CLEVELAND (AP) — Tahani Mansour’s future seemed promising: The 27-year-old had a doctoral degree in pharmacy and had just been hired as a clinical pharmacist at the renowned Cleveland Clinic.
But her dreams were cut short on Sept. 27, when her father fired three rounds at her from a .38-caliber revolver while she was inside her bedroom at the family’s suburban Cleveland home. Police said she was shot twice in the head.
Jamal Mansour, 63, was indicted this week on charges of aggravated murder, murder and felonious assault. He’s being held on a $4.5 million bond, which was increased from $1.5 million after a prosecutor told a judge he was concerned that Mansour had the means to flee the country.
Authorities have yet to explain why Mansour would have killed the youngest of his six children. He told Rocky River police during his arrest that he shot her because he was angry and told a judge later that day it was an accident.
Prosecutor Michael O’Shea said during a court hearing last week that Mansour “executed” his daughter.
Mansour’s attorney, Angelo Lonardo, declined to be interviewed and referred to an earlier comment published on the Arabamericannews.com website.
“Mr. Mansour is a good man who very much loves his family,” Lonardo said.
Jamal Mansour and his wife, Sumaya, bought their home in Rocky River, a west side suburb popular among professionals, in 1993. Police have said he was born in Jordan and immigrated to the U.S. in 1978. He owned a gas station in Geauga County.
The only substantive contact between Rocky River and the family before Tahani Mansour’s slaying occurred in December 2012. According to a police report, officers went to the home after receiving an anonymous call that Jamal Mansour had threatened to kill himself if his daughter didn’t immediately return home from a conference in Las Vegas. Sumaya Mansour told an officer that her husband wasn’t “a harm to himself” but was “very upset” about his daughter’s trip, the report said.
The report doesn’t name Tahani Mansour, but friends and colleagues confirmed that she was in Las Vegas at a national conference at that time.
Philip King spent four years attending classes and socializing with her during the doctor of pharmacy program at Northeast Ohio Medical University, and both graduated in 2013. He recalled how beautiful her smile was, how much she embraced the challenges of the rigorous program and how she enjoyed going out with friends.
“She liked to be around people,” King said.
King said her life at school and time with her friends allowed her to enjoy a measure of freedom she might not have had at home, where her family was “very, very protective” of her.
“It seemed to me like it was almost an escape,” King said.
Tahani Mansour dated a classmate for two years during school, King said, a relationship he thinks she tried to hide from some of her family members.
King said she confided in him that she had some fear of her father, but he didn’t press for details.
“I didn’t ask,” King said. “I knew there were cultural reasons.”
Timothy Ulbrich taught Tahani Mansour all four years she attended NEOMED and helped her get appointed to a one-year hospital residency program she would need to be hired as a clinical pharmacist, a position where she would be working with teams of doctors and their patients in a hospital setting.
“She was loud and she was energetic,” Ulbrich said. “She had a personality that was just contagious to be around.”
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