Iranian daughter gains strength despite mother's murder

By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter

August 27, 2012

As a young teen in Iran, Elbra Ebrahimi was forced to yield to her father's irrational, angry and volatile personality.

He tried to keep her inside their home. She had no visits from friends. Worse was the physical abuse. She could only watch as her mother was kicked and punched until she was bloody.

"I am not sure that is something the police could handle," Ebrahimi, now 23, said of Iranian authorities.

But when the abuse continued after the family moved to Chicago in late 2006, Ebrahimi stood up. She called Chicago police in February 2007 after her father, Daryoush, had forced her and her aunt out of the family's North Side apartment during an argument, leaving her mother inside alone with him.

The call for help angered Daryoush Ebrahimi, but it was just one threat he felt that winter. He believed he was losing control over his family as they settled into the United States and that his wife wanted a divorce.

Five days later, he stabbed and bludgeoned his wife, Karmin Khooshabeh, and then turned on the two women he blamed for his troubles — his wife's sister, Karolin Khooshabeh, and his mother-in-law, Ileshvah Eyvazimooshabad.

He left behind a long, chilling journal that detailed his anger at his wife and at his daughter, who he felt had defied him.

"Here she wanted to be an American," Daryoush Ebrahimi wrote in his journal about his wife. "I would not let her. Let all know it."

"This is the result for calling the police that night," he wrote to his daughter. "… I had never known a policeman before. I was losing my honor … I could have … taken care of you too."

For five years, Elbra Ebrahimi and her family have remained silent while they waited out the painfully slow process it took to bring her father to trial. In defiance, he repeatedly interrupted proceedings at the Leighton Criminal Court Building during his trial last week, even injuring himself in desperation and causing more delays.

In the end, Ebrahimi, 61, was convicted in part because of the testimony of his daughter, who with her hair boldly dyed pink walked proudly past her weeping father to take the seat in the witness box.

Later, she said her testimony was not only a chance to again stand up for her mother but also an opportunity to send a message to her father, whom she has not spoken with since the three murders.

"I am not being controlled anymore. I do as I please. I do as a like. You have not held me back," Ebrahimi said after the verdict, her voice trailing off as tears started rolling from her large green eyes. "I am living the life my mother saw for me, not my dad. I am living her memory. Every day I wake up I think she is proud of me. Her biggest dream was to see me graduate. I am in school full time. And the day that I graduate I am going to fly to Chicago. I am going to go (to) her grave with my gown, with my cap, and I am going to tell her that I did it."

Karmin Khooshabeh married Daryoush Ebrahimi, an engineer and car mechanic much older than her, in Iran, at age 15, the family said. Both were Assyrian Christians. Khooshabeh was devout.

Elbra Ebrahimi said her mother told her that the abuse started three days after the wedding. And it continued relentlessly, according to the family. Domarina Ebrahimi, Elbra's oldest sister, who also attended the trial, left home at 19 as a result. The couple also had two sons.

But there was little their mother could do in Iran, the sisters said. Her financial welfare was tied to their father. Any outcry could bring shame to her daughters. And in Iran, it was likely that she would not be believed by the courts anyway.

"Whatever the man says goes," said Karolin Khooshabeh's son, Michael Estepaniance, 23.

"Our lives changed totally, 360 degrees, after losing these women," he said. "The pain, emotionally, mentally, just has been draining the life out of us for these last 51/2 years, waiting to hear that 'guilty' for those hard-working, beautiful, good-hearted women."

According to evidence at the trial, there were several family arguments during the week before the murders. Daryoush Ebrahimi later told his daughter she had disrespected him by calling the police and accused her of trying to "put on a show."

The night before the murders, Elbra Ebrahimi stayed with a relative and spoke with her mother on the phone for the last time.

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