20-year-old Woman Dead; Stepfather Charged with Murder

WARREN, Mich. (WJBK) - Jessica Mokedad's friends and family told us that for the first time in her life, she was finally happy. She had friends and freedom, but her stepfather is accused of taking that all away.

"I was in Minnesota, and he called me, my husband, and said, 'I am turning myself into the police. I smacked Jessica,'" said mother Wendy Alfetlawi.

However, Warren Police say Rahim Alfetlawi didn't slap his stepdaughter, he shot her.

Police discovered 20-year-old Jessica Mokedad's lifeless body inside her grandmother's home.

"I just stopped what I was doing and sat down and started crying," said Ali Alfetlawi.

Jessica's friends say this tragic ending was years in the making. Mokedad grew up in Minnesota with her mother and her stepfather.

"He won't let her out of his eyesight," Ali Alfetlawi said.

"He was too overbearing, over controlling -- things I thought that were just normal, strict parenting really. Now, when I look back, I say no, it was too much," Wendy Alfetlawi said.

He forced her to wear a traditional head scarf instead of allowing her to make that decision on her own, and when she stopped wearing a scarf, friends say he became furious.

"She just wants to express herself the way she wants and not what he wants," said friend Kayla Chuba.

That's why her friends helped her escape.

"She packed up all her stuff. She told me she put it in a bush. She acted like she was taking out the garbage so he wouldn't see all her stuff packed," Chuba said.

Jessica left Minnesota and moved to Michigan, but despite the hundreds of miles between them, friends say he tracked her every move.

"Every time he would call her, it would just seem like he had just like some sick obsession. It wasn't just like a stepfather-daughter relationship. It was something else," one friend said.

"He came here a couple times, but never found her," Chuba told FOX 2.

That is until last Friday.

"He said he wanted to make amends with Jess," said Wendy Alfetlawi.

That's not what happened. Alfetlawi told Warren Police he and Jessica got into an argument Saturday afternoon. She felt his gun at his waistband. They both reached for it, and it went off by accident. However, police are not buying that story and neither are others.

"It's your stepdaughter," said Ali Alfetlawi. "Why would you cross the line?"

"I'm glad we don't have the death penalty here because that would be too easy. I want him to suffer everyday just like she suffered," Wendy Alfetlawi said.

Alfetlawi has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond.