SPOKANE, Wash. — A newly filed search warrant in Spokane County Superior Court is providing new information events leading up to the murder of a Spokane woman whose body was found in a burning car on the South Hill.
Yasir Darraji is suspected of killing the victim, who was his ex-wife, on Jan. 30, 2020. He is charged with second-degree murder.
In 2006, Darraji and the victim married in Iraq. They had children there in 2007 and 2011, according to court documents. The couple moved to Spokane in 2014 and Darraji had an affair with another woman the following year, court documents say.
In September 2015, the victim wanted a divorce from Darraji and the couple separated. The couple was involved in several domestic despite incidents over the next several years, according to court documents. Darraji's mistress then became pregnant in December 2015.
In February 2016, the victim filed a declaration in a Spokane County court claiming that Darraji was abusive and had physically harmed her several times, including one incident where he grabbed her by the throat, court documents say. The victim said Darraji also threatened to send their children to Iraq and said he would have his family murder if she went after them.
According to the documents, Darraji also misrepresented a parenting plan to the victim because she could not read English and unknowingly signed away her parental rights.
In 2016, the couple officially divorced, documents say. Darraji and his mistress were also involved in several domestic dispute incidents, according to court documents.
In December 2018, the victim reported that she went to Iraq to visit family when Darraji's side of the family kidnapped her at gunpoint and held her hostage, according to court documents. She was able to escape with help from the United States Embassy. A detective obtained paperwork from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq to verify this claim.
The victim and Darraji had a phone conversation when she returned from Iraq following the kidnapping, someone who knew the victim told investigators. The person said she overheard Darraji order the victim not to tell anyone that she was able to escape his family, “as this would bring him shame,” and instead tell people that his family allowed her to leave, court documents say. Darraji threatened to kill the victim if she failed to do this, according to court documents.
The fighting between the victim and Yasir began to escalate and became more frequent around the time of November 2019, according to court documents. The victim feared that Darraji was continuing to contact her family in Iraq and the Iraqi community in Spokane to spread rumors about her.
On Jan, 29, a friend drove the victim to work and she played a phone message she had sent to Yasir. The friend said the message was "personal and hurtful" Darraji, court records say. Darraji did not respond to the message.
According to court documents, the victim left the following message for Darraji:
“You were the father of my children so I did not speak ill of you. I did not tell my family how you treated me, the beatings you gave me and all the tears you made me shed...I will make you pay for those.”
The victim also told Darraji she would stay in Spokane to spite him, according to court documents.
Darraji worked as a delivery driver for a furniture company and was required to fill out a time sheet daily, according to court records. He recorded his hours every day except for Jan. 30, the day of the murder, and Jan. 31, court documents say.
During the investigation, a detective requested Darraji's Apple iCloud data from Oct. 31, 2019 to Jan. 31, 2020. The last message captured by Apple Inc. was on Jan, 30, 2020, the day of the homicide, and Darraji's text history on the iCloud account then came to an end, according to court documents.
The victim told a friend over Snapchat on Jan. 30 that she would go to their house after picking up her son from Darraji. She never arrived and stopped responding to texts and phone calls. At 5:49 p.m., someone disabled the victim's location services on her cellphone, according to court documents.
A Spokane police officer was driving on 27th Avenue near Fiske Street at about 9 p.m. on Jan. 30 when he saw a vehicle where he believed someone was inside, court records say.
Another person saw the vehicle parked in the same location at about 9:19 p.m. on Thursday, but realized the inside of the vehicle was on fire and called 911, according to court documents. The Spokane Fire Department responded and found a woman’s body inside of the car, which was later identified as the victim's vehicle.
On Friday, Jan. 31, the woman found dead in the burned car was identified as Darraji's ex-wife through an autopsy. The Spokane County Medical Examiner listed her cause of death as strangulation and the manner was homicide.
Darraji admitted to investigators that he was the last known person to have contact with the victim, according to court documents. He said they argued with one another at about 6 p.m. on Jan. 30 and the victim drove away, court documents say.
A Washington State Patrol laboratory also identified DNA found inside the victim's car as belonging to Darraji, court records say. Cellphone data analyzed by an agent with the FBI also showed that Darraji's phone was in the South Hill area following his argument with the victim.
Police were also investigating Darraji's close friend as a co-conspirator in the murder but charges have not been filed against a second person. Investigators suspect that Darraji was assisted by a third party at minimum in the form of transportation back home after abandoning the victim's body and her vehicle, according to the most recently filed search warrant.
