Police: Man killed 2 brothers, mom, sister-in-law over business fight before killing himself

PHOENIX – A man who had been in a business dispute with his two brothers shot and killed them, his mother and one of their wives before taking his own life, Phoenix police said Friday.

Police identified the shooter as Driss Diaeddinn, 50, and the victims as Reda Diaeddinn, Dodi Fayed, Kenza Benzakour and Meriem Ben Yahia ranging in ages between 26 and 76 years old. The family had origins in Morocco, Sgt. Trent Crump said.

Diaeddinn’s wife fled the two-story Phoenix home with children ages 3 years and 10 months old when the gunfire broke out Thursday afternoon, Crump said. His sister, who was hiding inside, came out later while a SWAT team surrounded the home.

The three brothers ran a company that offered cars for hire and a restaurant, Crump said Friday. There had been an ongoing dispute about the business, and one brother opened fire, he said.

“According to witness accounts, yesterday he had made some off-the-wall comments, at the time saying goodbye to people,” Crump said. “They didn’t know what he was meaning at the time. But now in hindsight, they realize that he was just having some sort of a breakdown.”

The two brothers were shot on the home’s first floor, Crump said. The man then shot his mother as she came down the stairs, continued upstairs and killed another woman, and then went into a bedroom and shot himself.

A neighbour, Scott Pollack, described the family as quiet and respectful. He said their employees would sit inside company vehicles beside his home and await driving jobs on weekends in the residential neighbourhood in north Phoenix. “They didn’t make a lot of ruckus,” he said, adding, the shooting “just blew our minds.”

Pollack watched from an upstairs window as a police SWAT team surrounded his neighbour’s home. Several SWAT officers broke the glass of a back patio door to enter the home after about a half hour.

Several police vans and a mobile command centre lined the block Friday morning as authorities removed five bodies and bags containing evidence.

One pistol was recovered, Crump said.

The brothers had apparently lived in Phoenix for at least several years. But some of the victims were visiting from out of the country, and police were working with consular officers to notify their families.