A Las Vegas woman who has had several run-ins with police in her relatively short life has been sentenced for killing her mother at their home about 14 months ago.
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September, Hend Bustami, 29, pled guilty but mentally ill to one count of second-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon for killing her mother, 61-year-old Afaf Hussanen, in October 2022.
The attack on Hussanen was gruesome. In the early morning hours of October 26, 2022, the two women got into a heated argument about cigarettes at their home in the southwestern corner of the Las Vegas Valley. The argument then escalated into violence as Bustami allegedly grabbed a glass coffee table and hit her mother in the head with it.
Bustami then allegedly took broken shards of glass from the table and used them to stab Hussanen repeatedly. Bustami then hopped in her vehicle and took off for California.
When police arrived at the residence, they discovered Hussanen’s body, which had “multiple deep lacerations.” She was pronounced dead at the scene.
They also zeroed in on Bustami as a suspect almost immediately because she had called 911 to report the incident. “I think I killed my mommy,” she told a dispatcher. When the dispatcher pressed her to explain what she meant, Bustami answered, “I did. I murdered her.”
Within hours, officers with the Barstow Police Department and the California Highway Patrol had pulled Bustami over, seen that she was “covered in blood,” and detained her. She allegedly confessed to those officers as well that she had killed her mother.
On Tuesday, Clark County District Court Judge Jacqueline M. Bluth sentenced Bustami to 15 years to life in prison, though she gave her credit for time served. Bustami will be eligible for parole in 2037.
She must also undergo mental health treatment while incarcerated. Bustami experiences “intermittent exacerbations of psychosis” that require “continuing psychiatric treatment,” a psychologist said, according to Bustami’s public defender. Bustami has been given multiple mental illness diagnoses, including psychosis, during her lifetime.
KLAS reported that Bustami has “also pleaded guilty to charges of burglary, invasion of the home, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, sale of a controlled substance, or gaming crimes, for which she had prior felony convictions.” It is unclear whether any of those convictions are related to the incident with her mother.
Though the brutal attack on her mother made national headlines, Bustami was actually first thrust into the national spotlight two months before it happened. As Blaze News previously reported, Bustami was arrested at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas in August 2022 on suspicion that she had walked out on her bill at the airport Chili’s.
At the time, Bustami was described as drunk and “belligerent.” She even lashed out at police, calling them “perverts” who had arrested her only because they wanted to “rape” her for being so “pretty” and “good looking,” a police report said. Bustami was never prosecuted for that alleged incident.
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