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(WJBK) - Court testimony revealed Friday a woman allegedly pushed to her death out a window by her son died before the fall by suffocation.
Muhammad Altantawi, 16, is facing first-degree murder in the Aug. 21 death of his mother, 35-year-old Nada Houranieh. He is accused of throwing her to her death out of a third-floor window of their Farmington Hills home on Howard Street.
The son appeared in court Friday for a preliminary examination.
Farmington Hills Police Office Nathan Jordan testified he was called to the home, told a woman fell out of a window. He arrived to find the son with one hand on his mother, attempting to give CPR, and the other on the phone with dispatch listening to instruction.
The officer says he took over on CPR but did not feel a pulse. Jordan said when he asked what had happened; the defendant didn't display a lot of emotion, but added that people react to these situations in all types of ways.
As he inspected the scene, he discovered there was no blood on or around the body and that's when he says he requested a supervisor.
"Something just didn't feel right.," Jordan said. "This wasn't a normal death investigation."
When they went upstairs to the room Nada is believed to fallen from, officials saw a stepstool, cleaning supplies, and an open window.
"Then we started noticing that the positioning of her body was not what you would expect from someone falling out of the window and we were trying to figure out how she could have landed that way and it appeared that something struck that little ledge ... and I remember thinking something was off because that's not how someone would normally land if they fell," he said.
Jordan says he asked the kids if they'd moved the body, but both said they'd found her that way - face up.
At the scene, the officer says there was also a dent in the siding of the house. Photographic exhibits used during the hearing depict pieces of hair stuck in the dent.
When speaking to the medical examiner, prosecution pointed out that the wound at the top of the mother's head is a bloodless wound.
"One of the main findings indicates that the deceased was dead at the time the scrape happened," he said.
This means, he says, the damage to her head happened after she was already dead.