26

20 years old and raised in Wisconsin. But after

24:28

being kicked out of school, he'd come to Baton

24:31

Rouge to live with relatives. Captain

24:34

Morris couldn't find any connection between the

24:36

two men. Still, something

24:38

was bothering him. He wanted to know

24:41

more. We wanted a more

24:43

detailed look of where his phone may have

24:45

been located at on the night of the

24:47

disappearance. Because is it a flute call? Is

24:49

it a missed call? Because it's only one

24:52

time. And so we needed to look at

24:54

that more because that was very

24:57

interesting. Investigators

24:59

probed Tyler's electronic footprint, his

25:02

calls and internet searches. It

25:05

would be his Google Maps history on the

25:07

night of Tahira's disappearance that caught their attention.

25:10

These Google coordinates led

25:12

you pretty far out of town. Yes,

25:14

they did. This is

25:17

Highway 116 that comes out of Livingston Parish

25:19

into St. Helena Parish. So

25:28

you can tell this is a very remote area. We're in

25:30

the middle of nowhere. It was

25:32

a popular area for deer hunters. As

25:36

investigators explored the trails, they

25:38

noticed something scattered on the ground. There

25:40

was some small pieces of, like,

25:43

cotton, polyester stuffing. Sometimes we know

25:46

often bodies are wrapped in blankets,

25:49

carpets, comforters. Correct. Captain

25:52

Morris remembered that comforter missing from Hammed's

25:54

bed. They felt that, hey, this

25:57

could be the inside, the material

25:59

of the... and so

26:01

they followed it and they come to an area. The

26:05

trail of cotton led to a patch of

26:07

ground that looked recently disturbed. And

26:09

it was rectangular in shape and it

26:11

had sunken some like it had been fairly

26:14

freshly dug. Then they said, man, is

26:16

this a grave? Morris

26:18

stuck his fingers in the dirt and

26:20

started digging. I just put the

26:22

shovel down and really just started removing the soil with

26:24

my hands. This was a game changer, what you discovered

26:26

here. This

26:57

guy has done this before. He'll do it again.

26:59

Until a group of women banded together to put him

27:01

behind bars and keep him there. You

27:05

have to participate fiercely in what happens next.

27:09

I'm Keith Morrison and this is Murder

27:11

in the Hollywood Hills, an all new

27:13

podcast from Dateline. To

27:15

listen to the latest episodes each week completely

27:17

free, you can find

27:19

and follow Murder in the Hollywood Hills on Amazon

27:21

Music. The

27:36

horrific assembly had been missing for close to six

27:38

weeks. And now police had come

27:40

upon a shallow grave on the outskirts of town.

27:43

As Captain Todd Morris dug through the soil

27:46

on his hands and knees, he felt something

27:48

soft. We see a comforter

27:50

and it's the description of the comforter which

27:52

is missing from the residence. And

27:55

then we realize that there is a human

27:57

body in this that ended up being a

27:59

Miska-semi. The

28:02

detective's missing persons case was now

28:04

officially a homicide investigation. How

28:07

was it determined that she died? Two gunshot

28:09

wounds to her head. Captain

28:11

Morris needed to talk to Tyler

28:14

Ashbaugh immediately. It was

28:16

his phone that led them to Tahara. Morris

28:19

tracked him down and brought him into the sheriff's office.

28:22

Need to know his involvement. I don't know what you're talking about. I

28:24

wasn't there. I don't know Miss Kissimmee.

28:26

And I tried to develop a rapport with him.

28:28

And eventually, you know, he

28:30

admitted to his involvement in the

28:32

abduction and kidnapping and killing of

28:34

Miss Kissimmee. He confessed? He

28:37

confessed. He admitted to kidnapping

28:39

and shooting Tahara. And he had not

28:41

acted alone. We knew he

28:43

was not by himself. And we need to find out what

28:46

other suspects are with him.

28:49

So Morris took him back to the beginning, to

28:52

the morning of the murder. Tyler

28:54

said a teenage friend of his named Skylar

28:56

Williams reached out about making some quick cash.

28:59

They'd think, wow, $10,000. You know, that's

29:01

a lot of money. The

29:04

job was a murder for hire. He

29:06

and his friend went to a nearby Home Depot to

29:08

pick up supplies. We recovered

29:10

video of him and Skylar walking

29:13

into the Home Depot. They purchased some

29:15

rope and a box utility cutting knife.

29:20

Then later that day, the two met up with the

29:22

man who'd recruited Skylar for the job.

29:24

His name was Daniel Richter. Did

29:27

you look into his history? Yes, he had done

29:29

some time for a rape. Tyler

29:33

knew nothing about that. He told investigators

29:35

he was just thinking about the payday.

29:39

He said Daniel Richter drove them over to

29:41

Tahara's house that night. They brought a .22 caliber

29:43

pistol and a syringe full of insulin.

29:46

East Baton Rouge Assistant District Attorney Dana

29:48

Cummings had joined the case. She

29:51

says Richter dropped off Tyler and Skylar and

29:53

they hid in the driveway. They're

29:56

wearing masks. Apparently, Tahara

29:58

went to her house. car to

30:00

get something out and at that point

30:02

in time they grabbed her. They'd muffled

30:04

her mouth and brag her back into

30:07

the kitchen area. Richter

30:09

joined them inside. Tehera tried to

30:11

escape but she was no match for the

30:13

three men. They'd injected

30:16

her with whatever it was that they

30:18

had to inject her with and

30:20

she was unconscious on the floor.

30:23

At that point they wrapped her

30:25

up in Hamid's comforter

30:28

and loaded her in the back of her

30:30

own car which was a jaguar. The

30:34

men headed down the rural highway toward the

30:36

site where Tehera was found. They

30:38

opened the trunk of the car

30:41

and she is moaning so she's

30:43

still alive. And that's when Tyler

30:45

takes the .22 and

30:48

shoots Miskasimi in the head. Investigators

30:51

say the killer's then headed to a bowling alley

30:53

to get paid. The money was

30:55

coming from a person Daniel Richter referred to

30:58

as the old man. But

31:00

he wasn't there so Daniel borrowed Tyler's

31:02

phone and made that 17 second call.

31:06

The old man said he wanted the three to come

31:08

to him. They went to

31:10

his residence where he paid

31:12

them the $10,000. The

31:16

old man, no surprise, was

31:18

Hamid Gassimi. If

31:20

he and the hired guns had been trying

31:22

to communicate on the down low that one

31:24

call from Tyler's phone had been a major

31:27

screw up. That phone

31:29

call unraveled a diabolical murder plot.

31:31

That phone call, one phone call unraveled

31:34

his whole plot to get away with killing

31:37

his ex-wife. Tyler said

31:39

that after they got paid Hamid had

31:41

one more request. He also

31:43

gave them a gas can and told them to go

31:45

burn the car. And we had

31:47

also located some video from that area.

31:51

You can see the vehicle engulfed in flames.

32:00

of being one of the mechanics at Import One. Import

32:03

One, Hamid Gethsemane's

32:05

dealership. Prosecutors

32:08

learned that Daniel had been spending a lot of time

32:10

with Hamid and trying hard to impress

32:12

him. Here he is.

32:14

You know, he's got a felony conviction.

32:16

He's got this job there. But this

32:18

is his opportunity to be in his

32:21

eyes taken care of by

32:23

this man who has all these resources in

32:25

this great business. It

32:28

was Richter who'd taken the Tahoe from the

32:30

dealership and parked it in the lot just

32:32

behind Tahara's house. Now,

32:35

in a span of just nine hours, Captain

32:38

Morris had a body and a

32:40

confession. And

32:42

with that, Hamid, along with his

32:44

three alleged accomplices, were arrested for

32:46

Tahara Gethsemane's murder. A

32:49

detective called Tahara's son, it had unraveled

32:51

so fast that Hamid learned both pieces

32:53

of news at once. His

32:56

mother was dead and father under

32:58

arrest. Oh my goodness.

33:00

So that's a heavy, heavy phone

33:02

call. Very,

33:05

very heavy. So many

33:07

emotions. All at once between

33:09

your mom and your dad. I mean,

33:11

that's how do you process? Everything was gone.

33:14

At that moment, just everything was

33:16

gone. All the world

33:19

came crashing down. And I

33:22

just realized that I was left alone.

33:26

Zeke from the car dealership had worked for

33:28

Hamid for years and admired him

33:30

so much he could hardly believe that

33:32

the tip he'd given police led to

33:34

his boss's arrest. I guess that just tells

33:36

you all that anybody can

33:38

get in a very dark place

33:40

in their lives, and they could have

33:43

these type of thoughts.

33:45

Why only $10,000? It

33:47

seems like if you're going to carry out a

33:49

big murder plot, that's not a whole lot of

33:52

money. That's what I

33:54

mean negotiated. That's what it is.

33:57

Is this his car salesman coming

33:59

out? You always get what you pay for in

34:01

our business. So case

34:03

closed? Not exactly. One

34:06

more person in the family was about

34:08

to find himself in trouble, halfway around

34:10

the world, and in a way

34:12

he never saw coming. I was

34:14

arrested and I was thrown in jail. Hamid

34:30

Ghassami was behind bars, accused of

34:33

killing his ex-wife Tehera. Their

34:36

son Hamid could barely process what was

34:38

happening. He'd worked so hard to bring

34:40

his mother to America, only for it to

34:42

end like this. I

34:45

always thought she would grow old

34:48

and hold my kids, her

34:50

grandkids. With

34:53

that dream now shattered, Hamid focused

34:55

on honoring his mother's life. Her

34:57

wish was to be buried in Iran. Yes,

34:59

her wish was to be buried in her

35:02

hometown. Family friend

35:04

Denise Marcel thought it was a bad

35:06

idea. And I don't know why I was

35:08

having like an eerie feeling about it. Hamid's

35:10

mother was laid to rest in

35:12

the family burial ground. But instead

35:15

of finding closure, what happened next

35:17

was the start of a whole new nightmare.

35:20

So I buried my mom and the

35:23

next day I was arrested and

35:25

I was thrown in jail for

35:27

charges of conspiracy against the Iranian

35:29

government. Hamid was accused

35:32

of trying to convert Muslims to

35:34

Christianity, a capital offense in the

35:36

Islamic Republic. Were

35:38

you trying to convert people? No. So

35:41

where does this arrest come from? My

35:44

father. You think your father? Yes. Pulled

35:46

some strings? Yes. He

35:49

says his father had connections with powerful people

35:51

in their home country. To him,

35:53

it was the only explanation that made sense.

35:56

I was shoved into a small room

35:58

that was dark and... A

36:02

lawyer for Hamid Gethsemi told Dateline Hamid

36:04

had nothing to do with his son's

36:06

arrest. He

36:12

managed to reach friends back in

36:15

the U.S. Denise, the Louisiana state

36:17

representative, worked her connections. I

36:20

started calling congressmen and saying, can y'all please

36:22

help get him out. What kind of response

36:24

did you get? They said that they were

36:26

going to reach out and do what they

36:29

could to help. They finally brought me in

36:31

front of a judge again, and that's when

36:33

I was allowed to have an attorney, and

36:36

he was able to talk the

36:38

judges into letting

36:41

me out on bail. Hamid

36:43

didn't wait around for his next court date.

36:46

Three days later, I was on a flight on

36:48

my way out of Iran. After

36:51

more than a year in Iran, he returned

36:53

to Baton Rouge, where prosecutors had been building

36:55

a case against his father and the alleged

36:57

hit team. Assistant District

36:59

Attorney Dana Cumming struck a deal

37:01

with Tyler Ashbaugh. And Tyler's

37:03

your witness? At

37:06

that point, they got the ball rolling.

37:08

Got the ball rolling. Tyler

37:11

was set to turn on the other defendants, but

37:13

then he was found dead in his

37:15

cell at Angola Prison. The

37:18

coroner told Dateline he died from a

37:20

fentanyl overdose. This is a problem. Your

37:22

witness has died in jail. Exactly.

37:26

So prosecutors turned their attention to

37:28

Daniel Richter, the mechanic from import

37:30

one. They offered

37:32

him a deal, testify against his former

37:34

boss Hamid, in exchange for a lesser

37:37

manslaughter charge with 30 years behind

37:39

bars. He took it. So

37:42

you're back on track. Yeah, thank goodness. Hamid's

37:46

trial began in August of 2023,

37:48

eight years after Tahara's abduction and

37:50

murder. He was now 72

37:52

years old and used a wheelchair. Were

37:55

any words exchanged? Any looks? When

37:58

I looked at him... He put his

38:00

head down. That was sure of guilt.

38:04

To me. Prosecutors set

38:06

out to prove that guilt. They

38:08

called on Zeke Avsi to connect to

38:10

Hera's murder to Hamid's dealership. Zeke

38:13

testified about how the Tahoe used in the

38:15

crime came from Hamid's lot. And

38:18

he remembered that shortly before the murder,

38:20

a big chunk of cash from the

38:22

sale of a car mysteriously disappeared. I

38:25

would think a boss would be upset if

38:27

$13,000 went missing. But

38:30

he wasn't. But he wasn't that upset about it. I just

38:32

still will find it or whatever, that type of thing. But

38:34

that was the last I had heard of it. Prosecutors

38:38

argued Hamid wasn't upset because he'd

38:40

taken the money himself and used it

38:42

to pay the hit team. The

38:45

prosecution's new key witness, Daniel Richter,

38:47

also took the stand. He

38:50

told the jury that hours before the murder,

38:52

Hamid gave him a gun and that syringe

38:54

with insulin. And Hamid had told

38:56

him, just stick it in her neck, and

38:59

she's going to have a heart attack and die. And

39:01

Richter dropped this bombshell in the courtroom.

39:04

Tahoe wasn't the only target. He

39:07

said Hamid wanted his son killed too.

39:10

He thought if he killed Tahoe, the

39:12

money would go to Hamid. And if

39:15

he killed Hamid, the money would go

39:17

to him. So he would get his

39:19

money back. And I believe that's why he wanted

39:21

to kill both of them. But

39:23

the son wasn't home. Blowing off

39:25

dinner with his mother had apparently saved his

39:28

life. Hamid wasn't there.

39:30

They didn't want to wait. They were afraid

39:32

they would get caught as well. And

39:34

remember how Hamid had been attacked outside the

39:36

bar a few weeks before the murder? Prosecutors

39:39

uncovered evidence that his dad might

39:41

have been behind that too. Skylar

39:45

Williams told them he'd been hired by Hamid to

39:47

beat up his son. No one

39:49

was ever charged in the attack. And prosecutors didn't

39:51

make it part of the case. But

39:54

Hamid was convinced his father was out to get

39:56

him. You really struggled in court.

39:58

It was hard for you. To

40:00

see him. A lot of tears. A

40:02

lot of tears. A lot of emotions. Despite

40:06

the evidence, Hamid's defense attorney, Bob

40:08

Noel, denied his client had anything

40:10

to do with the murder plot or

40:13

the parking lot attack on Hamid. He

40:15

still maintains that he didn't do it. He

40:18

told the jury to look at the man who

40:20

police initially suspected. Basically,

40:23

the person with the most gain by her

40:25

death was Hamid. The defense

40:27

alluded that there was tension

40:29

between Hamid and his mom

40:32

and that Hamid himself

40:34

might have had a motive to

40:36

want to kill his mother and get her money. Yeah,

40:39

can you imagine after Hamid is unsuccessful

40:41

in killing Hamid, he decides

40:43

he's going to blame the murder on him, which

40:46

is amazing to me. After

40:48

all he'd been through, the loss of

40:51

his mother, imprisonment in Iran, this

40:53

felt like the ultimate betrayal. I'd

40:56

only heard, you know, in stories

40:59

where parents did such horrible

41:01

things to their kids. I never could

41:04

think that my own father

41:06

would do this to me. After

41:09

seven days of testimony, it took jurors

41:11

just two hours to reach a verdict.

41:14

Hamid Gassemi was found guilty

41:16

of first-degree murder. Yeah,

41:19

I just cracked for his soul. I

41:23

don't know how you can just live with yourself. He

41:26

was sentenced to life behind bars. Money,

41:29

greed, power, control, that's what this case was

41:31

about. Yes, that's what this case is about,

41:33

yes. In his victim impact

41:35

statement, Hamid let his father know just how

41:38

evil he believed him to be. I

41:40

said, if you could get out of that wheelchair,

41:42

you would get up and strangle me. Daniel

41:46

Richter and Skylar Williams pleaded guilty to manslaughter

41:48

and were sentenced to 30 years. Like

41:53

Tehera, Hamid has had to climb his own

41:55

mountains. But now he's

41:57

reached the summit, running his own

41:59

successful... car dealership. I wanted

42:01

to do something that I was good at. And

42:05

why not go in the car business

42:07

that I'd already known so much about.

42:10

The one thing your dad gave you was

42:12

he taught you about the car business.

42:15

But my way of doing business

42:17

and his way are completely different.

42:21

Today he's living the way his mother always wanted.

42:24

One of your mom's dreams was

42:26

that you would marry a woman from

42:28

Iran. Yeah. And you did. I

42:31

sure did. I now pronounce your husband. I'm

42:35

married to a beautiful lady that

42:37

loves me just as much as I love her. She

42:42

makes you a better person. Every day. Understands

42:44

your culture, your world. Understands

42:46

my culture. She knows everything about

42:49

my mother. It's like your mom

42:51

hand-picked her almost from above. Right.

42:53

And put her in my life. That's

43:00

all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you

43:02

again Friday at 9, 8 central. And

43:05

of course I'll see you each weeknight for

43:07

NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester

43:09

Holt for all of us at NBC

43:12

News. Good night. Friday

43:22

night on Dateline. She was

43:24

the prime suspect in a cold-blooded

43:26

murder. We can't find her. She's

43:28

gone. The inside story of how

43:30

they brought a killer to justice.

43:32

Wow, this took an unexpected turn.

43:35

Dateline Friday at 9, 8 central. Only

43:38

on NBC.