When Mom Groups go wild – the story of Bdour Al-Yasari

Bdour Al-Yasari lived with her husband Ammar in Lansing, Michigan. They lived a seemingly idyllic life with their two young daughters. Bdour did what many young women do and she joined a discussion group for Moms on Facebook.

Between October 2018 and January 2019, Bdour made a series of posts in the group after she suffered a miscarriage on September 20, 2018.

She posted about communication issues and problems with their sex life.

She even joked about killing her husband in the comments of one post.

Except, maybe she wasn’t joking. Unbeknownst to Ammar, Bdour had been having an affair with Jacob Ficher since the summer of 2018.

Levi Thomason, Jacob’s roommate said “They had been dating since around the summer of 2018, but I didn’t know that she was married until around the holidays”. Thomason said he was surprised to find out Bdour wasn’t single because there was a note on Jacob’s dresser that said the two of them would be “together forever.” At one point, Jacob showed Thomason a wedding ring. 

On January 31, CCTV shows Jacob and Bdour visting a Kroger store where Jacob purchased an axe, bleach and liquor. On February 4, 2019, Bdour turned off the electronic alarm system that had been installed at the family home.

What happened next is unknown, but Ammar was brutally murdered. His injuries were so severe that the roof of his mouth was fractured off from his skull and could be removed like a pair of dentures. His skull was in multiple pieces, hanging onto each other by soft tissues.  He had at least 24 ‘chop’ wounds to his face and neck. Of those wounds, 17 likely would have been “catastrophic” and “fatal almost immediately,” Patrick Hansma, forensic pathologist at Sparrow Health Systems, said. His body was doused with bleach.

Police received a 911 call on February 4 and arrived to the 4500 block of Glenberry Drive to find Bdour distraught on the driveway, Deputy Jonte Slack said. She was screaming, asking Slack to help her husband. She told him she wasn’t sure if he was breathing. 

Once inside the house, Slack saw Ammar on the ground in the kitchen, surrounded by a large pool of blood. He was “obviously deceased,” Slack said. 

After his death, Bdour made many social media posts, mourning her husband.

All the while, the police were investigating those closest to Ammar.

Detectives from the Ingham County Sheriff’s Department were first alerted to Ficher as a suspect by Bdour’s cellphone. Snapchat and TextNow messages showed that Ficher and Al-Yasari had a romantic relationship, and that Al-Yasari planned to leave her husband.

In texts, Al-Yasari and Ficher discussed using violence against Ammar Al-Yasari, but never specifically wrote anything about killing him.

“I (expletive) hate him,” read one text from Bdour Al-Yasari to Ficher.
“I might kick him in the balls or shoot him,” read a text from Ficher to Bdour Al-Yasari.

On the night of February 6, Jacob was drinking at Rocky’s Roadhouse and was in a distraught state. A bartender there said “he told me he was the devil.”

Police attended the bar that night and apprehended Jacob and then Bdour was also taken into custody. They were both charged with murder and the conspiracy to commit murder.

Details of the trial are starting to emerge. Ficher has stated that he only intended to scare Ammar, “I thought killing him would be too good for him.” He said he wanted to scare him because Ammar had physically, emotionally and sexually abused Bdour.

Ficher testified that he hid in the Al-Yasari’s Holt home on the night of Feb. 4, waiting for Ammar to return. His intent was just to scare Ammar, to threaten and intimidate him with the ax, he said. 

“A discussion wasn’t going to push him away from the actions and the things he was doing,” Ficher said. “He needed to be scared, and he needed to be really scared.”

But when Ammar came toward him, Ficher hit Ammar with both his fists and the ax, he testified. Ficher pushed him, and when Ammar approached him again, Ficher hit harder, he said.

“I didn’t plan on hurting him, but I just…,” Ficher said, trailing off. “All I could hear was my heartbeat, and I just kept swinging.”

Prosecuting Attorney Bill Crino repeatedly asked Ficher if he hated Ammar. He asked if Ficher saw Ammar as a roadblock in his path to a relationship with the woman he loved. 

Ficher denied it each time. 

“He wasn’t an impediment, he was a rapist and abuser,” Ficher said.

He saw scars and injuries on Bdour’s body, he said, and she told him Ammar abused her physically, emotionally and sexually. 

“I made it very clear that I hated his actions,” said Ficher, who was an infantryman in the U.S. Army. “Soldiers don’t fight because they hate what’s in front of them, but because they love what’s behind them.” 

Ficher said he alerted Bdour that he had killed her husband over the social media application, Snapchat, and warned her not to bring her two children inside with her. 

He said she had nothing to do with Ammar’s death. He did, however, confirm that Bdour had turned off the home security system, allowing Ficher access to their residence.

On November 19, 2019, Ficher was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the first-degree in the death of his lover’s husband. He will be sentenced on January 8, 2020.

Officials: Holt man killed by wife, her lover had 24 ‘chop wounds’ to face, neck

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