Snapped: Women Who Murder - Omaima Nelson

Episode Date: April 18, 2021

When a beautiful woman's much older husband disappears under mysterious circumstances, police suspect that more than just the woman's story has been cooked up.Season 14, Episode 1Original air date: November 9, 2014Watch 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 Wonder East 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. Oh, Mima Ari left Egypt looking for a better life. She was on her own in America. And it wasn't long before she met and married a man 20 years, her senior, Bill Nelson. He was kind of a flamboyant, large, belt buckles kind of guy.

It was a whirlwind romance. Within four weeks, they were very serious. And just as quickly, their month-long marriage ended in a horrific death. There were body parts. The investigation would reveal a crime of unspeakable violence. It ranks as the most gruesome crime

scene that I've ever encountered. You don't hear reports of cannibalism every day. And lead to even more disturbing claims about Omaima's grip on reality. Ancient Egyptians either talk with her or act super. Something slightly told me that I have to do it like demons. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient.

I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I'm going to be a little bit more patient. I orange county suburb just south of Los Angeles.

Coast Mesa is right next to Newport Beach, which is like what people consider after Orange County. Many a bedroom community and at around nine that morning, Jose Esquevel was in his bedroom, sleeping late when something woke him. Just knocking on the door, knocking on the door, frantically. Jose didn't answer, however. He looked out the windows, saw a red corvette in the driveway. It wasn't familiar to him, so he went back to sleep.

And after several minutes of frantic knocking, the woman at his door gave up. But four hours later, she returned. She comes back at 1-1-30 and catches him with the front door open. And when she walked in his front door, Jose relies that he did know her. A beautiful 23-year-old named Omaima Nelson.

Jose had dated her briefly more than a year earlier. Tim and his roommates, he'd hung out and partied. This time, she wasn't there to party, however. She had some injuries. She was visibly upset. Had been crying. She started to tell him a story that made chills go up his spine. Omima told Jose that her husband, 56-year-old Bill Nelson,

had attacked her. Her story was Nelson had tied her up and had raped her. Omima said that she had eventually managed to escape, but that wasn't all she told Jose. She says, I need some help. I need some help. What do you need help with? I just killed my husband. But the most chilling part of Omima's story

was yet to come, a gruesome twist that would shock the entire community and raise disturbing questions about Omaima. Omaima's story began 23 years earlier and almost 8,000 miles away. She was born in the south of Egypt near the Sudanese border. Growing up in a poor farming village, life was hard, and Omaima's life was even harder than most. The family situation is chaotic. Her father was known as a violent man.

Had a very bad temper. Her parents divorced. Once her parents split, Omaima's mother took her to Cairo to an area called the City of the Dead, a teaming slum where half a million people scraped by amid the city's vast cemeteries. The City of the Dead is homes surrounded by graves. That was not an easy existence for her.

Omima longed for a better life, and in 1986, the beautiful 18-year-old met someone who could help her find it. She meets an American oil worker in Egypt, and they get involved to the point where the family intervenes. And when her family insisted they get married, Omaima agreed. She was no longer a virgin, and she felt that no Muslim man would accept her. Besides, marrying an American offered her a way out of Cairo's crowded slums.

She saw him as her ticket to freedom. She married him, she moved to the United States. He took her to Texas when his job ended in Egypt. But soon after their arrival in Texas, the job ended in Egypt. But soon after their arrival in Texas, the marriage ended in divorce. And Omaima still in her teens was a stranger in a strange land. She was a girl without very good English.

She was on her own in America. This Egyptian girl in America was completely overwhelmed. But her exotic beauty did offer her a way to get by. She was kind of exotic looking dark-skinned, petite, and what you'd consider a very attractive. Her way of survival turned out to be meeting men in bars. For the next few years, Omaima drifted from one brief relationship to the next, eventually ending up in Orange County, California.

Young girls came out here all the time, searching, paying and paying for it. It would be an attractive place for anybody to move to. You can just see people truly living the dream. Of course, living the dream took something Omaima had never had. Money. She didn't really have any job skills. Cleaning house is basically what she was doing. She worked as a nanny sometimes. And she still used her beauty to get by.

She occasionally found work as a model. But then, while having a drink at a local bar in October of 1991, the part-time model caught the eye of a man who just might give her the stability that she had lacked since arriving in America. Bill Nelson was a character, the kind people call larger than life. We had this very vibrant personality, very big presence. He's the kind of guy that people would kind of look at when he walked into the room. Bill was originally from Texas and it showed.

Nelson had a red Corvette. He had red cowboy boots. He was kind of a flamboyant, large belt buckle kind of guy. He'd talk loud and was curious, not going in kind of a character. He sort of projected the image as being a sort of rich Texan type and claimed to own a lot of stuff, including a cattle ranch. He was also 56, easily old enough to be Omaima's father. He had five children, 17 grandchildren.

But it didn't appear to bother Omaima. She was attracted to older men because she thought older men would be nicer. Omaima was looking for a relationship with someone who would take care of her. She needed to feel wanted and loved. Besides, Bill didn't act old, at least not when he was around her. They acted like two teenagers in love. The two of them. Seem like they were smitten with each other.

It was a whirlwind romance. Within four weeks, they were very serious. In fact, Bill was so serious about Omaima that less than a month after they met, he asked her to accompany him on a road trip. They traveled to Texas and to friends and family of bills in Arkansas. He wanted to introduce Omaima to his family. Bill wanted to show off his new arm candy.

And along the way, Bill and Omaima made their relationship official. They got in his red corvette and they drove straight to Phoenix where they found a justice of the peace and got married. The relationship makes complete sense. Bill was lonely. Omaima is new to this country. She too wants a companion and not only that, she wants a companion who's going to take care of her. However, when Bill's children met the newlyweds, the relationship didn't seem sensible at all to them, especially since some of them were older

than their new stepmother. They're very suspicious of Wilmaima. She didn't quite fit their image. If you didn't know about that initial spark that attracted them to each other, you'd think, wow, that's an odd couple. Still, they were willing to give her a chance, especially after an accident while horseback riding

showed there was more to Omaima than just a pretty face. Omaima had been bucked from the horse. Everybody thought she should seek some type of medical attention, but she just asked for a pass for some vodka and went on with it. And that struck Bill's daughter as being the scale is one tough cookie. After a couple weeks visiting Bill's family and friends in Arkansas

and Texas, the couple drove home to California. And by Thanksgiving, Bill and Omaima had settled back into his Orange County apartment where based on what Bill told his daughter, the newlyweds had plenty to be thankful for. Bill Nelson talked to his stepdaughter on Thanksgiving Day,

told her that he had a turkey dinner and with all the fixings and everything was great. There were no problems. But just three days later, Omaima would knock on Jose Escavel's door and tell him that she had just killed her husband. But just three days later, Omaima would knock on Jose Esquevel's door and tell him that she had just killed her husband. Coming up, Omaima makes some startling accusations.

And the police make a blood-curdling discovery. There were body parts. The end. The end. The end. The end. Costa Mesa, California, December 1, 1991. It was around 2 o'clock in the afternoon when a man named Jose Esquevel found a woman at his front door asking for help.

It's a Mime and Nelson. A woman he had met a few years so back. They had gone out a few times back then, but she'd since married a man named Bill Nelson. So Jose was understandably surprised when the 23-year-old beauty had shown up at his apartment that afternoon with a shocking story.

That her husband had raped her, had beat her up, had put her through a few days of sexual bondage. According to what she had told Jose, Omaima had managed to escape, however. She had gotten an arm loose, hit him with a lamp. And she had apparently hit him hard. She killed it. However, Jose said that the fact that Omaima had just killed her husband

wasn't the most shocking part of her visit that afternoon. According to Jose, it was what she had asked him to do about it, help dispose of his body. She said that she'd cut up her husband and put him in trash bags and needed some type of a truck or a vehicle to help her get the trash bags and dispose of. Jose claimed that she had offered to pay him too. He's got $75,000 in a safe, two motorcycles in his garage, and I'll give those to you. Jose had played alone.

And if she'd waited for his apartment, he'd come back with a truck and he'd help her out. Oh, Mima had agreed, and Jose had left. Although instead of going for his truck, he'd rush to the nearest pay phone. He went and dialed 911 and talked to the police instead. And when police arrived at Jose's apartment a few minutes later, they found Oh, Mima waiting for him to return. Oh, Mima was obviously distraught. She was very upset as if she'd been crying.

And in addition to being distraught, Omaima's appearance appeared to confirm her account of a sexual assault. She had visible injuries to her face and her breast and her arms. Although, despite her condition, Omaima said she didn't need the police. She immediately denied everything that had been reported

by Mr. Eskabel to the police department. In fact, she swore that her husband Bill was very much along. She says he's in Florida on a business trip. She told officers that if she had no way to get in touch with him, she really hadn't lived with them very long. She seems cooperative, but the answer is that she's giving to questions or a little bit bizarre. Unconvince by Omaima's story, the police at the scene took a closer look

at the red corvette she'd driven to Jose's apartment. When he looks in the passenger seat, he sees this bag. And when one of the officers looked inside the bag, he was shocked and revolted by what he saw. He lifts up something right above the bag line, drops his knife and everything. It appears to be organs. They were human organs. We have a corner's investigator that responds to the scene. He said, yeah, you see little black spots on the lung? I said, yeah, I said, that's carbon.

And that's from smoking. It was clear that Omaima wasn't telling police the truth. At that point, we had a homicide. While Omaima was transported to the Costa Mesa Police Department for questioning, the investigators dispatched officers to the apartment she shared with Bill. They knocked at the door to see Police Department for questioning. The investigators dispatched officers to the apartment she shared with Bill. They knocked at the door to see if anybody was home.

And when no one answered. They forced entry into the apartment by breaking the front window. Once inside, the officers discovered quite a mess. The apartment was cluttered. There was a lot of computer boxes around. Bill Nelson was involved in reprogramming computers and assembling them from spare parts.

But other than the clutter? Just going in, you don't see anything. You would not know anything was wrong at all. Meanwhile, at police headquarters, the homicide investigators sat down with Omaima. At least the investigators sat. The interview with Omaima was three to four hours. And throughout the entire time, she never really sat down.

Instead, she wandered around the interrogation room, rambling on and on. She'd talk in third person. She'd talk about hallucinating. And most of all, she continued to deny that Bill Nelson was dead. Did you tell him who was anything that you killed your husband? You know my husband? He wished.

He wished, huh? You know I did not. You didn't tell him who's anything. You know what he did not? He didn't tell us anything. He didn't ask. He doesn't know what he got to start. And the bag of human organs in the car, Omaima blamed that on Bill. And why would she think that? According to Omaima, her larger-than-life husband was a dangerous man. He had been recently a parold from the federal system. There were some indications that he may have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency.

He was a pilot, and it was actually piloting these DC-3s out of a airport in Laredo, Texas and going down to Mexico and Columbia. And on one of his return trips. He was discovered with a plane full of marijuana. He ends up doing a federal prison sentence for drugs muggling. Although according to Omaima, while Bill had gone to jail for drug running,

she claimed he'd committed far worse crimes. It was a good morning. I felt like that. Omaima claimed that Bill had tied her up and raped her too. I said, I'm not tied in the absolute. I said, my shoulder's like this, but I guess I should. That's what you should look like. Yeah, and I've literally been.

Although when pressed about how she'd escaped and what happened to Bill, Omaima continued to deny what she'd supposedly told Jose. I just know why everybody did that. He can't do that. Omaima was a basket case, apparently unable or unwilling to explain just how she'd ended up at Jose's apartment with a bag full of internal organs. So with the interrogation at an impasse, the investigators decided to try another approach.

She was sent to the hospital for sexual assault examination. And also to document all these injuries, she has a lot of lacerations, contusions, and bruises on her body. While Omaima was being questioned, the investigators at her place had eventually found signs that despite their initial appraisal, something had happened in the apartment,

something horrible. As you began to look more closely, you'd see a little drop of blood on the doorknob, you'd see a little drop of blood on a wall, maybe some blood on a carpet. And amid the clutter of computer boxes, the investigators found several trash bags just like the one they found in the Corvette, including their contents. Once we started opening the trash bags, it became apparent that there were more body parts.

Also in the bags were a broken lamp and an iron. With hair blood on it? Even more disturbing was what the investigators found in the kitchen. They found the hands in the frying pan. They were cooked along apparently with some white turkey meat. And then, in the freezer, the investigators made another gruesome discovery. There was hot dogs. There was peas.

There was carrots. And in the back was Mr. Nelson's head. At least they assumed the severed head belonged to Bill Nelson. She had fried the head in a deep-fired fryer. So it was pretty badly burned. Meanwhile, in the couple's bedroom, the investigators found evidence that at first glance

appeared to fit Omaima's claim that she had been tied up and raped. The battle had two posts. The two posts were broken. Although when the investigators stripped off the sheets, they started to wonder was Omaima the one who had been tied up? There was blood all over the mattress. Looks completely soaked with blood through and through as well as the box ranks.

Suspecting that it was Bill who had been tied up on the bed, the investigators took a closer look at the severed remains. And what they found appeared to confirm their suspicions, a reddish black ring of bruises around each ankle. If you tied it long enough or hard enough, you will leave a bruising. That's what we had on Mr. Nelson. Coming up, the gruesome evidence leads the investigators to a stomach churning conclusion.

We're going to turn up another Jeffrey Dahmer. And Omaima makes a disturbing confession. to a stomach churning conclusion. We're gonna turn up another Jeffrey Dahmer. And Omaima makes a disturbing confession. I'm thinking, I think I need something that I have to do with. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could hang out with celebrities living a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean with all your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder Sam Bankman freed made that dream a reality, but U.S. prosecutors say he was

hiding a dark secret. Barely 30 the young crypto billionaire became a powerful financial figure, but in just one month, his exchange would collapse, and SBF would find himself in handcuffs. It's one of the most dramatic faults from Grace, and represents one of the most spectacular failures of corporate control in American history. Here exclusive tape of Sam and his former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline Ellison, who later admitted something had gone very wrong inside their operation.

From Bloomberg and Wondery comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Bankman Free. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On the evening of December 1, 1991, Costa Mesa, California police had just made a chilling discovery. Inside the apartment, 23-year-old O'Myman Nelson shared with her 56-year-old husband Bill, they found garbage bags full of human remains, a pair of hands floating in a deep fryer,

and wrapped up among the Thanksgiving leftovers in the couple's freezer, a severed human head. These crime scene photos made me want to lose my lunch. They are some of the most gruesome photos I've ever seen. It ranks as the most gruesome crime scene that I've ever encountered. Brought in for questioning, Omaima had denied killing Bill. Instead, she claimed that he had tied her up and raped her. She was paying a picture of him being a very aggressive individual that she may have been sexually abused. So while the forensic team processed the grizzly scene

at her apartment, the investigators had sent Omaima to the hospital. Where it emerged, your trauma physician and a nurse examined her. And the results of the rape exam were negative. No evidence of trauma to her vaginally or angely. Nor did her injuries indicate a struggle, at least not with anyone who was alive. The cuts on her body, inner feet, her hands, her legs were consistent with the indicate a struggle, at least not with anyone who was alive. The cuts on her body and her feet, her hands, her legs were consistent with somebody that

dismembered her human body. And now, with what they believed to be Bill's dismembered remains and evidence suggesting that he'd been the one tied to the couple's bed, the homicide investigators brought O'Mima back to the couple's bed. The homicide investigators brought Omaima back to the station for more questioning. I sat down with Omaima and confronted her with everything we'd found in the apartment. And her response caught the investigators by surprise.

I'm sorry. In a complete contradiction of what she'd previously told the police, Omaima not only admitted Bill was dead. She confessed that she had killed him. I don't remember what I killed him. I don't remember I get off like I said, and I find him in the next crash pack.

I wish I knew what I killed him though. Although according to Omaima, she did know why. Something exciting told me that I had to do it like demons. She began talking about drugs and drug use and alcohol and how she was abused and how mysterious people had contacted her and she see visions. Were the visions simply employed to get out of a murder charge? It was almost as if she was grabbing for anything she could to minimize her involvement in this horrific crime. Or was Omima truly mentally ill?

Either way, Omima wrapped up the bizarre confession with a simple request. The interview over, the investigators booked Omima on murder charges. She was ultimately transferred to the Orange County Women's Jail. Bail was extremely high. She was not let out of custody. And while Omaima sat in jail,

the medical examiner's office confirmed that the dismembered remains were indeed Bill Nelson's. And then began the grizzly process of piecing together how he died. It involved 25 or more wounds to the skull. It was a very violent death. Oh, Mima hadn't stomped there, however. After beating her husband to death,

she'd proceeded to cut up his body methodically, skillfully. The way the body was cut up was actually done fairly professional. Cut was such precision that the coroner's office was very concerned had she done this before. Even more disturbing when the medical examiner weighed all the body parts and compared them with the information on Bill Nelson's driver's license. There was 180 pounds of Mr. Nelson missing. And since they'd already found his severed hands in O'Mymma's deep fryer, it wasn't hard

for the investigators to imagine what had happened to the rest of him. The Jeffrey Dahmer case had just occurred before this. And that was kind of in the back of everybody's mind at that time. Are we going to turn up another Jeffrey Dahmer? Was it possible Omaima had eaten her husband? You don't hear reports of cannibalism or in scouting every day. Or was there another explanation?

When the investigators interviewed Omaima and Bill's next door neighbor, he reported hearing something that may have provided a clue. He said that whole weekend, the garbage or disposal ran and went, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, to the point he said that broke late Saturday night early Sunday. And a few hours later, she had gone knocking

on an old boyfriend's door, asking for help. She needed to dispose of it. She was having trouble figuring out exactly how to do that. But what about the possibility that he wasn't Omaimas first victim? For that, the investigators spent the next several days digging into her background. What they found suggested that in some ways,

the investigators' instincts were right. Bill Nelson wasn't Omimus' first victim. She basically had set up a pattern where she would meet men and bars and go home and live with them. She was a kind of low-ranked gold digger. She would particularly want much, other than a roof over her. What Omimus was searching for was probably a sugar daddy to take care of her.

However, unlike Bill Nelson, none of Omaima's other sugar daddy's had ended up dead. She would get tired of that relationship for whatever reason, and then end up leaving and stealing from them, either a car or money. Those thefts were the only things things on Omima's record either. She was arrested for stealing in pharmacies, petty thefts. In 1989, 20-year-old Omima had been shoplifting at a local department store. And when two female security guards had tried to search her

for stolen merchandise, Omima had turned violent. She bit the breasts almost off of one security guard, and then grabbed the crotch and brought that female security guard down to her knees and escaped. Eventually arrested, she had been convicted of shoplifting and battery and sentenced to a few months in jail. And by 1990, she was living with another man, one whose relationship with Omaima

ended in circumstances that were eerily familiar. The man's name was Robert Hanson. He informed the authorities that Omaima had lived with him briefly before moving on to Bill Nelson. She thought he was going to be kind and take care of her. He also was very much using her for sex. But their relationship had come to an abrupt end after a sexual encounter that bore some

striking similarities to Bill Nelson's death. According to Mr. Hanson, she wanted some money and he basically said, what are you going to do for me? And she says, I want to tie you up. And once Hanson had consented and let Omaima tie him to the bed, she produced a handgun and threatened to kill him if he didn't give her more money. Fortunately for Hanson, his bonds hadn't been as secure as Omaima thought.

He was able to wrestle himself free, get the gun from her, and essentially kick her out of the house. Embarrassed by the incident, Hanson hadn't called the police at the time, but once he came forward, the Orange County prosecutors were far less forgiving. They introduced those charges against her as well. Omima would be tried for assault, as well as for the murder of her husband.

But more importantly, the prosecutors believed that the assault on Hanson revealed Omima's motive, one that had nothing to do with demons, visions, or sexual abuse. She manipulated men to get what she wanted. She stole from them. There was definitely a pattern. However, as her trial approached, one big question remained.

Why had Bill Nelson ended up dead and dismembered? Why was Nelson different? Is one of the great mysteries. Coming up, on the witness stand, Omaima describes a lifetime of suffering and abuse. She had scar tissue as the result of what had been done to her. And then, her story takes a supernatural turn. Ancient Egyptians talk with her or act through her. on December 2, 1992. 24-year-old O'Myman Nelson went on trial for murder in Orange County, California.

It had been a year and a day since the police had found her husband Bill Nelson's dismembered body. Inside, the apartment they shared. And today, since the police had found her husband, Bill Nelson's dismembered body. Inside the apartment, they shared. Prosecutors realized they had a slam dunk. They had the body. They had the evidence from the house. And they even had a confession. There was one thing they didn't have, however.

A defendant who looked like the gold digger that the investigation had revealed. By the time she stood trial, Omaima looked very different from the lingerie model Bill Nelson had married. She looked sad, really sad. She looked like she'd been through it. But according to the prosecution, it was nothing compared to the ordeal Bill Nelson had been through. In his opening statement, the prosecutor outlined

how Omaima's husband had been tortured to death. We theorized that he entered into a consensual bondage session with Omaima. She tied him to the headboard and probably wanted some type of money or access to his wealth. And according to the prosecution's theory, and probably wanted some type of money or access to his wealth. And according to the prosecution's theory, Bill had refused to request, apparently sending Omima into some sort of rage.

We got the pre-death injuries that could only be interpreted no other way. The prosecutors also had a witness who told a similar story. A former boyfriend of Omaima's named Robert Hanson. He took the stand and described what happened one night when Omaima had tied him to their bed. When she pulled a gun out and she put the gun to my face,

it says she wanted, you know, for me to give her money. When it was their turn, the defense didn't deny He says she wanted for me to give her money. When it was their turn, the defense didn't deny that Omaima had killed Bill. Obviously, she did it. She confessed to it. However, her defense attorney argued that she'd had a reason.

More or less, the same reason she'd originally given Jose Esqueville, the man she'd asked to help her dispose of the body. He presented this defense that she had been abused and battered over the course of their marriage by Bill Nelson. She thought she was being raped, and therefore, did not have the malice for murder. And according to the defense, the abuse had begun back in Egypt when she was only seven years old.

She'd endured a female circumcision. A custom in parts of Africa, the procedure had been performed by the women of her village without the benefit of anesthesia or sterilized instruments. She had the most extreme type, Ben and boss cutting off the clitoris. And she had borne the physical scars of the crude surgery for the rest of her life. Female circumstances made it impossible for her to enjoy sex. She had scar tissue as the result of what had been done to her,

and so intercourse was very painful for her. There were psychological scars, too. It has what we consider the standard effects of horrible trauma, a person develops post-traumatic stress disorder. But according to the defense, that trauma was only the beginning of a lifetime of abuse. Her account is that almost everybody in her family either beat Torture to a molester.

And the defense claim that Almama had coped with the abuse by retreating from her harsh reality. She developed the coping mechanism of living in a fantasy world. Then, to explain the depth of Almama's delusions, the defense called the psychologist who had evaluated her to the stand. I found Omaima to be soft-spoken. I found her to be rather childlike.

She was frequently very sad and often tearful. But most of all, the psychologist testified that Omaima was a deeply disturbed young woman. She began to fantasize that she was descended from ancient Egyptians. Among her delusional beliefs is ancient Egyptians either talk with her or act through her. And according to the defense,

that included the night that Bill Nelson died, November 30, 1991. Although a medical examination had failed to find any evidence that Omaima had been raped, the defense claimed that had been Bill Nelson's intent that evening. In fact, they argued that it was basically an everyday part of his relationship with Omaima.

He demanded Oral sex daily. The Oral sex came with name calling, which was very degrading. And that night had been particularly degrading, according to the defense. He was angry that she wasn't doing it the way he wanted it. But as Bill's anger and his insults mounted, the defense claimed that something had happened to Omaima.

She just snapped. She became psychotic. She told me that ancient Egyptians helped her. According to the defense, the voices in Omaima's head had not only urged her to kill Bill. They had directed her to mutilate his dead body. The ancient Egyptians believed that if your body is scattered, you will not go to the afterlife.

So she cut them out. She was making sure that if she got to the afterlife, he wouldn't be there. However, that the spirits of ancient Egyptians had supposedly told her to dismember her husband's body wasn't the most shocking thing Omaima had revealed during the investigation. She stated that she had cooked some of his ribs in the oven, puts a barbecue sauce on it, and actually tasted it.

She said it tasted sweet just like I like it. On cross, the prosecution did their best to dismiss all the testimony about Omimas mental state. They would like to discount psychiatric issues. They would prefer to look at all of the behaviors of a person that show that they were cunning and calculating. And according to the prosecution, that's exactly what Omimas outrageous claims about ancient Egyptian spirits and cannibalism were, a cunning attempt to build an insanity defense.

The only evidence came out of her mouth. And the jury would hear it straight from Omimah's mouth, too. The climax of the defense's case came when they called her to the stand. Everyone was quite riveted on what she had to say. What I needed to do was to get the jury to focus on what her mental state was at the time she killed. Oh, Mima started by telling the jury that her brief marriage to Bill Nelson had been a month long ordeal.

What began as a hopeful relationship for Omaima turned into what she felt was a nightmare. She claimed that there was sexual assaults going on, including anal sex. She also testified that on their way to visit his family, he'd even threatened to kill her. They were driving across Arizona, and he told her that if she didn't do what he wanted,

he would bury her in the desert. And according to Omaima, she had taken her ex-con husband seriously. Bill served time in a federal jail on drug charges. After I learned about all this drug running stuff, that made me think that he could be an abusive person. And that made me think that he could be in a abusive person. And that made it easier to believe

Omaima's account of what had happened on November 30, 1991. According to Omaima, there was a very violent sexual encounter. One that only ended according to Omaima when she grabbed a lamp off the bedside table She'd take the lamp and broke it over his head and there was a steam iron nearby that she Hit him several times with And then when the handle of the iron broke Omaima said she had grabbed the next weapon that was handy a pair of scissors

that was handy, a pair of scissors. Can I just make it up? Can I get up? Get up. At that point, her memory pretty much goes dark. According to Omaima, she had no memory of dismembering bill and despite the earlier testimony she denied ever tasting him. Instead, she claimed that her next memory was finding herself alone

in the apartment a day later, with bags full of human remains. I was that person. I'm not laid to do. I thought, this is a stranger. I thought, what am I doing in this place? She was very moving. She came across, I believe, as very sympathetic. But would the jury believe Omimah's claims of abuse? Not if the prosecutor had anything to say about it. In his cross examination, he played the jury a video shot on that trip to Texas.

The one where Omaima claimed Bill had threatened to kill her. It just shows them acting like two kids in love, laughing, having a good time. So in the case went to the jurors on December 17th. It all came down to which one they found more persuasive. The prosecution's pictures or O'Mymus harrowing words. It really just becomes this he said versus she said, and Bill Nelson isn't here to defend himself.

Coming up, the jury reaches a decision. I just figured she'd been through a nap. And Omaima's story takes one final twist. He ended up leaving her a lot of money. On January 12, 1993, the jury and Omaima Nelson's trial announced it had finally reached a verdict. The 24-year-old Egyptian immigrant was charged with first-degree murder in the death and dismemberment of 56-year-old Bill Nelson, a man she'd been married to for barely a month. It's not really a question of, did she do it? It's, is this first degree murder? Is it manslaughter? That's really the big decision that the jury has to make.

And it had taken almost a week of deliberations for jurors to come to that decision. I felt sorry for her because I just figured she'd been through enough. We thought we had a chance at either an acquittal based on self-defense. But more likely, we had a chance at an involuntary mass loader. But others felt that whatever Omaima had been through

didn't excuse what she had done to Bill Nelson. They're not going to let somebody walk away who is charged with cannibalism and dismembering the body. Which side had won out? when the verdict was read, the jury found Omaima guilty of murder. However, the jurors apparently couldn't agree on first-degree murder. Instead, they convicted her of the lesser charge

of second-degree murder. I felt that a second-degree verdict fit the crime. We could never really show any premeditation. Omaima was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon for her attempted robbery of Robert Hanson. The sentence was a total amount of 25 years to life. Omaima's attorney saw the fact

that she had dodged a first-degree conviction as something of a victory. The result from the defense standpoint is actually pretty good. But the psychologist who evaluated her maintains that prison is no place for a sick woman. She was treatable. She could have been treated at one of our local California psychiatric hospitals.

And as for Omaima herself, she says, I'm sorry, I just remembered him. I was in a fight for my life. If I didn't kill him, I would have been killed that day myself. She said, I'm not a monster. Monster or victim, the journey that began in an Egyptian village would end in a California prison. Or would it? She and her E.D. Man in prison in a California prison. Or would it?

She and her aide, a man in prison in the 90s, used a visitor in prison in the wheelchair for country-go visits. He was an elderly man, ended up dying and leaving her a lot of money. Even from behind bars, she'd found a man to take care of her. Oh, my man Nelson was denied parole in 2006 and 2011 and will not be eligible for parole again until 2026. She will be 58 years old. you you