John Jefferson
Background: Mia Maro (GoFundMe). Inset: Mohammed Almaru (Illinois Dept. of Corrections).
The Illinois father who confessed that he “lost his mind” and beat his teenage daughter to death — apparently over her wanting to go to prom — will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Mohammed Almaru, 44, was sentenced Thursday to 55 years in prison for killing his 17-year-old daughter Mia Maro inside their home in May 2022. A jury convicted him in August of first-degree murder after about an hour of deliberations, according to a local Patch report.
On May 1, 2022, Mia’s aunt found the girl’s body in the family’s Tinley Park home. She was covered in bruises, and prosecutors said Almaru attacked her with a rubber mallet, later discovered in the garage, as well as a bloodied and bent metal pole found on the kitchen floor.
Almaru was found near his daughter with self-inflicted wounds after ingesting pills in an apparent suicide attempt.
He confessed to the crime in a text to a family member, local Fox affiliate WFLD reported.
“I lost my mind, went out of control and beat the s— out of her,” he reportedly wrote. “I f—ed up big time I’m sorry.”
The murder happened days after Almaru reportedly rescinded permission for Mia to attend her high school prom. He allegedly told family members that he had looked through his daughter’s phone and found messages that led him to not trust her.
Court records indicated that Mia was afraid of her father and had texted relatives in the days before her death to voice fears that he would “beat her” or “kill her” over her involvement in a minor car accident.
Mia’s aunt, Randa Almaru, said in a GoFundMe that Mia “was a beautiful soul and the light of our lives,” as well as “an amazing daughter, niece, sister, granddaughter and the best friend anyone could encounter.”
Mia was also a primary caregiver for her mother, who was described in the GoFundMe as having been “incapacitated 3 years ago.”
Almaru will get credit for the more than two years he has already spent in custody, but the judge said that he must serve all of his term, CBS Chicago reported. After the sentence, Almaru’s lawyers asked for a new trial and a reconsideration of the sentence, but both requests were denied, the CBS story said.
More from Law&Crime: Dad left his 15-year-old daughter ratchet strapped to tree next to chicken coop for 3 days because she goes to the bathroom on herself and ‘cannot be trusted’: Cops
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