Ejaz Ahmad was shot, stabbed and decapitated by his young wife Leah Ward, Evil Stepmothers examines this case of cold-blooded murder.
May 2003, and Pakistan-born store owner Ejaz Ahmad, 41, was found dead in a shed behind his house in Memphis, Tennessee. His body was discovered by his 11-year-old son and the boy’s grandmother, as they went to check on a pet chicken.
Their discovery was a gruesome one with Ahmad badly decomposed body wrapped up in plastic and decapitated, with no sign of his head. He’d been shot in the chest and repeatedly stabbed in the neck and upper body.
The medical examiner was able to identify Ahmad from his fingerprints and police soon suspected his new wife, 26-year-old Leah Joy Ward.
Ward admitted to police that she’d killed Ahmad but said it was in self-defense, when the got into a argument. She then explained that in a panic she had gotten rid of the gun and later dismembered his corpse.
At her trial in 2005 the prosecutor pointed out that her actions did not seem to be those of someone in a panic. With the disposal of the gun and then the grisly cutting up of body parts, including chopping into neck and thigh bones.
Ward also pawned and sold a lot of Ahmad’s possessions and told his family and friends that he’d just suddenly left town.
The jury did not believe her self-defense story and Ward was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
It is thought that having married Ward, Ahmad had found out about her prior drug conviction and that her violation of parole meant she was due to head back into prison.
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Evil Stepmothers – Beyond Repair airs at 9:00 PM on Investigation Discovery.