Estranged Husband Dressed as Santa…Chaos Ensued | The Christmas Killings hosted by Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

every year historic Grapevine Texas celebrates Christmas with a bang greaton is the Christmas capital of
Texas there's no way you can visit and not be in a happy Jolly mood but in 2011 the celebration of peace on Earth and
Goodwill towards man is Shattered by an eerie 911 call hello great 911 you need help
hello something terrible must have happened you could tell that they were still gathered in that area where they
were celebrating Christmas I think they were uh surprised who could have committed this
horrific attack when you look at how these individuals have been murdered it's personal I could see the spiral start to
happen police try desperately to make sense of this nightmare on Christmas it definitely was pushed by
the fact that it was in the holiday season [Music] [Applause] [Music] an all-time favorite Christmas classic
is the movie It's a Wonderful Life it's all about how the town of Bedford Falls comes together to overcome evil with the
help of an Angel just Northwest of Dallas Fort Worth is a place that has become the
Texas version of Bedford Falls grap Vine Texas is the historic town that hosts over 1,000 Christmas related events in
the 40 days leading up to Christmas great by 911 but on December 25 2011 this little
town faces pure evil so it was Christmas Day and I was spending the afternoon and
dinner time with my then boyfriend and his family I had texted Sara Merry Christmas
earlier in the in the morning but she didn't text back um and that wasn't really out of the ordinary just because
you know it's Christmas SAR zor Vivian T's best friend is visiting her family in Grapevine
Texas viven is not alarmed when Sora doesn't text her back on Christmas day until she gets a call from their mutual
friend Simon um and that was like one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had just because
I understood all the work words that he was telling me but like my brain did not
want to like believe it and so like I remember be like wait a minute so like how like is our
okay I remember like yesterday we got the 911 call around 11:30 great by 911 where is your
emergency hello great F 911 you need help 911 calls come throughout it's it's normal business if
you will and police work uh it doesn't matter what day of the week or if it is a holiday what was unusual about this
particular call is this was a whispering voice and was hard to understand what they were trying to
say you need help are you sick what was that do you need an ambulance or police hello this was a landline call so the
address would populate when the call was made into the 911 Center we want to make
sure that there is not an emergency and the people are safe so the officers responded
accordingly the call was very eerie it was difficult to hear and understand what the caller was saying
so the police responding were going blindly because they didn't have information as to what was going
on so when the officers arrived at the scene it was extremely quiet they didn't hear anything that's what you do the in
the entire time you're approaching the origin of the call you're evaluating what you're seeing hearing smelling and
in this case there was nothing so they went to the door they knocked on the door again no
response they probably didn't think that it was going to be a serious ordeal because this is a very safe community
and it's Christmas Day the officer took it upon himself to peer into the windows to see if he could
see anything and when he did that he did see a pair of legs lying on the ground not
moving he actually went to another window to see a different View and he actually saw more people in the same
position lying on the floor without any movement they request permission to breach entry uh force entry because it's
without a search warant but it's Exogen circumstances so that emergency allows the officers to enter into that
apartment that's what they did it didn't take long to determine what they had at
hand when First Responders open the door they're caught completely off guard by a
shocking scene amongst the backdrop of holiday cheer are multiple dead bodies that appear to have been shot while
opening their presents on Christmas morning two middle-aged females a young female in her 20s one in
her late teens a young man about 14 years old and two middle-age males they had pretty good idea that the
shooter was in the apartment because they had to breach the apartment and get inside First Responders immediately
check for signs of Life they sweep the other rooms to determine if there's an active shooter or any other victims
inside the home once the scene is cleared they notify headquarters and the entire great VI Police Department is put
on alert it appeared uh from the officers that were there at the scene what they
described was that the Christmas gifts had already been open prior to the shooting then the first responder spot
something that almost makes their hearts stop someone everyone knows and loves lying prone on the
floor he's dressed as Santa and only he knows why he chose that could it be simply because he wanted to put the
family at ease or could it be that the person dressed as the symbol of Christmas was
in fact evil in disguise [Music] Great Vine Texas 2011 nowhere in the entire lonar state
is Christmas treated with such enthusiasm so the Carnage that Grapevine Texas police discover on Christmas Day
is even more shocking Grapevine calls itself the Christmas capital of the state it's practically enshrined Christmas
cheer into the law what occurred on Christmas the morning is so painful to grasp anywhere
but perhaps here most of all so in 2011 we opened our presence early and I got a text from the city
manager that said our police department and public servants were working a crime
scene they were apparently seven people dead in the apartment my first thought was no it
couldn't be not in gravine Texas we're a safe City we never do have any thing like
this it's a deep sadness you know seven people killed on Christmas Day how does that
happen the victims in the Grapevine apartment look like their family members is caught unawares by a shooter while
they open presents why would someone want to annihilate an entire family on what should be the happiest day of the
year the holidays for most people are a joyous time of getting together and this
and that and even though those individuals are looking forward to the event and spending time with family it's
still stressful there's extra cooking cleaning all of those things that go along but for V vable individuals that
might not have support or might be going through some kind of internal conflict it might be the trigger that
pushes them over the edge to a violent episode Great Vine police will not begin to know a motive until they first
identify the victims a forensic unit begins processing the scene and officers start
knocking on doors so when you have a crime scene like this where uh you have seven deceased people
and Mak an identification is extremely important because it kind of tells you who belongs
where you canvas out that area and try to find anybody that may have any type of information related uh to the
crime so in cavas in the area to their surprise they didn't find anybody that heard any
gunshots usually you have a gunshot whether it's one or multiple then you'll receive numerous 911 calls but only one
person made a 911 call from that murder scene finding out who made this call would help them to determine what
happened on this Christmas day they called dispatch and asked them to call back the number that the 911 one
call came from they heard a phone ringing and it was located on the Cradle inside of the
apartment it's possible that this call was made by a victim that was hiding from his or her as salent it's also
possible that this call was the last communication from the last living person amongst these seven
people Grapevine detectives discover the landline belongs to a woman named Fatima
nasin ramti who leases the apartment in this case we were fortunate that we were able to get most of the
names from driver's licenses that were either on them or nearby and from there we pulled their driver's license photos
from a database and compared them to the people we had there at the scene acuren is a subscriber database
that is used in investigations regularly because it not only identifies members of the household but potential relatives
and from that information we can uh make a pretty good determination we knew three of those
people lived in that apartment we determined that uh it was a mother a teenage daughter and a
14-year-old son Fatima has two children a boy Ali and a beautiful daughter 19-year-old
Nona my name is Katherine an Coronado and I was uh one of Nona's High School best
friends I was a sophomore going into a new school new area didn't know anybody and I will never forget that this girl
with long black hair walked right up to me and she said hi my name name is Nona you don't know me and I just want to
tell you you are so pretty can we be friends Nona was such a free-spirited person and she was very
sociable she still didn't know what she wanted to do she just wanted to get into
college she just wanted to help her family she loved her family police ID the victims who
actually live in the home but who are the others we had three other people that had a
common address in Irving Texas uh so clearly they did not live there we determined from their information the
three that lived in Irving that it was a mother father and a daughter the daughter is SAR zor Vivian
to's friend so SAR and I met in college she was majoring in biology um she wanted to become a medical doctor she
was always super caring and um you know just wanted to make things better in general for everyone you know and so
that was um a big reason why she was drawn to that occupation she was very warm to everyone
that she met super super generous her and her family as well SAR was close with her family in
general she had a big family um a lot of cousins aunts uncles and it was just everyone just just all like one big
happy group know's mother Fatima is the sister of Sara's mother Zera the middle-aged female that lived
in Irving was the sister to the person that resided in the apartment police approached the last body lying on the
floor dressed in a Santa costume they see a cell phone did Santa try to call 911 uh phone was located it was on the
ground in fact the battery cover had come off as if it had been dropped but it was located next to the individual in
the Santa Su and then they see something very alarming Santa has a gun this is shocking it's possible that
he was trying trying to defend himself from the as salent or could it be that this was the murder
weapon he was wearing a Santa Claus costume you know that is a you could call it a splashy detail but it's also a
tragic detail considering the circumstances two Santa left is SAR zor's father in his hand another
confusing detail to add to the crime scene to the shock of the investigators a man
to the left of Santa in an easy chair also has a weapon he's holding a Smith and Wesson
handgun seeing two firearms in plain view well the officers would have had to try to determine are these the weapons
involved two men each holding guns it begs the question is one of them the Killer and one the victim
instead of celebrating Christmas with their families detectives in Grapevine Texas are investigating a tragic
Christmas morning murder scene police have identified two families connected by two sisters who are targeted
Christmas morning 2011 the yasan panaz and the zores are originally from Iran on but they're
Americans now and they have embraced Christmas traditions to go into any scene especially on a Christmas Day and to see
seven people deceased it's it's unimaginable and to have somebody in a Santa suit and seeing two firearms in plain
view you just can't connect those kind of dots it's a highly IR rational situation and
scene police must now identify victim number seven a man dressed as Santa you evaluate the scene when you
get there to see if there may be anything related to your crime scene and of course vehicles are not unusual in
this case there was a white Toyota 4Runner in running the registration we were able to determine that the person
in the Santa suit also appeared to be the same registered owner to the Toyota Forerunner we were able to determine the
identity as the person in the Santa suit as Aziz yasta he is the estranged husband of
Fatima who's leasing the apartment and he's also the father of her two [Music] children the other person that was at
the scene with the pistol was identified as the brother-in-law of Aziz as Muhammad two brothers-in-law azis and
Muhammad both dead and both have guns in their hands they have to evaluate the scene to
figure out who shot who uh how they were shot where they were shot from and there's another confounding
detail Specialists noticed that the blinds had been moved or changed when he opened the blinds he
realized there was blood spatter on the outside of the blinds and clearly the shooting had taken place inside the
apartment and then also the wand that you used to manipulate the blinds to open and close had blood on one side but
not the others so we concluded that somebody inside of the apartment after after the shooting had
closed the blinds for Grapevine detectives this presents another possible scenario perhaps Muhammad and
Aziz were defending their family from someone else someone that fled the scene we knew immediately that this was
you know Uncharted Territory not only for the police department but for the citizens of of gravon to have to learn
that this happened in their their City you could tell that they were still gathered in that area where they were
celebrating Christmas um it didn't appear that you know there was any type of struggle I think they were uh
surprised I don't think at that point I released a lot of information I believe I just gave them
the amount of victims that's a number that jumps out that's not normal that's not normal
anywhere that's not normal on Christmas Day anywhere a Christmas Day tragedy in Texas Four Women and three men were
found shot to death in their home Apparently after opening their Christmas gifts in 2011 I was a news reporter for
kxas the NBC affiliate television station here in Dallas Forth I'd gotten a phone call from a
news manager some of the details of course weren't yet to to fully come out yet but there wasn't any question as to
what the story of the day was going to uh it's still early in this investigation obviously though this did
play out some almost 24 hours ago no there is no known motive at least as one that police are telling us about I think
it was the largest Christmas massacre in the history of this country at that time
I couldn't imagine what our uh police and uh paramedics were having to deal with in the crime scene like that it it
became a national story uh really quick it's the chilling sound of near silence on the other end of a 911 call
not long after that police in Grapevine Texas near Dallas found seven bodies in an
apartment it wasn't long after that that it I was getting calls uh nonstop and that included International
media I was receiving calls as far as away as Australia I had certainly Amplified uh given the fact that it is
Christmas today and I think you know I can speak saf for the rest of the police department I don't think any members of
the police department has encountered something like this on Christmas Day the murders continue to grab
worldwide attention as investigators try to learn exactly what happened but you can't commit yourself
to whatever your theory is you you have to prove that by the evidence at hand painstakingly piece by piece piece of
information by piece of information to determine in your best ability what exactly
happened the investigators relied on the cell phone information from the victims to really
nail down the time that this crime occurred we were fortunate in the sense that we had phones and they have dat and
time stamps detectives use the cell phone data to determine that Zara sent a text
message at 11:15 a.m. on Christmas Day the 911 call came in at 11:34 a.m. and so it's determined that the time frame
between 11:15 and 11:34 was when this massacre occurred Sara's text reveals nothing to
explain how or why the shooting occurs just minutes later investigators immediately Reach
Out to people who receive text or phone calls from the victims that 14-year-old boy just 12
minutes before he was killed called a friend and wished him Merry Christmas so he was relaxed and he thought everything
was well 12 minutes later he's dead police speak to Ali's friend he says there's nothing strange about this
family alli's parents are separated but that's not unusual the boy's father has only good things to
say about aiz one of the nicest guys I'd ever met he was one of those that enjoyed buying drinks or dinner for his
friends we had several sources that we spoke with the refer to asase as a nonviolent
person the same goes for sora's Dad Muhammad no one can imagine him ever being violent her parents were
like like the best people ever they often had a lot of events like at their house they made me feel so
welcomed which is why they're so loved by the community then police learn about Nona's
[Music] boyfriend he was a little bit of an older guy he was you know unfortunately
a a high school dropout but you know She always told me like he did care about her a
lot what we learned from the daughter's closest friend she was able to share that she did not like this boyfriend she
always felt like they were always arguing about something I always told her she could do so much better I'm like
you have so much more potential but you know if this is somebody you you really you know want to enjoy then you know be
your boyfriend then so be it and he also didn't get along with Nona's [Music] dad Nona's boyfriend had once been
arrested and detectives learned that she's actually the one who bonded him out this is concerning because given his
background it's possible that he could be a suspect in this case I think that that played a a big
part in a lot of the the drama at this point Point investigators are thinking is known as boyfriend the
key to this horrendous crime is he the one who closes the blinds after murdering seven
[Music] people investigators in great Bine Texas are dealing with a shocking tragedy
Christmas Day 2011 seven people shot dead including one man dressed as Santa news agencies
around the world pick up the story police are under pressure to come up with answers the boyfriend was interviewed
and he provided some important information for Christmas he had a pretty good Alibi we looked
into uh his his information and what we were able to determine is he was with two friends at the
apartment um and in fact there were text messages where he was trying to reach out and trying to contact
Nona police also learned Nona and her father Aziz the victim dressed as Santa have argued since she was a teen
girl when she was in high school the the father put up security cameras and would
even board her door at night just to keep her from sneaking out so clearly there was issues there with following
her parents' wishes but Aziz does not hold himself to the same standards he expects of his
daughter although Aziz had high expectations for his family he did not live up to these expectations
himself it was learned that he had a history of picking up prostitutes and this is something that was very much
against his belief system a friend of aiz shared information that indicated that Muhammad and his ziz
would get together reportedly to go on Hunting our fishing trips when in fact they were going to hotels and meeting
with prostitutes he believes the brother-in-law Muhammad had shared that with his wife regarding Aziz doing these
activities but he didn't reveal his participation and that caused a big riff between him and aiz
what we found out about aiz is at one point in time he was a very successful businessman he lost his livelihood when
there was an embargo placed on his country origin which was Iran and because he could
not import goods from his country and that's how he uh was a successful businessman was selling these uh
artifacts and items from Iran he lost his entire business he did try to work at other
businesses I believe real estate was one of those that He attempted to make a go
at it and he just was not successful so his wife and his family suffered financially because of his
situation non started looking for a job she was working at a bakery for a little
bit then she moved to working at a restaurant she was just doing everything she could to just save up money for
herself but also to help her mom a FMA appeared to be a very proud woman a woman who dearly loved her
children and but she was also in a difficult place again being proud she just couldn't stay with disease anymore and
that's why she moved out finally the medical examiner's report comes back it tells investig ERS
a lot revealing how each victim is shot when you look at how these individuals have been murdered it's
personal they've been shot in the head aziz's family has been shot in the head one time execution style the niece
shot in the head however there are two of them that stand stand out in the manner and the
amount of times that they were shot zor and her husband Mohammad have both been shot three times compared to
all the other victims that were shot one time zor was shot three times in the head her husband was shot once in the
head which is consistent with the other victims but then he was also shot twice in the abdominal area
and why why are they different why were they killed in another manner it's a question that stands out that needs to
be answered the postmortem of course does not reveal a motive behind the murders
but it confirms something else detectives already suspect the medical examiner information
revealed that one of the victims died from self-inflicted gunshot the person that was in the Santa suit
had committed suicide aiz yasta on this case it's my opinion that Aziz is a family
Annihilator family Annihilation is not a common event how however it is the most common form still
of mass shootings within the United States we don't tend to hear about it as often as it occurs and it isn't until we
get to a case like this one where there are so many victims that it actually makes the news it happened Christmas day
in the state of Texas tonight Brandon Todd explains how the holiday quickly turned into a nightmare for this family
there's a final twist revealed in that medical examiner's report a Twist that shows how Aziz tries to implicate his
own brother-in-law in the murders this uh particular scene was highly unusual in the sense that I've
never seen a stag crime scene of a violent [Music] nature they've had these 911 tapes
they've been going over and over and over them trying to listen and hear what's on there because the voice on
there is very faint they needed additional software brought in to identify exactly what he was saying
they've been able to do that now we're going to play it for you so you can hear it for yourself you need
[Music] help are you sick what was that apparently yes Dum was trying to cover up this crime and make it look
like it was a shootout there that his brother-in-law perhaps was responsible for these
murders in this case placing a pistol in Muhammad's hand he had a pistol in his right hand
but he did not have the indications that he would have been a shooter based on his injuries based on the blood
spatter there's also the pistol had um Blood on the handle that was not consistent with the the blood that was
on Muhammad's hand it is Aziz Blood on the handle and Aziz bloody fingerprints on the
blinds when you have a scene it's if you will connecting all the dots all the dots you can if aiz
residents uh revealed information they can tie them to those weapons that's important but also because we now know
that he committed suicide it's not common but it's not uncommon for people to leave a suicide
note and so that would be important too and that's why we conducted the search at the
residents no note was found uh regarding his suicide at the residence we did find numerous other indications
of Contraband if you will that tied them to the pistols that were there holsters
ammunition and um also I believe we even found receipts for two of the weapons what most likely happened that
Christmas day is that Aziz showed up to his family's celebration where ing a Santa
costume his family probably thought that he was just being in the Jolly mood and
maybe trying to make amends with his estranged wife and his children however in reality Aziz was most likely using
that costume to hide the two weapons Great Vine Texas 2011 the iconic Christmas celebrations
in this Texas town are now marred by a horrifying murder suicide the tightly knit Community wants answers why did a
man named Aziz yasen P perpetrate such a horrible act this isn't a who done it it's a why
done it so I remember having a specific conversation of wait he was okay he was wearing a Santa Claus costume when he
killed his entire family you know I'm a father you know I I I know what a family gathering is like
I know what family Strife feels like I know what bad feelings are like but what what person would ever consider
doing that um even if you have all the facts we'll never know we'll never get it
uh again the big question obviously is the motive in this case perhaps it may never be known we do expect to learn
more information from great B police later this morning anytime you have a homicide like
that you still investigate it like you have a suspect that that you need to make a case on to take to
trial knowing that what our detectives did how many family members that they spoke with friends a multitude of
friends and just making sure that they were covering the the bases and and trying to develop
something that was a plausible motive to it and it took a long time we learned that his sister-in-law
did not think highly of aeas she looked at him as a failure as a provider for the
family and I think Aziz took that very personal he he did not like his sister-in-law at all she to me she came
across as a as a strong woman who's not afraid to voice her opinion and that did
not set well with diseas everyone was of the opinion that aiz had it out for a sister-in-law it was a a very strained
relationship she did not respect him and many people eluded to this that he seemed to blame her for everything that
was wrong in his life then Aziz hears about the zere's Christmas Eve party to which the entire
extended family is invited except for him one of the things that came out was aiz felt slighted that he wasn't invited
to a Christmas party that was held by his brother and sister-in-law what was I think what
upset him more was previously at Thanksgiving they had all been together and they reportedly had a great family
gathering and I think they gave him some false hope because then came Christmas Eve big family party he was not invited
his family was there I I think he felt not only offended but slighted aziz's absence at the Christmas
party people would have noticed that they're all very close-nit group and the whole family was there except for the
husband and he just looked at this as another step of interfering with his relationship with his
family and from that came Christmas Day the next day the family had a plan that day he
had begged to attend uh Christmas day to give his children gifts the mother was not excited about
that so they came up with the plan that they would have lunch he would show up he would give them their gifts and then
they would have to leave to go attend the Dallas Mavericks basketball game he clearly had a
plan to do what he did you don't just take two firearms and put them in a Santa suit
and go have lunch with your family and then shoot him he was at a deep dark place of
Despair and I I just think it it took all rationale from him and he did what he did because in his mind I feel like
he felt there was nothing else left to do but exact Revenge I want the world to remember and
those that did know Nona and her family who they were and the light that They Carried the light that she carried she
really carried her family in such a positive way it's harsh I I'm a very blessed person I've been
married to the love of my life for over 36 years we have two beautiful grown children and to see a beautiful family
killed or two beautiful families killed by an individual uh it affected me [Music]
deeply and a strange husband fueled by anger and bent on on Revenge and all added up to the Christmas spirit gone
horribly wrong for a family who wanted only to embrace the warmest of holidays I'm Nancy Grace thank you for
joining us here on the Christmas killings [Music]

Police respond to a strange 911 call. Inside the home, they encounter a grisly sight. Seven people are dead and chillingly, one of them is dressed as Santa. Police wonder who could commit such a heinous crime? The identity of the killer is a shocker.

Hosted by Nancy Grace, The Christmas Killings is a true crime docuseries that blends merry with mystery as it delves into holiday-season homicide investigations.

Brief Summary

On Christmas Day 2011, seven family members were murdered in Grapevine, Texas, by Aziz, the estranged husband, who later committed suicide.

Key points

Christmas Day Tragedy. On December 25, 2011, Grapevine, Texas, known as the Christmas capital, faced a horrific massacre.
Santa's Shocking Role. A man dressed as Santa is found among the victims, raising questions about his identity.
The Eerie 911 Call. A chilling whispering voice on a 911 call leads police to a shocking crime scene.
Christmas Day Tragedy. On Christmas Day 2011, seven people were shot dead in a shocking family murder-suicide.
The Santa Suit Revelation. Aziz used a Santa costume to conceal his weapons during the tragic event.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This little town faces pure evil.

Describing the shocking events in Grapevine, Texas on Christmas Day 2011.

2:25WatchApr 10, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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