Zein Isa was born on June 3, 1931, in Mandatory Palestine. As a teenager he married a cousin, and in the 1950s he migrated to Brazil, where he eventually met Maria Matias. The couple married in 1963 and later moved to the U.S., Puerto Rico, and back to Brazil before settling in St. Louis around 1986, where they opened a grocery store. Zein became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1980. Their youngest daughter, Palestina “Tina” Isa—born December 3, 1972—grew up multilingual, attending local schools and planning to become a pilot. But Zein and Maria maintained a strict household rooted in traditional Palestinian values.

On November 6, 1989, sixteen-year-old Tina came home from her first shift at Wendy’s to the family apartment in Delor Park, St. Louis. Her relationship with a Black boy and refusal to live under her parents’ rules had enraged them. Using FBI surveillance (from a FISA wiretap targeting Zein’s links to the Abu Nidal Organization), agents captured Tina’s murder in real time: Zein stabbing her repeatedly with a boning knife, while Maria held her down. The chilling recording included Zein shouting, “Die, my daughter, die!” as she died from multiple wounds to her lungs, liver, and heart.

Zein and Maria were arrested shortly after. On October 25, 1991, following a brief jury deliberation, both were convicted of first-degree murder. On December 20, 1991, they were each sentenced to death, with the judge stating, “Culture is no excuse for murder.”

In April 1993, Zein faced a separate FBI indictment for terrorism—linked to the Abu Nidal Organization—but these charges were dropped since he was already on death row.

Zein died in prison on February 17, 1997, from diabetes complications, long before any execution could occur. Maria’s death sentence was later commuted and she remained incarcerated until her death in prison on April 30, 2014.