The jury at the Oweiss trial got visual evidence of Zakaria Oweiss’ state of mind on the day Montgomery County Police allege he murdered his wife, Marianne.
On March 3, Det. Kenneth Penrod, the lead investigator for the police, testified. As part of this testimony, the jury was shown a little over three hours of videotape showing a portion of Oweiss’ questioning.
Penrod testified that he arrived on the scene at 9:50 a.m. on the day of the murder. Soon after he arrived, Penrod had Oweiss, his son, Omar, and Omar’s girlfriend, Claudia, transported in separate cars to the station.
Oweiss was the only person whose interview was taped.
The tape starts at 11:18 a.m. on the day of the murder. Oweiss is shown seated at a table in a small room, alone. He did not know he was being taped. Penrod was later asked why he did not tell Oweiss about the taping.
“Legally, I don’t have to,” Penrod said. As long as one person involved knows that a taping is taking place it is legal, and Penrod was that person, he said.
Many people walked past the opened door over the course of the day, but no one in the hall interacted with Oweiss. Three uniformed police entered the room shortly after taping began and took a swab of evidence from Oweiss’ wedding ring.
At 11:23 a.m. Penrod and his partner, Michael Brent, entered the room.
“Perhaps you could tell us what happened,” Penrod said. Oweiss then began his description of the sequence of events.
Oweiss stated on the tape that he “pulled into the driveway.” He said he heard his wife scream “Help. Omar,” just as he opened the front door. Oweiss stated that he went downstairs and found her body lying in a pool of blood. He got on the floor and showed the position he says he found her in — on elbows and knees with her face touching the ground.
“I checked for a pulse,” Oweiss, a physician, said on the tape. He also said that he tried to move the body to better assess her. He explained that there was another door to the basement which led directly outside. He stated that he ran up those stairs and out to the driveway and was later joined on the driveway by his son, Omar.
When the detectives left, sometimes for as long as 20 minutes, Oweiss would sometimes cry, sometimes sit with his head on the table, and sometimes just rub his face. Omar entered the room during one of these stretches of time, but was immediately asked to leave by the police.
At one point, Oweiss asked to call his lawyer. “You’re not a defendant,” Penrod said. After being assured that he had not been charged with anything, Oweiss decided he no longer wanted to speak to an attorney.
“We’re in the process of separation and divorce,” Oweiss said on the tape of his relationship with his wife. He said he thought they “had ups and downs, but it was a good marriage.”
Detectives also asked if there had ever been a time when he struck her physically. “[We had] one fight in the 80s,” Oweiss answered on the tape.
“Right now this is a very unpleasant situation for your entire family,” Penrod said. “I think we have to confront the issue of an emotional reaction,” Penrod said to Oweiss on tape.
“I’m not hiding anything. … I did not do anything,” Oweiss said.
The tape ended abruptly. Judge Pincus had earlier explained that the court had decided where the tape would end, and instructed the jury not to “speculate why it stops where it does.”