The Sting (Somaya Hussein Ahmed)
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Who are the hosts of Anatomy of Murder?
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anna Siga-Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murder.
In this digital age, our phones have become our constant companions. And whether it's a blessing or a curse, it also means that rarely are any of us without a camera.
What role does digital evidence play in modern investigations?
And those cameras, they're always rolling, constantly capturing all of the outrageous, the mundane, the inspiring, and the shocking moments of everyday life.
And if you've ever scrolled social media and watched a supercut of people falling down or a tense confrontation in a parking lot, you probably know what we're talking about. These days, it seems like our every misstep is just destined to be captured on video and shared with the world.
But what happens when a camera captures something even darker? We've probably all seen the shaky footage of an escalating conflict, but rarely do we think about the real life violence that may have followed or the very real consequences when a camera may be the only witness to a murder.
I'm Brian Porter. I'm the Commonwealth's attorney for the city of Alexandria, Virginia. You may recognize the voice of Brian Porter, who has been a guest on AOM before. Let's see if you can remember which episode now. Brian started his career as a police officer in Washington, D.C., and in his hometown of Alexandria, Virginia, before deciding he wanted to be a lawyer. Then I graduated from law school and immediately transferred over from being a police officer to being an assistant Commonwealth's attorney doing traffic cases. And I've been a prosecutor ever since. This is my 24th year as a prosecutor. And I have done basically every kind of case you could imagine as a prosecutor, working my way up through the ranks.
I ended up kind of focusing on gang offenses, firearms offenses, complex drug distribution cases, and then homicides.
Brian has been the elected prosecutor in Alexandria since 2014, and in that role, he has overseen a large number of homicides, including the one that occurred in January of 2019 that set a template for how digital evidence could be used effectively in criminal investigations.
On a cold January night, a young woman was returning to the apartment she shared with her roommate, Sumaya Ahmed, in a multi-story residential complex in the city of Alexandria.
Who was Sumaya Ahmed and what happened to her?
She and Sumaya were friends as well as roommates, but they didn't see each other every day because they had different work schedules. So as she turned the lock in the apartment door, she didn't know if Sumaya would be home or not.
But as soon as she entered the apartment, she knew something was terribly wrong. She smelled a strong odor coming from Samaya's room. So she made entry and she discovered that Samaya was dead.
There was blood staining the bed where Samaya's body was found. What appeared to be a severe injury to her head. Her shocked roommate immediately retreated from the bedroom and dialed 911.
First responders arrived at the fifth floor apartment within minutes. But sadly, there was nothing they could do. They got to the bedroom and they saw Samaya dead. A lot of blood. The blood had coagulated and was not fresh, which led them to believe that she had been dead for some time and her body was cold to the touch.
It was also clear that Samaya, who was just 35 years old, had not experienced a natural death.
They weren't sure what had occurred, but it looked to be consistent with a gunshot wound, and that was pretty quickly confirmed that she had suffered a gunshot wound inside of her mouth, as though the gun had been placed inside of her mouth. Common Sense suggested that Samaya's fatal injury might have been self-inflicted, but to investigators at the scene, it quickly became clear that her death was not the result of a suicide.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who are the hosts of Anatomy of Murder?
0:28–0:56
2
What role does digital evidence play in modern investigations?
0:56–3:07
3
Who was Sumaya Ahmed and what happened to her?
3:07–5:42
4
What evidence pointed to Sumaya's boyfriend as a suspect?
5:42–12:32
5
How was Sumaya's cellphone crucial to the investigation?
12:32–15:42
6
What did the videos on Sumaya's phone reveal?
15:42–25:25
7
How did investigators handle Daniel CanCam's interrogation?
25:25–53:44