Father kills three children, wife, then himself over debt

FARMINGTON HILLS, Michigan (AP) -- Distraught over hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts and believing he had nowhere to turn, Jihad Hassan Moukalled put his despair in writing.

"I never ever had a bad intent toward anyone," the 42-year-old man scrawled Tuesday on a single sheet of paper. "I think that I was gripped by the hope of 'one more shot.' I did not know how else to escape what I got myself into. It is over."

Hours later, a maid found the note -- pinned down with salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen counter -- and Moukalled, his three young children and pregnant wife dead in their beds in their neat, two-story suburban Detroit home.

Police said years of problem gambling brought about Moukalled's anguished decision to suffocate his children as they slept, then shoot his wife before using the handgun on himself.

The victims were identified as his wife, Fatima, 31; daughter Aya, 7; son Adam, 5; and daughter Lila, who would have turned 3 on Saturday.

"I did not equip them with any tools to go on by themselves, and I am leaving them with less than nothing," Moukalled wrote. "May God forgive me."

Police Chief William Dwyer said Moukalled's Oak Park printing business had amassed $500,000 in debts because Moukalled withdrew the money to cover his gambling. Three credit cards found inside the house carried $60,000 in debt, Dwyer said.

"Over the past two years, he's been making weekly trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, gambling large sums of money," Dwyer said. "According to a statement by one of the relatives, he was gambling all over the place."

Moukalled had returned home at 4 a.m. Tuesday from Las Vegas. During the three-day trip, police said Moukalled had asked his business to deposit $85,000 into a bank account with hopes the money could be transferred to a Las Vegas casino. The bank wouldn't honor the check.

Police said he killed his family after returning home, suffocating the children as they slept tucked in their beds. There were signs in the master bedroom of a struggle with his wife, police said.

Somewhere along the way, Moukalled crafted his note, expressing remorse about gambling debts.

"There is nothing more destructive to life than gambling," he wrote. "A drug addict destroys his life, a gambler destroys his life and the lives of those he cares about and care about him."

Hussein Makled said his nephew Moukalled had assured relatives he had quit gambling but that none knew of the problem's scope.

"We're just frozen," Makled told The Detroit News. "It's frozen every one of us. He was a good businessman and husband, but especially father. His kids? Why? Why his kids? He loved them so much it makes no sense at all."

Across the street from the Moukalleds' brick home encircled by yellow police tape, neighbor Mary Winkler struggled to find words to explain the family's deaths to her 5-year-old son.

"There's no doubt in my mind how much the father loved his family," she said, fighting back tears. "We truly felt he was protecting them from pain."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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