Peacock’s ‘Meet, Marry, Murder: Tarin’ depicts the horrible double murder of a mother-daughter combo — Raneem Oudeh and Khaola Saleem — in late August 2018 in Birmingham, England. The case is a horrible story of domestic abuse and how, despite many emergency calls, the authorities failed to protect the victims. This double homicide was one of many examples that pushed the city’s police reforms.
Who Were Raneem Oudeh and Khaola Saleem?
Raneem Oudeh, her mother, Khaola Saleem, and their close-knit family sought refuge in the United Kingdom after fleeing their native Syria in 2014. Nour Norris, Khaola’s sister and Raneem’s aunt, claimed, “Khaola and Raneem were everything to everybody in the family.” Khaola was the oldest of the group, 12 years my senior, and we all looked up to her as a big sister. My entire life, we had been close.” She went on to say, “Khaola was the heart of the family, and Raneem was blossoming, ready to take the whole world.”
Raneem, aged 19, met Janbaz Tarin after enrolling at Solihull College in 2015. According to reports, he assured her on their first date, “You’ll be mine.” He began obsessively phoning her, stalking her, and hounding her into a relationship. He stopped, however, after Raneem married another guy and had a son. However, her marriage failed within a year, and Janbaz returned to her life, much to the chagrin of her family. Nour remembered his treating her niece as “his belonging” and attempting to micromanage every part of her life.
“From the beginning, he was mentally and physically manipulative towards her,” she said. Raneem withheld a lot from us. So, by the time we realised how much he dominated her, it was too late in the relationship.” When she married him in April 2017, an unhappy Khaola couldn’t figure out how to deal with the situation and was overly concerned for her daughter, according to family sources. According to Nour, “Even though Raneem didn’t want him, she didn’t have a choice at that stage.”
Janbaz allegedly threatened her and her family if she did not marry him. He said, “On the day of the marriage, we tried to be happy for her because this was what she wanted, and we thought she was in love with him — but she had hidden the worst side of him.” She saw how Raneem withdrew from the family after the wedding, citing health concerns. Unbeknownst to them, she was subjected to physical and mental abuse, panic episodes, and joint pain, necessitating ambulance dispatch.
Raneem realised Janbaz had a pregnant wife and two children when she visited his native Afghanistan with him in November 2017. She eventually left the relationship, but his threats became more severe. To influence her, he even resorted to self-harm and sent images. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer and slept in the car outside the house,” Nour explained. Then he sliced his hand and emailed me a picture to show Raneem.” To safeguard her family, the terrified mother severed contact with them, living dangerously with her son, then two, in her marital house.
According to news sources, her neighbours repeatedly intervened when Janbaz tormented her at home. Nour described how her niece reported her abusive relationship to the police multiple times. She refused to face charges, however, because she was “scared” that social services would take her child away. But Raneem was concerned about her fate, as she reportedly informed her aunt, “I think my days are numbered.” “I believe he intends to murder me.” On her mother’s advice, she even obtained a non-molestation order against Janbaz.
However, he frequently violated the order, stalking and harassing her. In the summer of 2018, Raneem moved back in with her mother, and Khaola spent August 26 shopping with her daughter. But their evening took a terrible turn at Rotana Shisha Lounge in Birmingham’s Highgate neighbourhood. Janbaz had followed the woman there, and surveillance video showed him addressing Raneem about a man he had seen her with. He slapped both victims in the face and attempted to steal his estranged wife’s phone before being thrown out.
Who Killed Raneem Oudeh and Khaola Saleem?
As he drove away in a white van, the 21-year-old Stonebridge Crescent, Kingshurst resident made a cut-throat sign with his finger. Raneem called the police at 10:34 p.m. to report the incident and then called again at 11:09 p.m. to say she was going home because no cops had arrived. At 11:42 a.m., she dialled 999 again and inquired for their position, stating that she was outside her home. Raneem called police enforcement for the final time at 12:26 a.m. and was told to accompany her mother to her mother’s house.
The cops also told her to lock the doors and call them if Janbaz showed up. They called her around 12:30 a.m. to set up a meeting for 8:00 a.m. as she and her mother crossed the grass to their front door. However, Raneem, 22, was still on the phone with officials when Janbaz unleashed a brutal attack on her with a 12-inch knife. Khaola, 49, heroically intervened to protect her daughter but was stabbed to death. Raneem’s younger sister, who was minding her infant at the time, witnessed the heinous crime.
Janbaz fled after the murders and was last seen on CCTV in a chicken shop without his beard. A massive manhunt started, and on August 30, a concerned citizen recognised him from media coverage. Tarin was apprehended by police following a three-day manhunt in the storage of a Birmingham corner shop. He pled guilty to two murders in December 2018 and was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 32 years. However, an inquest was established in 2022 to investigate the government’ involvement in the killings.
Nour claimed during the October 2022 inquest that her niece had contacted the police at least seven times to report Janbaz’s violent behaviour. However, she stated that Raneem felt unheard and unimportant. “They’ll tell her, ‘You’re wasting our time, you need to deal with him yourself, kick him out – you can’t call us all the time,” she explained. ‘Ask him to go.'” West Midlands Police accepted their inability to protect the victims on November 18, 2022, with Assistant Chief Constable Andy Hill apologising to the family.
