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Saeed Hanaei
Saeed Hanaei
Born	Saeed Hanaei; 1962; Imperial State of Iran
Died	April 8, 2002 (aged 39–40); Mashhad Prison, Mashhad, Iran
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Other names	Said, Spider Killer
Criminal penalty	Death
Details
Victims	16–19
Span of crimes	2000–2001
Country	Iran
State(s)	Mashhad
Date apprehended	July 2001

Saeed Hanaei or Said Hanai (Persian: سعید حنایی; 1962 – April 8, 2002) was an Iranian serial killer, arrested in 2001 for the murders of at least 16 women in Mashhad.^[1] Hanaei was referred to as the "Spider Killer" for the way he lured his victims, mainly prostitutes, back to his home before strangling them. His arrest caused controversy in Iran at the time, with some religious extremists expressing support for his self-described fight against "moral corruption".^[2] He was executed by hanging on April 8, 2002.

Personal life

Hanaei was born in 1962. He had a dysfunctional relationship with his mother, who violently abused him; he later claimed that she frequently scratched him with her fingernails hard enough to draw blood, and attempted to bite off pieces of his flesh.^[3]

At the time of his murders, he was married and had three children. He was a construction worker by profession, and had served as a volunteer in the Iran–Iraq War.^[4]

Crimes

Hanaei targeted female prostitutes in the eastern city of Mashhad, a major religious pilgrimage site where the Imam Reza shrine is located. He often targeted drug addicts.

The murders were referred to as the "spider killings" by the Iranian press because Hanaei lured the women to his home and strangled them and dumped their bodies.^[5] He killed 16 women between August 2000 and July 2001, when he was apprehended by the police.^[2]

The murders were the following:

On August 7, 2000, Afsaneh Karimpour, a 30-year-old woman who had a 9-year-old daughter, disappeared.
On August 10, a woman named Layla was found strangled beneath the Khin-e-Rab Road of Mashhad near some tomato bushes.
On August 11, in the Sagradeshahr neighbourhood of Mashhad, the body of a woman named Fariba Rahimpur was discovered in a yellow burlap sack. She too had been strangled.
On January 3, 2001, near the Iran Khodro Company in Mashhad, a woman named Massoumeh was found dead.
On February 16, in front of Iran Khodro, the body of 27-year-old Sarah Rahmani was discovered in a veil.
On February 29, the strangled body of 45-year-old Azam Abdi was discovered near the Khin-Arab road.
On March 19, the body of 50-year-old Sakineh Kayhanzadeh was discovered wrapped in a black cloth in northeastern Mashhad.
On March 23, the body of another woman, Khadijeh Full Qasri, who had been strangled with a scarf, was found in the village of Dustabad near Mashhad.
On April 12, on the edge of the road to Quchan, near the Shahid Fahmidah Square and Khane Ara road, the body of 35-year-old Marzieh Saadatyan was discovered in a veil.
On April 14, the body of a 35-year-old strangled woman named Maryam was found wrapped up in a veil.
The following day, the body of another 35-year-old woman named Touba was found in a similar position.
On April 24, the body of 31-year-old Azra Hajizadeh was discovered on North Khayyam Street in Mashhad.
On July 3, the body of Maryam Beygi, 28, was discovered at the Shaheed Mosavi Boulevard in Mashhad, along with the bodies of two women named Shiva and Zahra. All three were strangled.
On July 11, the body of a 20-year-old strangled woman named Leila was found in Mashhad.
On July 24, the body of 18-year-old Mahboubeh Elahi was discovered on Quchan's old road.
In August, the body of 33-year-old Zahra Dadkhosravi, the last victim of the so-called by the media "Spider Killer", was found.

Motives

After his arrest, Hanaei claimed that he was trying to cleanse the city of moral corruption, and that God approved of his "work".^[4] He claimed in court that he began killing prostitutes after his wife was mistaken for one.^[1]^[6]

Reactions

Following Hanaei's arrest, some religious hardliners tried to justify, and even praised, his crimes, arguing that he had tried to "cleanse" Iran of moral corruption.^[2]

"Who is to be judged?" wrote the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. "Those who look to eradicate the sickness or those who stand at the root of the corruption?"^[4] Such sentiments were expressed by the killer's merchant friends at the Mashhad bazaar, one of whom said, "He did the right thing. He should have continued."^[4]

Execution

Hanaei was found guilty and hanged at dawn on April 8, 2002, in Mashhad Prison.^[1]^[6]

In popular culture

The incident was the subject of the 2002 documentary And Along Came a Spider, directed by Maziar Bahari, and includes an interview with Hanaei, along with his wife and son.^[3] In 2020, a film called Killer Spider was directed by Ebrahim Irajzad starring Mohsen Tanabandeh as Saeed and Sareh Bayat as Saeed's wife.^[7] In 2022, another film about his life, Holy Spider, was released, starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Mehdi Bajestani, and directed by Ali Abbasi.^[8] It was filmed in Jordan, and entered the main competition section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.^[9]