Naman Shrestha
With the sudden disappearance of Tahereh Ghassemi from her house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2015, the peace of the otherwise peaceful community was stirred. As the investigation was launched, her son, Hamed Ghassemi, was suspected of being involved in her vanishing. However, when Tahereh’s remains surfaced, a series of evidence led the detectives to her ex-husband, Hamid Ghassemi, who turned out to be the mastermind behind her murder. ABC’s ‘Dateline: The Ultimate Betrayal’ chronicles the complicated case in a detailed manner with the help of exclusive interviews with the loved ones of the deceased and the officials linked to the investigation.
Hamid Ghassemi Worked With Three Other Accomplices to Have Tahereh Killed
Born in the early 1950s, Hamid Ghassemi was married to Tahereh Ghassemi, with whom he shared a son named Hamed Ghassemi. In order to search for better opportunities for himself and his family, he left his native land, Iran, behind and moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the 1980s. With the little money he had, Hamid opened a small pizza shop called Rainbow Pizza. Once he found success with the shop, he also started dealing in cars right outside the store. Eventually, he shut down the pizza shop and opened a car dealership called Import One. When his son turned 18, he moved him to Baton Rouge and gave him a job at his company for a while. On the personal front, he got married to an American woman to earn his US citizenship, something he kept concealed from his family in Iran.
After a while, he severed ties with his American wife and began dating a co-worker named Heather Rangely. By 2005, he had tied the knot with another woman, which was discovered by Tahereh when she moved to the US. When the truth was out in the open, an intense divorce battle commenced between the two that went on for nearly eight years. Despite his best efforts to win the case, in early 2015, Hamid was ordered to pay his ex-wife more than $1 million in cash and two properties as part of the divorce settlement. Three months later, he orchestrated a murderous plan to avoid these financial ramifications and hired Daniel Richter, a mechanic at his car dealership, to kill Tahereh.
Daniel, in turn, hired Skyler Williams and Tyler Ashpaugh to carry out the killing strategically. Thus, on the fateful night of April 11, 2015, the three hired killers abducted Tahereh from her house after allegedly injecting insulin into her body. As per Tyler’s accounts, the three then drove her to a wooded area in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana, only to realize that she was still alive. Tyler allegedly shot her to death before burying her remains wrapped in a comforter in a shallow grave. Once the job was done, Hamid then paid them $10,000. When the deceased’s son, Hamed, who lived with her, noticed her absence, he reported her missing a couple of days later.
Hamid Ghassemi Was Brought to Justice But Died While Serving His Sentence
When the authorities learned about Hamid’s complicated past with the missing woman, they questioned him. The car dealership owner claimed that he had nothing to do with his ex-wife’s disappearance and had been praying for her. The detectives got a break in the case when they looked into his cell phone records, which led them to Tyler. When they checked Tyler’s phone records, his Google Maps history led them straight to the wooded area where the killers had buried Tahereh. The investigators questioned the 20-year-old man, who ultimately admitted to his involvement in the crime.
In light of his confession and the evidence against them, the authorities arrested all four individuals involved in the murder — Hamid Ghassemi, Daniel Richter, Skyler Williams, and Tyler Ashpaugh. In exchange for his testimony against Hamid, the police offered a plea deal to Tyler. However, when he turned up dead in his prison cell from a fentanyl overdose, they made a deal with Daniel. Finally, in August 2023, Hamid Ghassemi stood trial for orchestrating the murder of his former wife, Tahereh.
While the prosecution presented incriminating evidence and Daniel’s testimony, the defense tried to shift the blame to her son, Hamed, who was also considered a suspect at one point in the investigation. At the end of the seven-day trial, the jury deliberated for a couple of hours before reaching the final verdict. The Iranian native was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Meanwhile, his accomplices, Daniel and Skylar, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and each received a 30-year imprisonment sentence. On November 28, 2024, Hamid reportedly died in his prison cell at the age of 73.
Read More: Tahereh Ghassemi Murder Details and Investigation Timeline
