Sixteen-year-old stabs father 45 times at family’s store, then goes to school
Friday, February 17, 2023
Police were called to the One Stop on Creighton Avenue around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, on reports of a man down. The man was pronounced dead at the scene with multiple stab wounds and was later identified as 52-year-old Tawfika Al-Malahi of Fort Wayne.
Court documents say police then spoke with the victim’s son, 16-year-old Ahmed Al-Malahi. Ahmed told officers his father does not normally go to his One Stop store until around 9 a.m. each day. Ahmed told police he went to school around 8 a.m. that day, but when police verified that with the school, officials said he did not arrive until about 11:40 a.m.
Police then got video from an area elementary school that showed Ahmed riding a bike to a dumpster on their property and throwing something out just before 11 a.m. When officers searched that dumpster, documents say they found a bag with 2 red-stained knives, used plastic gloves, an empty bleach bottle, and a metal device that appeared to have human tissue/hair attached.
Documents say police then spoke with the Ahmed’s mother, who said her husband was killed and that her son Ahmed was a suspect. When police interviewed Ahmed, he then said he went to the store that morning around 7:30 a.m. He said the store was unlocked so he went inside and hid behind a table and waited for his father to arrive. He said as his father walked inside, he stood up and stabbed him multiple times in the back, hit him in the head with a piece of metal, and then cut his throat.
Surveillance video inside the store showed Ahmed changing his clothes and using bleach to clean up the scene before throwing the evidence away in the elementary school dumpster and going to school.
Documents say Ahmed admitted to purposefully leaving the store unlocked the night before so that he could attack his father. No sort of motive was ever mentioned to police, according to court records.
Ahmed is currently charged with one count of murder.