When 35-year-old Nada Huranieh was found dead on the patio of her Farmington Hills home in August 2017, the whole nation was left astounded owing to the brutal severity of the matter. That’s because, as explored in NBC’s ‘Dateline: The Shadow in the Window,’ while the initial claim was that she fell out of a second-floor window, the truth is she had been thrown out. In fact, her own teenage son Muhammad Altantawi had suffocated her to death with a damp cloth or towel and tossed her out before staging the scene to look like a complete accident.
Muhammad Altantawi Was Angry Over His Parents’ Divorce
Born in 2001 as Nada Huranieh and Bassell Huranieh’s only son as well as the eldest of three children, Muhammad was proudly attending the International Academy West high school in White Lake Township, Michigan, when his entire world turned upside down. That’s because his father was booted out following a domestic violence incident on Valentine’s Day 2016, wherein he had pushed his wife down a set of stairs, driving her to file for divorce a month later. He later pleaded guilty to spousal abuse, along with unrelated charges of Medicaid fraud and two counts of healthcare fraud, for which he had to pay thousands of dollars in fines.
According to records, the fight between Nada and Bassell had stemmed from his concerns that she was “Americanizing” their three kids to such an extent they were forgetting their Syrian and Islamic roots. However, it soon began appearing as if their 16-year-old son Muhammad was on his father’s side every step of the way, resulting in a lot of friction at home. But alas, nobody could have ever imagined that it would all culminate in Nada being found dead and him immediately being considered a suspect based on contradictory claims as well as unclear answers to the police.
Muhammad Altantawi Maintains His Innocence
As per police statements, while Muhammad did assert their mother had likely fallen from the second-floor window of their home, he never gave a direct answer on precisely where he was at the time of the incident. As if that’s not enough, he also gave contradictory statements regarding whether he was even at home or not, as well as his relationship with his dad, leading investigators to look into him further. That’s when they uncovered a photo of just the same window Nada had apparently fallen from in a text message from Muhammad to his father weeks before.
However, the most incriminating aspect for Muhammad was that surveillance footage from near their place had caught a shadow moving a ladder near the window and then carrying and throwing what looked like Nada out of it. Therefore, by the time 2018 rolled around, Muhammad had been arrested for first-degree murder and was being held without bond at a local correctional facility upon pleading not guilty. He later stood trial and was convicted after four hours of deliberations despite having maintained his mother’s death was nothing but a freak accident he had no hand in.
Muhammad Altantawi is Serving His Sentence Behind Bars
Since Muhammad was a minor at the time of the incident, his sentencing guidelines were based on that, making the maximum possible term he could receive not life without parole but 60 years. Therefore, when it came time for him to be sentenced, the judge went ahead and ordered him to spend 35 to 60 years behind bars for his heinous offense, asserting he deserved to “rot in jail.” This came after the fact he and his father made statements portraying him as the victim rather than Nada – representing himself; Muhammad went as far as to claim the media had painted him as a woman-hating Muslim man, which played a role in the case.
Muhammad actually tried to argue every single sentence of his official conviction till the point the judge even threatened to have him thrown out if he did not maintain decorum. Furthermore, the judge even cut his father’s victim impact statement short since he had started it with how he and his sons were victims of the system without even acknowledging his late wife. Therefore, today, at the age of 23, Muhammadis is serving his term at the mixed security Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kinross, Michigan, where he is expected to remain until at least he becomes eligible for parole in 2051. However, it is imperative to note that he has since appealed his conviction.
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