Talal Al-johani

Two roommates get into a fight; Talal is murdered
Talal Al-johani, a 19-year-old male student from Saudi Arabia, was found dead in the early morning hours of March 15, 2015. Police responding to a call around 4 a.m. discovered the Middle Eastern / Arab teen unresponsive on the floor of the Albany Park apartment he shared with a roommate on the 5000 block of North Harding Avenue in Chicago. He had suffered a fatal stab wound to his abdomen and was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner later ruled his death a homicide.

The discovery was preceded by sounds of a violent struggle. A neighbor living upstairs, a fellow student who knew Talal from a nearby mosque, heard wrestling and shouting in Arabic coming from the apartment. After hearing someone call out Talal’s first name, the building fell quiet. The neighbor went to the apartment to check on the situation. The man who answered the door claimed the person he was looking for was in the bathroom, but the neighbor could see the bathroom was empty. Sensing something was wrong, he immediately called the police.

Investigators arrived to find Talal in a pool of blood, but the other man was gone. Authorities quickly identified a suspect: Abdullah Aljohani, 27, the victim's roommate. While some early reports referred to the men as brothers or relatives, court records later clarified they were roommates who happened to share a last name. Two days after the killing, police located and arrested Abdullah near the home of his fiancée's brother. According to police statements, he had traces of blood on his clothes and admitted to the crime. Investigators also recovered the knife used in the attack, as well as Talal’s cell phone and wallet, which were found at the apartment where the arrest was made.

Abdullah Aljohani was charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery and was ordered held without bond. A bench trial in 2018 concluded with a conviction for first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. The verdict was later challenged, but Illinois courts upheld the conviction, with the First District Appellate Court affirming it in 2020 and the Illinois Supreme Court affirming it again in 2021. The appeals courts cited the neighbor's testimony and found that officers had entered the apartment lawfully due to the emergency circumstances. After the investigation, Talal Al-johani's body was flown to Madinah, Saudi Arabia, for burial. The case was officially closed as of the final court affirmation in 2021.