RALEIGH - Correction Secretary Theodis Beck has set Nov. 18, 2005 as the execution date for inmate Elias Hanna Syriani. The execution is scheduled for 2 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh.
Syriani, 67, was sentenced to death June 12, 1991 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court for the 1990 murder of Teresa Yousef Syriani.
http://rdu.news14.com/media/2005/10/25/images/01_syriani_clemency_pic1.jpg
http://rdu.news14.com/media/2005/10/25/images/02_syriani_clemency_pic2.jpg
and here is the wife
http://images.ibsys.com/2005/1025/5175191_240X180.jpg
here is the story
in 1974, Elias found hope of a better life with an arranged marriage with a daughter of a Jordanian family living in New Jersey. The family wanted their daughter Teresa to marry a fellow member of the Assyrian Christian sect. Elias immigrated to the United States after the wedding. Teresa, who was 12 years younger, chafed under Elias' conservative views on a woman's role in the family.
Their marriage was rocky, and the fighting got worse when the Syrianis moved from the Chicago area to Charlotte in 1985, according to trial testimony and court records. Elias once ripped his wife's blouse during a fight. He dragged her downstairs by her hair. He threatened her with a baseball bat.
After one fight in 1989, Teresa took the children to a battered women's shelter and then to live with relatives in New Jersey. She soon returned when Elias promised to let his wife work outside the home and to buy her a car.
Teresa's new independence only intensified the strife. In June 1990, she filed for divorce and got a court order forcing her husband out of the home.
On July 28, 1990, Elias visited the home at 11 p.m. and found his wife wasn't there. When she arrived, an enraged Elias blocked the path of her car and attacked her as their son watched. Elias stabbed Teresa in the arms, chest and head. She died 26 days later.
The three eldest children testified at Elias' trial about the attack and their father's tyrannical hold over the family.
After their father was sentenced to death for first-degree murder, the children moved outside Chicago to live with their father's sisters.
The siblings pulled together in their grief. They never referred to Elias as their father, only "him."
"He was dead to me," Sarah said.
Even though John was the sole witness to the attack, that trauma didn't stop him from contacting his father, whom he considered his best friend. Within a year of the killing, John was writing to his dad. And in 1998, at the age of 18, he visited his father at the Raleigh prison.
They didn't talk about the killing. His father asked his son to stand up and show him his hands and his feet.
"He wanted to grasp the eight years he hadn't seen me," John said.
The visit helped John, but his sisters were not interested in hearing about their father.
Sisters change
But by 2004, the sisters were each thinking about him. For Sarah, the change came once she started thinking about getting married and having children. One night while driving home from work, she began to wonder about how it felt for him to lose his children.
"I could not take the next step in my life -- love my husband, love my children with my whole heart -- with this anger coursing through me for so long," Sarah said.
The three sisters lived together in northwest Indiana. After reading an affidavit from that expert witness about their father's childhood, they admitted to each other that they wanted to see him. At dinner a few nights later, they told their brother and agreed to go together.
In August 2004, the siblings traveled to Raleigh. As they took the elevators to the visiting area, they were nervous, afraid to gaze into the eyes of a man who used to control them with just one look.
What they saw was a short white-haired man far diminished from the towering figure of their childhood.
"I always thought of him as a murderer who took my mom," Sarah said. "When I saw him for the first time, waving and smiling like a kid in Disneyland, I saw my dad."
The first question their father had was directed to the eldest. "Smile, Rose. Let me see your teeth. Are you flossing?"
"We have really bad teeth in the family," she explained.
There was no discussion of their mother's killing that day, just smiles and tears. During another visit the next day, their father apologized.
"He had been rehearsing this in his mind for years," Rose said.
With that, they say, they were able to let go of their anger and forgive.
"I call it a miracle," Sarah said. "I don't think anyone can go from hate, absolute hate to love in a split second if it didn't come from someplace else."
She and her siblings say the miracle was a gift from God and their mother. "She was such a forgiving woman," Sarah said.
Syriani, 67, was sentenced to death June 12, 1991 in Mecklenburg County Superior Court for the 1990 murder of Teresa Yousef Syriani.
http://rdu.news14.com/media/2005/10/25/images/01_syriani_clemency_pic1.jpg
http://rdu.news14.com/media/2005/10/25/images/02_syriani_clemency_pic2.jpg
and here is the wife
http://images.ibsys.com/2005/1025/5175191_240X180.jpg
here is the story
in 1974, Elias found hope of a better life with an arranged marriage with a daughter of a Jordanian family living in New Jersey. The family wanted their daughter Teresa to marry a fellow member of the Assyrian Christian sect. Elias immigrated to the United States after the wedding. Teresa, who was 12 years younger, chafed under Elias' conservative views on a woman's role in the family.
Their marriage was rocky, and the fighting got worse when the Syrianis moved from the Chicago area to Charlotte in 1985, according to trial testimony and court records. Elias once ripped his wife's blouse during a fight. He dragged her downstairs by her hair. He threatened her with a baseball bat.
After one fight in 1989, Teresa took the children to a battered women's shelter and then to live with relatives in New Jersey. She soon returned when Elias promised to let his wife work outside the home and to buy her a car.
Teresa's new independence only intensified the strife. In June 1990, she filed for divorce and got a court order forcing her husband out of the home.
On July 28, 1990, Elias visited the home at 11 p.m. and found his wife wasn't there. When she arrived, an enraged Elias blocked the path of her car and attacked her as their son watched. Elias stabbed Teresa in the arms, chest and head. She died 26 days later.
The three eldest children testified at Elias' trial about the attack and their father's tyrannical hold over the family.
After their father was sentenced to death for first-degree murder, the children moved outside Chicago to live with their father's sisters.
The siblings pulled together in their grief. They never referred to Elias as their father, only "him."
"He was dead to me," Sarah said.
Even though John was the sole witness to the attack, that trauma didn't stop him from contacting his father, whom he considered his best friend. Within a year of the killing, John was writing to his dad. And in 1998, at the age of 18, he visited his father at the Raleigh prison.
They didn't talk about the killing. His father asked his son to stand up and show him his hands and his feet.
"He wanted to grasp the eight years he hadn't seen me," John said.
The visit helped John, but his sisters were not interested in hearing about their father.
Sisters change
But by 2004, the sisters were each thinking about him. For Sarah, the change came once she started thinking about getting married and having children. One night while driving home from work, she began to wonder about how it felt for him to lose his children.
"I could not take the next step in my life -- love my husband, love my children with my whole heart -- with this anger coursing through me for so long," Sarah said.
The three sisters lived together in northwest Indiana. After reading an affidavit from that expert witness about their father's childhood, they admitted to each other that they wanted to see him. At dinner a few nights later, they told their brother and agreed to go together.
In August 2004, the siblings traveled to Raleigh. As they took the elevators to the visiting area, they were nervous, afraid to gaze into the eyes of a man who used to control them with just one look.
What they saw was a short white-haired man far diminished from the towering figure of their childhood.
"I always thought of him as a murderer who took my mom," Sarah said. "When I saw him for the first time, waving and smiling like a kid in Disneyland, I saw my dad."
The first question their father had was directed to the eldest. "Smile, Rose. Let me see your teeth. Are you flossing?"
"We have really bad teeth in the family," she explained.
There was no discussion of their mother's killing that day, just smiles and tears. During another visit the next day, their father apologized.
"He had been rehearsing this in his mind for years," Rose said.
With that, they say, they were able to let go of their anger and forgive.
"I call it a miracle," Sarah said. "I don't think anyone can go from hate, absolute hate to love in a split second if it didn't come from someplace else."
She and her siblings say the miracle was a gift from God and their mother. "She was such a forgiving woman," Sarah said.
