By Jacqueline Maxwell
A man was sentenced to life imprisonment today after pleading guilty to killing his former girlfriend with a screwdriver in 2009.
Dzevad Selimovic, 43, was charged with first-degree murder for stabbing his former girlfriend, Emina Redza, on September 10, 2009. The New York man was visiting Redza when the couple got into an argument that became violent, said County Prosecutor Chris Lyon.
Redza was then taken to a Valley hospital, where she died the next day.
Selimovic was also charged with theft of means of transportation after driving off in Redza’s car after he stabbed her, Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens said.
“He took my home,” said Edita Mesic, Redza’s sister. “He did it in my apartment.”
Selimovic pulled up to a Phoenix patrol car and turned himself in on the same day.
“He just left my sister to die,” she said. “It has caused a lot of health problems for us.”
Selimovic has no previous criminal record, Stephens said.
He left his wife and two children to date Mesic, Lyon said at the sentencing.
Selimovic committed the crime with intentional knowledge of serious injury, said Defense Attorney Stephen Duncan.
“It was not she who was killed, but my husband as well,” Enesa Redza, the mother of the victim, said of the impact of the crime on her family.
Her life has been very difficult since her daughter’s death, Redza said. Her future life will continue to be difficult as well, she said.
“He took my sister from me, from my dad, and from my mom,” Mesic said.
“What would have happened if we had a trial is we would have ended up in the same place we are now,” he said.
Selimovic and her daughter dated in New York previous to her move to Phoenix in 2009, Mesic said. They lived together in New York for three months before she moved to Phoenix, she said.
Selimovic’s daughter, Hurija Selimovic, said in a 2009 interview with Fox 10 that her father moved from Croatia to New York with just $50 in his pocket.
The community that knew him in Croatia loved him, she said in the interview.
“He committed a really bad crime. He stabbed his girlfriend through the brain with this tire tool,” Lyon said.
Part of Selimovic’s sentencing could include deportation, and the loss of his legal status in the U.S., Stephens said. Probation will not be an option for him, she said.
“He was looking at a possibility of the death penalty, but when you look at his overall record, he wasn’t going to get the death penalty,” Lyon said.
Selimovic sent a message to Redza’s mother warning that if her daughter left him, she would face a tragedy, the victim’s mother said.
In his last statement before his sentencing, Selimovic said he never sent a message to Redza’s mother.
“He can never get out of prison,” Lyon said. “And that’s really better for the family,” he added.
“I just thank God that it’s over, that we don’t have to look at the defendant,” Mesic said.
“It’s a good deal. It’s good for everybody,” Lyon said.