Teen stabs father 45 times at family’s store, then goes to school, Indiana cops say
A 16-year-old boy stabbed his father to death at his family’s store, cleaned up his tracks and went to school, Indiana investigators say.
Fort Wayne police found 52-year-old Tawfika Al-Malahi dead — his torso, neck and head covered in wounds — at his convenience store, on the morning of Feb. 7, according to Allen County court documents. Someone stabbed him 45 times, cut his throat and bludgeoned his head, with some of the damage having been done after he was dead.
The camera surveillance system was unplugged from its recording device and the cash register opened, as if the store had been robbed, documents said. These were attempts to stage the scene, detectives would later learn.
When investigators spoke with Al-Malahi’s son, he told them he had been at school since 8 a.m., documents said. But a look at Northrop High School’s attendance records showed the teen didn’t arrive until 11:40 a.m.
While no video was captured inside the store itself, investigators rounded up footage from a city bus and an elementary school that allowed them to track the teen’s movements, according to investigators.
Video taken outside the elementary school showed the teen riding a bike up to a dumpster around 11 a.m. and tossing in a garbage bag, documents said. Inside the bag, detectives found the missing DVR for the store’s camera system, two knives, clothes, plastic gloves, an empty bottle of bleach, and “a metal device” with bits of skin and hair sticking to it.
Sitting in an interview room with police, Al-Malahi’s son said he killed him, according to court documents.
The night prior to the killing, he left a door to the store unlocked, allowing him to slip in unnoticed in the morning before his father, documents said.
He hid behind a table and waited, he told detectives. When Al-Malahi arrived, he walked right past his son having no idea he was there until an arm reached out from behind and pulled him backward, while another plunged a knife into his back again and again, according to court documents.
It was his mother’s knife, the teen told investigators.
Next he battered his dad’s head with a piece of metal, documents read. The man fell to the floor, facing up, and his son drove the knife into his chest several times more before cutting his throat.
Then he went about cleaning the scene and getting rid of what evidence he could, documents read. He also took the money out of the cash register to make it look like a robbery.
Police charged the teen with murder and he was taken to the Allen County Juvenile Center. No motive was provided for the killing in court documents.
An initial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 16, court records show.
17-year-old not allowed to borrow family van shoots his dad, Colorado cops say
‘Unthinkable’: Man kills 22-year-old pregnant mom and unborn child, Florida cops say
Dad’s fight with his son ends with one shot in restaurant parking lot, Georgia cops say
Son stole dad’s Social Security benefits after he disappeared in Florida, feds say
