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Admitted killer was sane when he stabbed 2 Chapman grads to death in Anaheim, jury finds

May 7, 2026

An admitted killer was legally sane when he ambushed and stabbed to death two Chapman University alumni at their apartment near Angel Stadium, an Orange County Superior Court jury determined on Thursday, May 7.

The jury deliberated for around two hours before rejecting Ramy Fahim’s not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity claim for the murders of Griffin Robert Cuomo and Jonathan Andrew Bahm, both 23, at the Stadium House Apartments across the street from Angel Stadium on Katella Avenue in April 2022.

Fahim, now 30, pleaded guilty to the killings on the eve of trial, leaving only the sanity question for jurors.

Fahim now faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Had the jury determined he was insane at the time of the killings he likely would have instead been sent to a state hospital for mental-health treatment.

The son of a former high-ranking official in the Egyptian government, Fahim was born in Cairo and spent some of his childhood and teen years in Chicago and Rome and earned degrees from USC and Columbia. His mental-health issues began during his college years, according to testimony during the trial. During his first involuntarily hospitalization, Fahim was diagnosed with schizophrenia and began taking an anti-psychotic medication, evidence showed.

Fahim moved from Florida to Southern California in late 2021 to take a job with Pence Wealth Management in Newport Beach. His mother was a friend of one of the firm’s owners, according to court records, and working for the company allowed Fahim to renew his Visa and remain in the United States.

Griffin Cuomo, a marketing and media assistant, was tasked with giving Fahim assignments at the firm. The two got along well at first, with Cuomo at one point taking Fahim to a Los Angeles Rams game. But jurors were told their relationship quickly soured, with Fahim apparently frustrated at the level of work that Cuomo was assigning him and complaining that he was being micromanaged.

Employees began raising concerns about Fahim’s bizarre and erratic behavior, as well as his allegedly poor hygiene, and some coworkers unsuccessfully urged the firms’ leaders to fire him.

Investigators found extensive writings on Fahim’s computer going back more than a year before the killings in which Fahim mused about how serial killers choose their victims, deliberated on where one could bury a bod and whether someone could scream with their throat slit. They also found messages he sent to family, including his mother, in which he talked about killing Griffin and made references to God and Moses and how he wouldn’t get in trouble for the slaying, attorneys told jurors.

Fahim on the night of April 18 2022 gained entry to the Angel Stadium apartment building where Cuomo lived. While he had previously staked the apartment building out, Fahim apparently didn’t know that Cuomo had a roommate, fellow Chapman University graduate Jonathan Andrew Bahm.

On that April night and into the next morning, Fahim spent more than ten hours wandering and hiding out at the apartment complex. He drew concern from other residents and at one point the suspicion of a security guard. But Fahim was still there around 6 a.m. the next morning, when Cuomo exited his apartment to head for work.

Fahim, who was waiting outside the apartment, immediately attacked Cuomo, stabbing him in the throat and driving him back into the unit. Using what the prosecution described as a “hunting dagger,” Fahim stabbed Cuomo more than 40 times.

Bahm, seeing Fahim attacking Cuomo, locked himself in a bathroom and called police. A 911 call played for jurors at the outset of the trial captured the moment when Fahim forced his way into the bathroom and Bahm’s somewhat frantic conversation with the dispatcher abruptly turned into a series of bloodcurdling screams.

After also stabbing Bahm more than 40 times, Fahim waited at the apartment for police to arrive. A tarp and shovel were found in his car.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Jeff Moore told jurors during the trial that Fahim’s original plan — to kill Cuomo, cut his head off, then bury the head somewhere isolated while leaving the body in a dumpster to be taken to a landfill — was derailed when Bahm called 911 and Fahim realized he had no hope of escaping the apartment complex.

Fahim’s attorney, Marlin G. Stapleton, told jurors during the trial that Fahim’s writings showed someone who was caught up in “madness.” But Moore, the prosecutor, countered that ten days prior to the killings Fahim wrote that if he got caught he would blame it on his schizophrenia, something he brought up early in his interview with a police detective following his arrest.

Much of the testimony during the trial came from dueling mental health experts — two chosen by prosecutors who determined Fahim was sane at the time of the killings, two picked by the defense who found he was insane. It was one of the few times during criminal proceedings where the burden of proof was on the defense rather than the prosecution.

Fahim is opting for a quick sentencing less than a week after his conviction, his attorney told Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary S. Paer after the jury verdict. He is scheduled to return to court on Wednesday, May. 13.

Orange County Register

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Admitted killer was sane when he stabbed 2 Chapman grads to death in Anaheim, jury finds

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