Maher Kassem, a man from the Chicago suburbs, is facing murder charges after he shot and killed his wife and three adult daughters during a domestic dispute.
Four counts of first-degree murder were brought against Kassem.
The father and one of his daughters got into a fiery dispute. His wife and two other daughters came running over to tell him to calm down; that’s when the shootings began.
Among the victims are his wife, Majeda (53), daughter Hanan (25), and twin daughters Zahia and Helema (24). Each of Kassem’s daughters was shot twice, while his wife Majeda was shot seven times. The 19-year-old son of the Kassems was at the residence but escaped unharmed.
Kassem confessed to the murders and cooperated with authorities, suggesting that money issues within the family were the root cause of the argument. The shooting occurred on Sunday morning. Police discovered the bodies of Kassem’s wife and three children in his basement after a man called 911 claiming to have shots, according to Village Manager Pat Carr. At the scene, two firearms were seized by the police.
According to the authorities, Kassem never pointed his gun at his son, although he expressed unhappiness about his father’s treatment of him at home.
Friends organized a memorial drive to construct a mosque in the women’s honor, and funeral rituals were set to take place at a mosque on Tuesday. The Kassems are Muslim with Palestinian ancestry.
There is no information on whether Maher Kassem obtained a lawyer, although he was due in bail court on Tuesday.
According to the police, this was the worst shooting in the 55,000-person municipality of Tinley Park since a 2008 incident that saw the murder of five women at a Lane Bryant shop in a suburban strip mall.
Those murders remain unsolved.
