{"id":37311,"date":"2026-03-19T21:13:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Jury-finds-Ibraheem-Yazeed-guilty-of-murder-for-2019-killing-of-Aniah-Blanchard-200527"},"modified":"2026-03-19T21:13:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T21:13:56","slug":"jury-finds-ibraheem-yazeed-guilty-of-murder-for-2019-killing-of-aniah-blanchard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/jury-finds-ibraheem-yazeed-guilty-of-murder-for-2019-killing-of-aniah-blanchard\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds Ibraheem Yazeed guilty of murder for 2019 killing of Aniah Blanchard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

The gruesome, heartbreaking ordeal of Aniah Blanchard, stepdaughter
\nof former Ultimate Fighting Championship<\/a> fighter Walt Harris<\/a>,
\nis about to come to a close.<\/p>\n

Earlier in March, the trial of Ibraheem Yazeed, the man suspected
\nof killing Blanchard in 2019, began. On Thursday afternoon, the
\njury
\ncame back<\/a> with two verdicts of guilty for the charges of murder
\nand felony murder\u2014that is, the unlawful killing of a person during
\nthe commission of a felony like kidnapping or robbery. Both Class A
\nfelonies come with sentences no less than 10 years imprisonment
\nwith a maximum of life in prison. The verdict of capital murder,
\nwhich would have made Yazeed eligible for the death penalty in
\nAlabama, was not guilty.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The sentencing hearing will take place on May 7\u2014Yazeed has six
\nweeks to appeal the verdict\u2014and the prosecutors are seeking life in
\nprison without the possibility of parole. Per local outlet
\nWSFA<\/a>, Yazeed elected not to testify during the trial, and his
\ndefense rested without calling a witness.<\/p>\n

Aniah deserves justice, as does her family<\/h2>\n

Attorney General Steve Marshall, who was involved in the
\nprosecution of the case, released a short statement after the
\nverdict was announced. Marshall, who had initially sought the death
\npenalty, expressed some frustration that he was found not guilty on
\nthat charge, but vowed to push for a maximum allowable
\nsentence.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, a Macon County jury returned a murder verdict in the case
\nof Aniah Blanchard,\u201d Marshall wrote. \u201cAlthough we are disappointed
\nthat this outcome does not allow for the death penalty, we intend
\nto seek the maximum sentence allowed by law when the defendant is
\nsentence on May 7th. I pledge to do everything in my power to
\nensure that Ibraheem Yazeed spends the rest of his life in prison.
\nI believe that is what justice demands in this case. Aniah deserves
\nit, as does her family.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October 2019, Blanchard went missing, with surveillance footage
\nfrom the convenience store she stopped at showing both her and
\nYazeed in the store at the same time. Witness testimony later
\nstated that Yazeed was seen forcing Blanchard into his car, where
\nhe later shot her in the abdomen and drove her out to the woods.
\nHer body was retrieved the following month, where she was found to
\nhave been shot in the head and buried.<\/p>\n

Blanchard\u2019s death inspired Alabama to amend its constitution in
\n2022 to create Aniah\u2019s Law, as Yazeed was briefly released on bail
\nafter being charged with kidnapping. The law allows for prosecutors
\nto request for judges to deny bail and not allow those charged with
\nviolent felonies to be released on their own recognizance until
\ntrial. The reasoning was to protect the public from those
\nindividuals from potentially harming others before their
\ntrials.<\/p>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gruesome, heartbreaking ordeal of Aniah Blanchard, stepdaughter of former Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter Walt Harris, is about to come to a close. Earlier in March, the trial of Ibraheem Yazeed, the man suspected of killing Blanchard in 2019, began. On Thursday afternoon, the jury came back with two verdicts of guilty for the charges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}