An Arab national confessed in court on Sunday to the sexual assault, disfigurement and killing of three Asian housemaids over the course of 2007-09. Ouda, 28, a father of six, is currently detained at the general prison after being examined at Yanbu General Hospital to determine his mental health. He was captured after his son was arrested for begging recently. After his arrest, the son's statements and behavior made the police suspicious. When they conducted a search of the boy's house, they found evidence of the killings. The suspect had been concealing himself using forged Saudi identities since the first of his three crimes were committed in September 2007. Halima According to his confession, Ouda's first victim was Halima, whom he lured into leaving her sponsor and meeting him at Yanbu Northern Corniche. He picked her up and then took her to an Istiraha (private rest house). After raping her, he said during his interrogation, he beat her with a stick and then suffocated her with a pillow. He disfigured her face, wrapped the body in a sheet and took it in his car trunk to a deserted area on Yanbu's Al-Nakhal Road where he dumped it. Second victim About six months after the first murder, Ouda saw a housemaid sitting alone near a parking lot on the Industrial Yanbu Corniche and persuaded her to get into his car. He took her to a deserted area where he raped her, strangled her to death and then smashed her head with a rock. He buried her close to the crime scene and returned home. Third victim The third victim was an Asian woman he picked up from Al-Osaili District and brought her back to his house. His wife and children said this last victim tried to escape and ran out of her husband's room into the street before he caught her and stabbed her three times. He brought her dead body back to the house and poured a large quantity of acid over her. He then dumped the body in a deserted area of Al-Fari, near Omluj. Murderer's family The man's eldest son is 14 years old and the youngest is three. His illiterate wife, Fatima, said Ouda was the breadwinner of the family. However, he did not send his children to school and often forced them to beg and then taking the money for himself. The eldest son is currently working. According to a relative, quoted in the media, the wife is mentally ill and has been using medication provided by charitable people. “We thought it was possible for him to commit a crime given his financial situation, but murder was not expected at all,” the relative was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
