What could possibly go wrong?
A father who murdered his two young children has been transferred to a women’s prison after beginning to identify as transgender. Paulus Said Foukaih Abdelshahed, an Egyptian national who had been living in Sweden for almost two decades, is serving a life sentence for the killings.
According to the original indictment filed by the Prosecution Authority in November 2024, police and ambulance services were dispatched to the family’s home in Södertälje, Sweden, on the morning of April 23 following a 112 emergency call made by Abdelshahed himself. He reportedly told dispatchers that his two children – a boy and a girl, both under the age of 10 – were not breathing.
When officers arrived at the residence, they found both children dead. Abdelshahed was later arrested at along with the children’s mother, but she was quickly released after investigators ruled her out as a suspect and determined that the murders had occurred when Abdelshahed was alone with the children.
Court documents and subsequent reporting state that prosecutors determined Abdelshahed had placed bags over each child’s head and pumped helium into the bags through a hose, depriving them of oxygen. The prosecution described the killings as intentional, carefully planned, and particularly ruthless. Investigators recovered items from the home consistent with this method, including bags, tape, and gas-related equipment.
