A man who once owned a security company in Alexandria, Virginia, was convicted Monday of killing his 35-year-old girlfriend.
Daniel Kankam was convicted Monday in the murder of Somaya Hussein Ahmed. A jury sentenced him to 26 years in prison.
Ahmed had tried to break up with Kankam, but he killed her after raging that she had disrespected him, prosecutors said.
He killed her in her home in the unit block of South Van Dorn Street in Alexandria, Virginia, on Jan. 11.
Ahmed was starting to live her dream in America after coming from Egypt on an asylum claim. She worked in security at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and had a second job with Kankam's security company. He was married and had two children, but the two became romantically involved.
The relationship was abusive almost from the start, prosecutors said and a friend told News4.
"I'm gonna kill you if you go out," her told her, according to her friend.
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Ahmed tried to break up with him, but he lashed out in anger. And he was listed as the beneficiary of a $25,000 life insurance policy in her name.
The last moments of Ahmed's life were caught on video, with her own cellphone. The couple can be heard arguing in her apartment on South Van Dorn Street. The footage ends just before the gunfire.
Ahmed's roommate found her dead, with a single gunshot wound in her mouth.
Kankam was controlling, prosecutors said.
"The defendant has a deep-rooted need for control to do what he wants, when he wants, always," an attorney said. Her lack of subservience infuriated him."
Just days before Ahmed's death, Kankam texted her: "I will destroy you. You disrespect me."
His defense attorney suggested the gunshot wound could have been self-inflicted. There was no sign of struggle. They said Kanham was so drunk the night of his girlfriend's death that it would have been nearly impossible for him to pull the trigger.
There was a big problem with that defense: No gun was found with Ahmed's body. Instead, the gun that killed her was found in a trash bag that Kankam gave to a relative. Also inside the bag were his clothes, covered in his girlfriend's blood.
