McLean Triple Murder Case Still Alive, Trail Cold

A 1999 triple murder at a home not far from McLean High and Kent Gardens Elementary schools sent shock waves through the community. Although a dim memory now, the investigating detective continues to work the cold case.

Fairfax County Police Det. Robert J. Murphy was the lead detective investigating the May 26, 1999, murders of Fuad Khazi Taima, 63, a businessman; his wife, Dorothy Mae Taima, 54, an English teacher who ran referee assignments for the McLean Youth Soccer Association, and their son, Leith, 16, a student at McLean High School.

They died of gunshot wounds at their home at 6808 Broyhill St., and were found three days later after police received a tip from anonymous caller.

Detectives have followed many leads, he said. They still don’t have a suspect.

"We do have ballistic evidence. We have fingerprints and some DNA evidence, none of which have led us to a perpetrator," Murphy told the McLean Patch.

But authorities do have a composite sketch based on information from a family friend who saw the visitor before leaving the home. Murphy dug the sketch out of police records and sent it our way.

This much is known about Fuad Khazi Taima, according to Murphy: He was an Iraqi national and a U.S. citizen. He would travel back and forth to Iraq on business deals. He would be the broker between American businessmen and Iraqi businesses. His family was well-connected to the Iraqi government. And there were pictures of him with Saddam Hussein at his home.

The investigation turned to examining Taima’s business affairs, including scores of documents and computer files they took from his home shortly after the killing.

At the time, investigators were unable to pursue leads in Iraq because of the Iraqi dictatorship. Since Iraq fell and Saddam was executed, Murphy said investigators have been invited into the country to look at documents and search for clues.

"There was a lot of speculation whether this could be an Iraqi-sanctioned thing," Murphy said. "We haven't found anything to document or prove that it was an Iraqi-government hit."

But the search for a murder suspect has been "mindboggling," Murphy said.

"What I think happened is that the murders were financial in nature," he added. "His business deals had really dried up. He was desperate to make a deal. He had borrowed a lot of money from a lot of people. The popular theory is that he had the deal of a lifetime, and someone had come to collect the money he was owed."

Chances are the case will never be solved although John Walsh from America's Most Wanted ran a segment on it. Murphy is now assigned to cold cases in the Fairfax County police department and remembers the cold-blooded murders well.

And some of us still remember the flowers laid at a makeshift memorial outside McLean High School for an innocent boy named Lieth.

Epilogue: The house has since been torn down and a new house built in its place. The new owners said they knew about the murders.

Contact:  Detective Robert J. Murphy, Fairfax County Police Department, CIB/ Cold Case Homicide Squad, 4100 Chain Bridge Road, Fairfax, VA 22030, (703) 246-7857.

Original Fairfax County Police Department press release about the murders:

On May 26, 1999, Fuad Khazal Taima, age 63, his wife Dorothy M. Taima, age 54, and their son, Leith Taima, age 16, were shot and killed in their home on 6808 Broyhill Street in Mclean, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C.  Fuad had recently returned from a business trip in Baghdad.  An unexpected visitor arrived at the Taima home on May 26, 1999 asking for Fuad.  The bodies were discovered on Friday, May 28, 1999, Memorial Day weekend, in the home.  The visitor was known to the Taima family and may be known as Ibrahim, or another similar sounding name.