This Dumpster not marked for severed limbs !
Ms.A
DETROIT FREE PRESS
October 4, 2000
After killing his wife, prosecutors say, the Plymouth biochemist sawed off
her head and limbs in his basement, chopped off each of her 10 fingertips
then drove to Ohio to dump her torso so he could confuse police.
But a few mistakes by Islam, coupled with painstaking detective work, got
him in the end.
On Tuesday after four hours of deliberation over two days, a Wayne County
jury found Islam guilty of the first-degree murder of his estranged wife,
Tracy Islam.
As the verdict was read in a Detroit courtroom, Islam's eyes welled up while
his 15-year-old daughter sobbed and quivered. Moments later, his 17-year-old
son jumped up, scurried to the exit, then banged on the door while letting
out a angry cry.
The children had supported Islam during the three-week-long trial and
testified on his behalf.
Islam, 50, faces a mandatory life term at his sentencing Oct. 20. Dressed in
a three-button suit, his red eyes looked sadly at his children as court
officers led him away.
The verdict ended a chilling case that was the first murder in Plymouth in
15 years. Neighbors were shocked to learn that Islam, a diminutive,
soft-spoken scientist, had killed his English-born wife in a jealous rage.
The case was complicated for prosecutors, who had to rely on circumstantial
evidence to piece together why and how Islam killed his wife.
Tracy Islam left her husband and children in August 1999 to live in England.
She came back to Plymouth to finalize divorce plans, but Azizul Islam wanted
to reconcile. A native of Bangladesh, he earned a doctorate in biochemistry
from the University of London and was the vice president of a Plymouth
electroplating company.
The night of Dec. 19, he overheard a conversation Tracy Islam had with her
boyfriend in England.
"I miss you and love you," she said to him, according to prosecutors.
After that night, she was never heard from again.
A few days later, her limbs, without fingertips, were found in an outdoor
grease bin behind the A & W restaurant in Dearborn near Fairlane Town
Center. Had Islam dumped the arms and legs in the regular trash bin, they
probably would not have been found, and the case never would have been
solved, prosecutors say.
"He was too short to reach the regular Dumpster, which isn't usually
checked. If he had, the limbs would have gone to the landfill," said Cmdr.
Wayne Carroll of the Plymouth Police Department. This was his first murder
case. "But the grease Dumpster is emptied out, so they check what's in it
before they dump it. That's how they found those limbs."
A torso found in rural Ohio matched the limbs and DNA samples taken from
Tracy Islam's toothbrush, which was given to police by her daughter. Also,
paint found in Islam's basement matched paint found on bags used to wrap her
body.
Islam's attorney, Michael Schwartz, did not comment after the verdict.
"Justice has been done," said Anita Ross, Tracy Islam's sister from London.
"All I want now is to get Tracy's body back to England where it belongs."
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Plymouth man found guilty in mutilation murder of his wife
Tuesday, October 03, 2000
DETROIT FREE PRESS
A Plymouth man was found guilty Tuesday of murdering his wife last December
and mutilating her body.
Azizul Islam, 50, a biochemist, was found guilty of first-degree murder and
mutilation of a body in Plymouth District Court. He faces a mandatory life
sentence on Oct. 20.
"Justice has been done,'' the victim's sister, Anita Ross, said after the
verdict.
The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes on Monday, continued to deliberate
on Tuesday and reached a verdict in mid-morning.
Prosecutors contend Islam killed his wife in a jealous rage, mutilated the
body and scattered the parts in Dearborn and Ohio.
Prosecutors used DNA evidence in February to identify the body parts as
being that of Tracy Islam, 35, Azizul Islam's wife of 17 years. Tracy Islam
had left her husband last August and moved to England, but she came back
last December to visit her two kids.
Prosecutors said lsam killed his wife after he overheard her talking on the
telephone to a boyfriend in England. That sent him into a jealous rage,
because he had wanted to reconcile the marriage.
Defense attorney Michael Schwartz had criticized the prosecution's case as
"very, very thin and they're going to have a hard time."
Schwartz left the courtroom Tuesday without commenting.
Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Michael Lehto had said earlier that Azizul
Islam is the only person with motive to kill his wife because their marriage
had crumbled, he said. He was the only one who had reason to cut up her body
and obliterate her fingerprints in an attempt to hide her identity, he
contended.
"What broke him is he wanted to reconcile their marriage," Lehto said
earlier. "She didn't, so he made a decision ...to kill her."
Tracy Islam had been reported missing by her sister, Anita Ross, on
Christmas Day. Ross, who lives in London, testified in a hearing that her
sister left her husband in August, moved back to London but was in Plymouth
to visit her children and finalize her divorce.
Tracy Islam's daily calls to London stopped after Dec. 19, when Ross said
her sister told her she was frightened of her husband.
Two arms and legs were discovered Dec. 22 in a Dumpster behind an A&W
restaurant in Dearborn. On Dec. 31, a female torso was discovered in Ottawa
County, Ohio. Dearborn, Plymouth and Ohio law enforcement officials soon
started working together.
The case got a break on Jan. 4 when Dearborn Police Sgt. Mark Jabour went to
Islam's Roe Street residence to question the couple's two children, Anna,
14, and Joseph, 16. Jabour said he got Tracy Islam's toothbrush from Anna
and DNA experts went to work.
Several days later, during a search of the Islams' home, officers retrieved
blood samples under a freshly painted basement floor, said Heather Spillane,
a Michigan State Police forensic scientist. Spillane testified at a hearing
in February that DNA extracted from tissue samples taken from the arms and
the blood samples taken from the basement all matched the DNA profiles
generated from Tracy Islam's toothbrush.
Spillane also testified that Tracy Islam's genetic profile generated through
the evidence matched blood samples taken from her two children.
Lehto pieced the case together at the close of the hearing by recounting key
testimony. Jerry Ashley testified that he met Azizul Islam for the first and
only time on Dec. 23, when Islam knocked on his door about 11 a.m. and asked
him to lift a heavy plastic garbage can into the back of a minivan. Ashley,
who lives across the street, agreed and said the garbage can weighed about
110 pounds.
Azizul Islam had rented a white Dodge minivan that morning and returned it
about 3 p.m., logging 213 miles, said Plymouth Lt. Wayne Carroll.
Several witnesses from Ohio testified at a previous hearing that they saw a
well-dressed man fitting Islam's description traipsing through a muddy field
near a parked white minivan. However, Schwartz noted, two witnesses said
they thought they saw the man Dec. 22.
Meanwhile, Ross testified that she grew more and more concerned about her
sister's whereabouts. During a Dec. 19 telephone call, Tracy Islam's new
boyfriend, Noel Finnegan, got on the line and Azizul Islam overheard, Ross
said. Azizul Islam then slammed down the phone, she said.
Ross called the Islams on Dec. 21 and said Azizul Islam started ranting and
raving, "really going mad, telling me I never told him that Tracy was seeing
another man." Ross said Azizul Islam told her his wife had left the morning
of Dec. 20 to stay with a friend and she would be home on Christmas as
planned.
