Bio

Shajia Ayobi was born in 1966 in Afghanistan. She grew up with a strict, domineering father.

She said she saw violence during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the early 1980s. She later told others that those events and her family life left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Before 1993, she entered a first arranged marriage. She said that marriage included physical abuse.

In 1993 she entered another arranged marriage to Ghulam Ayobi. Both she and her husband were described as war emigres from Afghanistan who later lived in the Sacramento area.

She had four children, three daughters and a son. She told the court she kept the children on track with school, took them to Muslim services, and cared for their daily needs.

Ayobi also pursued education and work. She took a criminal justice class at Kaplan College and she went back to Afghanistan for a short time in 2007 or 2008 to work as a linguist. Judges and court records described her as well educated, intelligent, and hard-working.

Murder Story

Shajia Ayobi was convicted of arranging the murder of her husband, Ghulam Ayobi. The killing occurred on December 18, 2011, in Sacramento County, California. The method of the death was a shooting. Police arrested Shajia Ayobi on January 21, 2012. She was sentenced on June 15, 2013, to 26 years to life in prison.

At first, Ayobi told police that unknown carjackers had attacked them. She later gave another account that involved the CIA. During the investigation and trial, she then said she had arranged the killing and offered a PTSD defense. She testified about abuse she said she had suffered and about trauma from earlier events in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors argued she wanted to end the marriage without a second divorce and that she would gain financially from a life insurance policy worth $285,000. The defense said her fears and past trauma explained her actions. The jury found Ayobi guilty of first-degree murder on May 2, 2013. The jury did not find enough evidence to decide if she fired the fatal shot.

Prosecutors charged a classmate from her criminal justice program, Jake Clark, as an alleged accomplice. The court record shows the case involved questions about planning, inconsistent statements, and the meaning of imminent danger. Jurors spent several days weighing those issues before reaching their verdict.

At sentencing, Ayobi apologized to her four children and said she repented. Some family members of the victim read statements to the court. Judge Helena R. Gweon described the case as tragic and unusual and said both people were complex. The victim, Ghulam Ayobi, was 53.