Saeed Hanaei

Hanaei was born in 1962. At the time of his murders, he was married and had three children. He was a construction worker by profession.

Hanaei targeted female sex workers in the eastern city of Mashhad. He often targeted drug addicts.

The killings were referred to as the "spider killings" by the Iranian press because Hanaei lured the women to his home and strangled them and dumped their bodies. He killed 16 women between 2000 and 2001 before he was apprehended by the police.

The murders were the following:

• On August 7, 2000, Afsaneh Karimpour, a 30-year-old woman who had a 9-year-old daughter, disappeared
• On August 10, a woman named Layla was found strangled beneath the Khin-e-Rab Road of Mashhad near some tomato bushes.
• On August 11, in the Sagradeshahr neighbourhood of Mashhad, the body of a woman named Fariba Rahimpur was discovered in a yellow burlap sack. She too had been strangled.
• On January 3, 2001, near the Iran Khodro Company in Mashhad, a woman named Massoumeh was found dead.
• On February 16, in front of Iran Khodro, the body of 27-year-old Sarah Rahmani was discovered in a tent.
• On February 29, the strangled body of 45-year-old Azam Abdi was discovered near the Khin-Arab road.
• On March 19, the body of 50-year-old Sakineh Kayhanzadeh was discovered in northeastern Mashhad. Her body had been wrapped up in black cloth.
• On March 23, the body of another woman, Khadijeh Full Qasri, who had been strangled with a scarf, was found in the village of Dustabad near Mashhad.
• On April 12, on the edge of the road to Quchan, near the Shahid Fahmidah Square and Khane Ara road, the body of 35-year-old Marzieh Saadatyan was discovered in a tent.
• On April 14, the body of a 35-year-old strangled woman named Maryam was found wrapped up in a tent.
• The following day, another 35-year-old woman named Touba was's body was found in a similar position.
• On April 24, the body of 31-year-old Azra Hajizadeh was discovered on the North Khayyam Street in Mashhad.
• On July 3, the body of Maryam Beygi, 28, was discovered at the Shaheed Mosavi Boulevard in Mashhad, along with the bodies of two women named Shiva and Zahra. All three were strangled.
• On July 11, the body of a 20-year-old strangled woman named Leila was found in Mashhad.
• On July 24, the body of 18-year-old Mahboube Allah was discovered on Quchan's old road.
• In August, the body of 33-year-old Zahra Dadkhosravi, the last victim of the so-called by the media "Spider Killer", was found.

His motives were primarily focused on the ideal that he was helping cleanse the city of moral corruption. He claimed in court that he began killing the sex workers after his wife was mistaken for one.[2]

Following Hanai's arrest, hard-liners began a campaign in his support, arguing that he had tried to clean the country of corruption. The Kayhan daily reported that many in Mashhad had been happy with the killings. Another report said a lawyer had volunteered to defend him.[3]

“Who is to be judged?" wrote the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. "Those who look to eradicate the sickness or those who stand at the root of the corruption?" Such sentiments were expressed by the killer's merchant friends at the Mashhad bazaar, one of whom said with a laugh: "He did the right thing. He should have continued."[4]

He was found guilty and hanged at dawn on April 8, 2002 in Mashhad Prison.[5][6][7]

The incident was the subject of the 2002 documentary And Along Came a Spider, directed by Maziar Bahari, and it includes an interview with Hanaei.[8]

• List of serial killers by country
• List of serial killers by number of victims

• The Guardian: The beast of Mashhad
• And Along Came a Spider at IMDb
• Tehran Resalaat July 30, 2001