Well, this should scare the bejesus out of some men. A woman, who some equate to the real-life, female version on Hannibal Lecter, is seeking release from prison after the grisly slaying of her husband.
Egyptian-born former nanny and model Omaima Nelson was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for killing – then cooking– her husband Thanksgiving weekend in 1991.
She has been serving her sentence at a California women’s prison in “Chow”chilla – how ironic.
Nelson claimed she was trying to stop her 56-year-old husband, William, from assaulting her, but prosecutors said greed was the true motive. They said Nelson, who was 23 at the time, was plotting to steal from her husband, just as she stole from other middle-aged men.
Orange County Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Randolph J. Pawloski said he will never forget the day he made the shocking discovery in the Nelsons’ Costa Mesa apartment.
“There were suitcases and plastic bags soaked with dark liquid from his body parts. In the fry cooker there sat Mr. Nelson’s hands, and when we opened the refrigerator there was Mr. Nelson’s head with stab wounds,” Palowski said. “She had his entrails in his Corvette, and she was trying to get an ex-boyfriend to yank out the dentures from the head so she could dump it in the [Newport Beach] Back Bay.”
During the trial, a psychiatrist said Nelson was in a severely psychotic state as she recounted what she did to her husband.
The psychiatrist said Nelson put on red shoes, a red hat and red lipstick , then spent hours chopping up her husband’s body. Neighbors reported hearing the garbage disposal grinding for hours.
” ‘I did his ribs just like in a restaurant,’ ” the doctor quoted Nelson as saying. ‘It’s so sweet, it’s so delicious…. I like mine tender.’ ”
Nelson claimed she killed her husband after he repeatedly raped her. She said she underwent a female circumcision as a child, which made sex extremely painful, and the trauma from the rapes made her snap. She explained that she chopped his body up to avoid meeting him in the afterlife — that was a belief in Egyptian mythology.
Nelson said she has been reformed since coming to prison. She says she found Christ and love again — marrying another older man — who has since died.
But the severity of her crime and its gruesome nature even has her own lawyers doubtful of her release.
Nelson was denied parole before in 2006 because the commissioners found her unpredictable and a threat to public safety. She is scheduled to go before the board again Wednesday.
