Judith A. Yates's "SHE IS EVIL!": MADNESS AND MURDER IN MEMPHIS is the account of the murder of Pakistani-born Ejaz Ahmad by his wife Leah Joy Ward-Ahmad in 2003. It was published in digital format in 2017.
Ejaz Ahmad immigrated to the United States to fulfill his mother's dream for his education. A devout Muslim who practiced the moral and charitable life ordained by his religion, he was warm, generous, hardworking, financially successful, and blessed with many friends, a devoted father. Bonnie Garrett, the mother of his son Jordan Tariq Ahmad, acknowledged that her insecurities and independent nature caused their divorce, not Ejaz; he remained emotionally close to both her and her mother Ernestine Marsh, who regarded him as a son.
When he met Leah Joy Ward, an addict prostituting herself for drug money, with a criminal record and a history of mental illness, Ejaz tried to help her get her life in order. Knowing only what she told him about her past and ignoring all warnings, Ejaz and Leah married in a Memphis mosque 5 October 2002. Within days, he'd realized his mistake, but he endured her lying, sneaking out of the house at night, staying away for days, using drugs, accusing him of adultery and spousal abuse, stealing from him, and showering him with verbal and physical abuse until he disappeared sometime in April 2003. Leah accounted for his absence with a variety of stories to Jordan and his relatives and to Ejaz's friends. When Jordan and his grandmother visited Ejaz's house on Sea Isle Street 1 May 2003 trying to locate him, the stench from a small metal storage shed in the backyard led them to discover his decomposing body, decapitated, with external genitalia missing. Alerted to the state of Ejaz and Leah's marriage and to her suspicious activities during April, police questioned Leah on 5 May 2003, when she confessed to shooting Ejaz, claiming self-defense as he was attacking her.
Leah Joy Ward-Ahmad's trial began in Shelby County Criminal Court Division 10 on 1 November 2005, Judge James C. Beasley, Jr., presiding, with Assistant District Attorney Patience "Missy" Branham as prosecutor, assisted by Pamela Fleming. Leah was represented by public defenders. Both sides completed their cases on 4 November 2005; the jury deliberated for just over two hours before finding Leah guilty of first degree murder. She was sentenced to life, guaranteed to serve 51 years in prison. She is currently incarcerated at Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville.
Yates structures 'SHE IS EVIL!" like many other true crime accounts. She opens with the discovery of Ejaz's body and the police investigation, then recounts his life up to his meeting with his killer. Yates traces Leah's history and lays out her activities during the time Ejaz was missing, following with the legal maneuvers and the trial. Yates uses psychiatric and medial records Leah submitted to the court to support a multitude of legal motions that challenge her conviction and incarceration, thereby making them part of the public record, to develop her background in great detail.
The problem is, despite all the information Yates gives on Leah Joy Ward-Ahmad, Leah never crystalizes as a person. She came from a middle-class, hardworking family with strong Pentecostal roots, but many close relatives abused alcohol or struggled with mental illness, including paranoid schizophrenia. She began acting out in the fifth grade, gradually worsening her behavior so that, by age thirteen, she was failing classes and fighting at school, drinking and smoking marijuana, sneaking out the window during the night to party, and having unprotected sex. Before age 21, she had undergone three involuntary commitments for variously-diagnosed mental disease and served a term in prison. Leah was still only 27 years old when she was arraigned for Ejaz's murder. Perhaps this inability to bring Leah into focus grows from Yates's lack of speculation about Leah's immediate motive for murdering her husband except that implied in the title, 'SHE IS EVIL!" The closest Yates comes is her summary of Leah's character: "Everything Leah did, it seemed, was manipulation by an egocentric woman who thought she did no wrong, and appeared to be so shortsighted that perhaps she just did not think things through." (196) It's never clear the degree to which Leah was genuinely the victim of mental illness and how much she was faking to play the system.
Yate's writing style is accessible, at least in part because she includes only the most essential of secondary characters. Still, a list of names and identifications would have helped. Thoroughness of research is obvious, but she gives no bibliography and only one note to sources at the end of each chapter. Nothing is said about possible accomplices or accessories after the fact, though it's impossible that the men helping Leah move out of Ejak's house following his death could fail to notice the smell of decomposition that permeated the house. Pictures are clustered at the end of the book, most of them too small to be studied. Maps showing the small towns in West Tennessee and locations within the Memphis area would enhance to the sense of place. (B)
