Trial testimony: Victim in ‘honor killings’ slaying shot to death only feet away from loaded assault rifle

Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan is shown in court Monday, June 25, 2018. Irsan was charged with capital murder because his alleged crime involved multiple victims  his daughters best friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian medical student and activist, and his daughters husband, Coty Beavers, 28. Both slayings, authorities said, were driven by the anger of Irsan, a conservative Muslim, over his daughter Nesreens decision to marry Beavers, a Christian from Houston. ( Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle ) less Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan is shown in court Monday, June 25, 2018. Irsan was charged with capital murder because his alleged crime involved multiple victims  his daughters best friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an ... more Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff / Houston Chronicle Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Trial testimony: Victim in ‘honor killings’ slaying shot to death only feet away from loaded assault rifle 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

One of the victims of an alleged “honor killings” plot died after being shot seven times at his Harris County apartment within feet of a loaded assault rifle, police testified Thursday at his father-in-law’s capital murder trial.

The AR-15 assault rifle was propped up next to a TV console in the living room of the apartment that Coty Beavers, 28, shared with his wife, Nesreen. Her devoutly religious father, Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, is facing the death penalty for allegedly orchestrating the “honor killings” of both his son-in-law and his daughter’s close friend.

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The 60-year-old Jordanian immigrant and fervent Muslim is accused of killing Beavers and Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an Iranian activist, because they supported Nesreen’s conversion to Christianity and marriage to a Beavers, who was a Christian.

Irsan’s defense team have told jurors he was not connected to either shooting - which took 11 months apart- and that police do not actually know what happened in either case.

Nesreen found Beavers deceased in their apartment when she got home from work on November 12, 2012, three days after her 25th birthday. Due to threats from her father, Beavers had escorted her to her automobile when she left for work that morning, according to earlier testimony.

“She seemed scared,” said Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Tommy Berry. “She was upset. She seemed very nervous.”

Berry was one of the first officers at the northwest Harris County apartment and testified that Beavers was found dead just a few feet from the assault rifle that was equipped with an extended magazine.

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Berry’s testimony capped a day of witnesses detailing how Nesreen and Beavers repeatedly told police and others how scared they were of Irsan.

The young couple reported to police that their car had been vandalized twice in the month they lived at the apartment. The tires had been slashed on one occasion, and in another incident, sugar was put in the gas tank to keep it from running.

When Nesreen left home the day Beavers was killed, he walked her to her car and then she drove him the short distance to the stairs to their third-floor apartment. Beavers’ mother testified last week that the couple were scared of Irsan and that they rented an apartment onthe third floor of a in gated complex in a quest for safety.

Nasreen got home about 4 p.m. to find Beavers dead and flew into near hysterics, witnesses recalled.

“She was frantic,” said Marisela Quilantan, a former employee at the complex who went to the apartment after residents told her something was going on. “She was crying…she couldn’t catch her breath.”

Quilantan testified that Nesreen couldn’t complete her 911 call, so she took the phone.

Prosecutors have said Irsan, who lived in a rural Montgomery County compound with his 12 children, was planning to kill his daughter, Nesreen, in a third shooting. He wanted to slay the people she loved first “so she would suffer more,” prosecutors told the jury in opening statements.

Prosecutors have called dozens of witnesses to testify as the trial reaches the end of a second week.

Jurors have seen and heard most of the evidence surrounding the shooting death of Nesreen’s friend, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, a politically active Iranian medical student and are now hearing testimony concerning Beavers’ death. Bagherzadeh, a 30-year-old molecular genetics student, was fatally shot in her car as she arrived home at her parent’s Galleria-area townhome in January 2012.

By alleging that the two shootings were part of the same scheme, prosecutors can seek the death penalty under Texas law.

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Special prosecutors Jon Stephenson, Marie Primm and Anna Emmons are handling the case after Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, citing previous involvement in the case by a top aide, recused her office from the prosecution. Irsan is being defended by Allen Tanner and Rudy Duarte.

The trial, is expected to last six weeks in state District Judge Jan Krocker’s court. The trial is being held in Houston’s federal courthouse downtown because the Harris County Criminal Justice Center has not recovered from damage sustained in August during Hurricane Harvey.