Omaima Nelson killed and dismembered her husband -Credit:AP
(AP)
When Omaima Nelson, a 23-year-old Egyptian-born model, stood trial for murdering, dismembering and cannibalising her wealthy older husband, she told the court: “If I didn’t defend my life, I would have been dead. I’m sorry it happened, but I’m glad I lived. I’m sorry I dismembered him.”
Omaima met Bill Nelson, a 56-year-old pilot, while at a pool bar in Huntington Beach, California, in October 1991. Authorities say she regularly frequented bars seeking out older men.
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Yet, their connection was immediate – within just days, they decided to get married.
It wasn’t long before things took a sinister turn. On November 28, 1991, less than a month following their wedding, Omaima was at Bill’s Orange Beach apartment when he restrained her to the bed as part of a BDSM “sex game”.
According to her testimony, Omaima grew frightened when her new husband disregarded her pleas to stop and assaulted her, reports the Daily Star.
In 1991, she met Bill, 33 years her senior, while at a bar playing pool -Credit:Oxygen True Crime
She had suffered female genital mutilation as a child, and stated she found sexual intercourse traumatic and excruciating.
Dressed in a red dress and red boots, she managed to free herself from her restraints and struck Bill over the head with a lamp, stabbed him with scissors and viciously beat him with an iron.
Post-mortem examinations showed ligature marks on Bill’s wrists, suggesting she had also restrained her husband before murdering him.
Omaima told her psychologist entering a “trance-like state” during the subsequent 12 hours, during which she dismembered his body and boiled various body parts, including his head and hands.
Bill Nelson was a pilot
Days earlier, home video footage showed the couple sharing family moments in the Southern US with relatives – this recording was presented to the jury before Omaima’s parole was rejected in 2011 by Orange County prosecutors.
She also castrated her husband, allegedly in retaliation for the sexual assaults.
Omaima insisted she dismembered her spouse to destroy the evidence.
She boiled his hands to remove his fingerprints, then mixed his flesh with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving and discarded it in the garbage disposal unit, which neighbors reported hearing running nonstop for two days.
After the gruesome murder, Omaima was observed driving her husband’s red Corvette, which was discovered with black garbage bags on the front seat containing dismembered body parts, CBS2 reported.
Omaima was just 23 when she married Bill
Shocking video recorded immediately after police arrived shows an officer horrified upon discovering organs in one of the bags.
The evidence trail guided investigators to a grisly scene at the couple’s apartment, where it was believed Omaima Nelson had restrained her husband on the bed and butchered him.
Two critical pieces of evidence in the case were a wooden knife and a butcher’s cleaver.
Investigators also uncovered strips of flesh simmering in a soup pot and stored in the freezer, Bill’s hands submerged in a deep-fat fryer, and a cooler containing his preserved head.
Despite Bill being estimated to have weighed 230lbs, only 150lbs of his remains were recovered. His genitals were among the body parts that were never located.
Omaima Nelson is still behind bars
Omaima subsequently confessed to her psychiatrist that she had cooked Bill’s ribs and smothered them in barbecue sauce, though she later retracted this statement.
Omaima was taken into custody on 2 December, found driving Bill’s red Corvette while enlisting her boyfriends to help dispose of his dismembered remains.
When law enforcement pulled her over, black garbage bags filled with his organs were discovered in the backseat and trunk.
Although she has since become eligible for parole, she has been denied release on two occasions due to violent conduct behind bars, including an assault on a prison guard.
California’s parole board said: “Commissioners found Omaima unpredictable and a serious threat to public safety.”
She is set to be considered for release again this year.