QALUBIYA: An teenage orphan girl, with the help of her friend, has confessed to police that she murdered her grandmother, who had long taken care of her. Sixteen-year-old Faiza resorted to a crafty trick to kill her grandmother, seeking the help of her friend Iman Afifi, all for a handful of pounds. Before their arrest and murder charge, Faiza was found lying next to her grandmother's corpse, blindfolded and with her hands tied. She alleged that a woman wearing the niqab (full face veil) had attacked and murdered her grandmother, then hit her on the head and tied her up before escaping. But this was far from the truth, as investigations later revealed. The two accomplices had agreed that one of them (Iman) would wear a niqab and sneak into the victim's home to help the granddaughter kill and steal her grandmother's money then escape. The role of the friend was to tie the granddaughter in order to mislead the police. When the crime was first discovered, Faiza, the granddaughter related the false story to the people and neighbors, who first sympathized with her. "A woman wearing the niqab attacked and killed my grandmother then she attacked me and I fainted, she said in tears. Mohamed Fawzy, Chief of Detectives of Banha in Qalubiya governorate, however, did not take the girl's words for granted. After a thorough investigation, he concluded that the granddaughter was the only one who had entered the grandmother's home, where she lives alone and kept a lot of jewelry. Faiza had moved in with her paternal grandmother when she lost her own mother. Detectives also found out that the girl's fiancé was having financial problems. Deeply in debt, he was unable to proceed with the marriage for a long time, which irritated the defendant, motivating her to ask the grandmother to sell some of her jewelry, which she refused to do. After investigators put together the loose ends, the girl and her friend confessed. "Yes, I killed my grandmother, she said, "at a time when my mind was completely absent and I was overwhelmed with a desire to get married by any means. I cannot sleep and I keep remembering every moment of what I did since I killed her.
