Houriyeh, a buxom 29 years old Iranian woman had serious
problems with her husband and hated his family. She strangled her
husband while he slept and paid two male accomplices, Farhad, 23,
and Reza, 24 to kill three of her in-laws in the same night in April
2007. They strangled her husband's parents and stabbed his brother
to death.
Examinations of Houriyeh's telephone calls and other activities
revealed that Houriyeh had been engaged in an extra-marital
relationship with a young man named Mehdi. Based on this
evidence, Houriyeh was arrested for the murders, but she
maintained her innocence. However, when the police approached
her with the evidence of her crime of "adultery," the punishment for
which is death by stoning, and after days of virtually uninterrupted
interrogation, Houriyeh agreed to confess and provided the
following account:
"A while back I met a man named Mehdi, and little by little, we fell
in love. Our love was so strong that we decided that we wanted to
be married to one another. However, my husband refused to grant
me a divorce despite the fact that we had been having difficulties
for a long time and he was abusive to me. But he resisted and told
me that he would never let me leave him alive. Finally, I decided
that I could no longer take his abuse and planned on killing him."
Then suddenly she started to kick about wildly. Her
shackled hands also tried to reach as far as possible,
but only touching her right breast
The two males showed no further sign of life, even
when Houriyeh bumped into one of them during her
dance. Houriyeh's dance lasted about 40 seconds.
During the first 20 seconds she danced vivacious, but
gradually she pauses between her kicks.
After about one minute after Houriyeh's shackled feet
left the ground she stopped kicking and was
apparently swinging as lifeless as her two blokes. The
hang party had now become quite dead.
The case attracted great public interest and about 5000 people, including judiciary and police officials, gathered to
watch when the trio was hanged in public on July 15, 2007 at 8.00 a.m.
However, Houriyeh resisted the officials' attempts to take her to the gallows. She tried to fight off her
executioners, crying and screaming repeatedly that she was innocent because she was severely abused by her
husband and her father-in-law for many years. Eventually, however, the authorities were able to restrain
Houriyeh. They placed the noose around Houriyeh's neck by force and ordered the crane to be lifted.
As soon as the trio was hoisted into the air the two men were dangling motionless with the noose's knot at the
back of their necks the usual way. Houriyeh's noose had slipped to the front of her neck as she was lifted into
the air. This pressed her head backwards and made her arch her back and push her impressive boobs forward.
During the first 15 seconds Houriyeh made no other movements, facial expressions or contortions.