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> Saad screamed at Zainab to get in the car. He quickstepped to the driver’s door, twisted into the seat. But Zainab hadn’t moved, just stood there, frozen. Saa

> Saad screamed at Zainab to get in the car. He quickstepped to the driver’s door, twisted into the seat. But Zainab hadn’t moved, just stood there, frozen. Saad probably didn’t realize that. What man leaves his daughter to get shot? He slapped the gearshift into reverse, cranked the wheel hard to the left, stomped on the gas. The BMW skittered backward in an arc, a jittery half circle. No ordinary 50 year old engineer does that. That guy had training. And not in STEM.

jmnicolas 11y ago
I'm French and I've almost read all the articles related to this murder and a lot of the comments associated with these articles (it was quite surprising to find this on HN btw). They all think that something don't add-up, they all have their favorite theory and they always know better than the investigators. Take the shooter for instance : sometimes he's a pro (2 to the head, mosts of the shots were hits) sometimes an amateur (didn't pick-up the brass, used an antique gun) and on and on. I think the only thing safe to say is that we don't know sh.. (pardon my French ;-).
- msandford 11y ago
  Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro. Once you go to the level of "this was state sponsored in some way" all normal investigation and inference goes out the window. State sponsored folks would know how normal police investigations are conducted and have plenty of ways to counter them. Why a particular state would want these people dead is another matter entirely though.
  - MrZongle2 11y ago
    "Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro." I think a more likely explanation would be that the killer was a pro, and didn't care about the brass since they planned on dumping the weapon, which couldn't be traced to them anyway.
  - jmnicolas 11y ago
    Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists ;-) And I think that the older girl (the one that was shot and beaten) talked about a "bad guy" in her statement btw. I think not picking-up the brass doesn't mean anything : you can find the imprint of the barrel's grooves on the fired bullets (unless they are too deformed by the impact, but would you bet it on all 21 bullets ?) so the gun will be identifiable even if they don't have the brass.
    - msandford 11y ago
      > Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists Not really. And that's not because I'm some PC-police kind of person, either. Women are being allowed into more and more places in the military (in the US, other countries are far ahead of us on this) and I suspect that there are tons of them in the intelligence community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Fo... Finally given that it's "always" "bad guys" that do this kind of thing if you're playing a strategic game at some point you have to realize that women have a huge advantage; since it "can't" be a woman who does that, women can absolutely get away easier and more cleanly than men can. And if you really are doing stuff at a national security level where it never becomes public anyhow then there's no reason not to use women to their full potential aside from squeamishness on the part of the people giving the orders. I suspect that isn't a huge roadblock; either you're a sociopath who's fine with sending people to their death because "who cares?" or you're a true believer in which case everyone can fight for the cause. Now I'm not suggesting that women commit violent crimes at the same rate that men do by any means. The statistics bear out that they don't. But at a state-sponsored level I would imagine that a lot of bets are off.
      - jmnicolas 11y ago
        These kind of women are very rare (much more than men which are more prone to be sociopaths and as sociopaths are more prone to use direct violence), why would you risk this "rare asset" on a "simple shooting" that can be done by a man ? If a woman had been seen the investigator would have still tried to find her even if they thought she was just a witness. I'm not even aware of one known instance of a pro killer that was a woman in the last 10 years. I don't say they don't exist but they're in "black swan" category. BTW the investigators know exactly the sex and probably even the ethnicity of the killer. It's not clear in this article, but it was said in several others that they have his ( ;-) ) DNA, I think from the piece of the gun that was left on the crime scene. I think there's even some tech that allows you to make a mug shot of someone from her DNA, I doubt it's really accurate though.
sliverstorm 11y ago
What, pull a stunt in a car? I'm an engineer and I spent years racing cars.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  I think he / she meant that the guy had the presence of mind to jump in his car and try to escape while being shot at. I think it says a lot about our culture that if you don't wait in shock to get shot by a killer some think you're a kind of trained commando.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Yeah, I forgot we're supposed to quail, become helpless, cry, and beg for mercy.
    - jmnicolas 11y ago
      Well there's certainly a tendency to make people as docile sheep, however I would not fault anybody that would freeze when being shot at. Until someone shoots at me I won't know in what category I am, commando or sheep. I wouldn't mind never finding out ;-)

jmnicolas 11y ago

I'm French and I've almost read all the articles related to this murder and a lot of the comments associated with these articles (it was quite surprising to find this on HN btw). They all think that something don't add-up, they all have their favorite theory and they always know better than the investigators. Take the shooter for instance : sometimes he's a pro (2 to the head, mosts of the shots were hits) sometimes an amateur (didn't pick-up the brass, used an antique gun) and on and on. I think the only thing safe to say is that we don't know sh.. (pardon my French ;-).

msandford 11y ago
Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro. Once you go to the level of "this was state sponsored in some way" all normal investigation and inference goes out the window. State sponsored folks would know how normal police investigations are conducted and have plenty of ways to counter them. Why a particular state would want these people dead is another matter entirely though.
- MrZongle2 11y ago
  "Or he/she was a pro and left the casings and a chunk of the gun on purpose to cast doubt on the idea that he/she was a pro." I think a more likely explanation would be that the killer was a pro, and didn't care about the brass since they planned on dumping the weapon, which couldn't be traced to them anyway.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists ;-) And I think that the older girl (the one that was shot and beaten) talked about a "bad guy" in her statement btw. I think not picking-up the brass doesn't mean anything : you can find the imprint of the barrel's grooves on the fired bullets (unless they are too deformed by the impact, but would you bet it on all 21 bullets ?) so the gun will be identifiable even if they don't have the brass.
  - msandford 11y ago
    > Let's be frank : the probability it's a "she" is so close to 0 that we can say "he" without passing for horrible misogynists Not really. And that's not because I'm some PC-police kind of person, either. Women are being allowed into more and more places in the military (in the US, other countries are far ahead of us on this) and I suspect that there are tons of them in the intelligence community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Fo... Finally given that it's "always" "bad guys" that do this kind of thing if you're playing a strategic game at some point you have to realize that women have a huge advantage; since it "can't" be a woman who does that, women can absolutely get away easier and more cleanly than men can. And if you really are doing stuff at a national security level where it never becomes public anyhow then there's no reason not to use women to their full potential aside from squeamishness on the part of the people giving the orders. I suspect that isn't a huge roadblock; either you're a sociopath who's fine with sending people to their death because "who cares?" or you're a true believer in which case everyone can fight for the cause. Now I'm not suggesting that women commit violent crimes at the same rate that men do by any means. The statistics bear out that they don't. But at a state-sponsored level I would imagine that a lot of bets are off.
    - jmnicolas 11y ago
      These kind of women are very rare (much more than men which are more prone to be sociopaths and as sociopaths are more prone to use direct violence), why would you risk this "rare asset" on a "simple shooting" that can be done by a man ? If a woman had been seen the investigator would have still tried to find her even if they thought she was just a witness. I'm not even aware of one known instance of a pro killer that was a woman in the last 10 years. I don't say they don't exist but they're in "black swan" category. BTW the investigators know exactly the sex and probably even the ethnicity of the killer. It's not clear in this article, but it was said in several others that they have his ( ;-) ) DNA, I think from the piece of the gun that was left on the crime scene. I think there's even some tech that allows you to make a mug shot of someone from her DNA, I doubt it's really accurate though.

sliverstorm 11y ago

What, pull a stunt in a car? I'm an engineer and I spent years racing cars.

jmnicolas 11y ago
I think he / she meant that the guy had the presence of mind to jump in his car and try to escape while being shot at. I think it says a lot about our culture that if you don't wait in shock to get shot by a killer some think you're a kind of trained commando.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Yeah, I forgot we're supposed to quail, become helpless, cry, and beg for mercy.
  - jmnicolas 11y ago
    Well there's certainly a tendency to make people as docile sheep, however I would not fault anybody that would freeze when being shot at. Until someone shoots at me I won't know in what category I am, commando or sheep. I wouldn't mind never finding out ;-)