Hajir Talebzadeh is a “manipulator” who executed his ex-wife and her mother during a custody exchange and should remain in jail, said Jarryd Brown, deputy chief of the violent crimes unit for the Augusta District Attorney’s Office.
Talebzadeh, a 41-year-old decorated Army veteran, was denied bond Friday in Richmond County Superior Court. He is accused of gunning down his ex-wife, Melissa Cui Domingo, 37, and her mother, Elizabeth Cui Domingo, 74, outside the Best Buy on Robert C. Daniel Parkway on Sept. 8.
According to prosecutors, the former couple’s five-year-old son witnessed much of the attack from the backseat. Brown said Talebzadeh even carried the boy past the bodies afterward.
Audio recorded by the grandmother captured a very different story from the one Talebzadeh gave when he called 911, Brown said. On the recording, he can be heard trying to coach his son into saying his mother “kept shooting at us,” though investigators determined she never left the front seat of her car and only three shots were fired, all by him.
The head wound Talebzadeh claimed came from his wife’s bullet was not a gunshot wound, Brown said.
Domingo had previously shot Talebzadeh in the head in 2021 and was prosecuted for domestic violence. Just two weeks before her death, she was granted immunity after being diagnosed with battered woman syndrome from years of alleged abuse.
Since the couple’s 2024 divorce, Talebzadeh has also been accused of assault by a new girlfriend, a cousin in an arranged relationship, according to Brown.
The grandmother’s audio captured Talebzadeh saying he would “move heaven and earth” to stop his son from living under another man’s roof, Brown said. Prosecutors argued he posed a serious risk of influencing his son’s testimony and had no local ties.
His mother now lives in Augusta and testified at a custody hearing that she would allow her grandson to see his father, Brown said. Most of their family lives in Maryland, while Talebzadeh is originally from Iran, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he said.
Appearing by video from the Charles B. Webster Detention Center, Talebzadeh, still bearded with his head shaved, remained silent during the hearing. Chief Superior Court Judge John Flythe swiftly denied bond.
Defense attorney Pete Theodocian noted that his client had been one of the Army’s most decorated Farsi linguists. The family obtained asylum in the U.S. when Talebzadeh was a child, and he graduated from high school in Maryland before joining the Army in 2011 at age 27.
During nine months in Afghanistan, he participated in operations that took out hundreds of Taliban, Theodocian said. He later came to Fort Gordon in 2014 to work for the National Security Agency and served in a CIA joint operation in Iraq in 2016.
Field operations eventually took a toll, Theodocian said, adding that Talebzadeh was medically retired as 100% disabled with an honorable discharge.
The defense argued that Talebzadeh’s son’s enrollment in a local school constitutes a community tie and said possible defense, including self-defense, will be explored later.
