Iraqi woman dies after being beaten in her California home

CNN) -- An Iraqi woman who was left brutally beaten in her Southern California home with an apparently xenophobic note beside her has died.

Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, was taken off life support Saturday, said the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that advocates for Muslim civil liberties.

She had been on life support since Wednesday when her teenage daughter found her unconscious in the living room of their home in El Cajon in San Diego County.

"During the initial stages of this investigation, a threatening note was discovered very close to where the victim was found," Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police said.

Authorities would not specify what the note said. But Alawadi's daughter said it threatened the family to go back to Iraq and called them "terrorists."

Police said a similar note was left outside the family home earlier in the month, but the family did not report it.

"A week ago they left a letter saying, 'This is our country, not yours, you terrorists,'" the daughter, Fatima Al Himidi told CNN affiliate KGTV. "So my mom ignored that, thinking (it was) kids playing around, pranking. And so the day they hurt her, they left it again and it said the same thing."

Hanif Mohebi, executive director of CAIR's San Diego chapter, said the family came to the United States from Iraq in the mid-1990s. He did not know when they moved to El Cajon, which has one of the nation's largest Iraqi community... [1]