Woman who stabbed date in Las Vegas-area hotel room over death of Iranian leader thought she was in ‘Homeland’ episode, new book says

Henderson police arrested Nikoubin, a Texas-area university student who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran when she was 12, shortly after the stabbing on March 5, 2022, at Sunset Station. Nikoubin and the victim met online on the dating website Plenty of Fish, Henderson police wrote in an arrest report. The duo then agreed to meet at the hotel, booking a room together, police said.

While in the room, the pair began engaging in sexual activity, when Nikoubin put a blindfold on the man police said. Nikoubin then turned off the lights, and several seconds later, cut the man’s neck, documents said.

“While checking in at the hotel lobby, I saw a woman and heard her say, ‘I bet she is gonna slit his throat during sex,’” Nikoubin writes in the book. “I’m sure this didn’t actually happen, but it’s what I was seeing and hearing at the time. Looking back now, I know I was hallucinating.”

Photos shown to a grand jury showed two puncture wounds to the young man’s neck. Nikoubin writes she felt like actress Salma Hayek in the 1996 movie “Dusk Till Dawn.”

“I started to dance like Selma [sic] Hayek from Dusk Till Dawn,” the book said. “I felt powerful. She was so pretty. I felt as though that’s who I was watching. I was transforming into Selma [sic] with the Gravedigger song playing on repeat in my head.”

While speaking to officers at the hotel, Nikoubin said she wanted to get revenge for a drone strike, which killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020. Soleimani was a popular Iranian military officer and right-hand man to the country’s supreme leader. Former President Donald Trump called for Soleimani’s assassination to kill “the number-one terrorist anywhere in the world” to protect “American diplomats and military personnel” worldwide.

“I was a character in the TV show ‘Homeland’ now,” Nikoubin writes. “I wasn’t in my mind. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think anything was real. It was all a movie. I was Carrie from ‘Homeland.’”