Watch CBS News

Suspect Arrested, Teacher With Colorado Ties Stabbed To Death In Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI, UAE (CBS4)- Police have arrested a woman in the United Arab Emirates who is suspected of killing an American teacher who had taught in Colorado.

Ibolya Ryan was stabbed to death with a butcher knife in a public restroom at a mall in Abu Dhabi.

Security camera footage shows the suspect walking into the restroom dressed in a full black veil. The suspect emerges 90 minutes later and gets into an elevator.

Police say that's where the suspect stabbed Ryan, 47, to death because she was an American. She's also accused of in a separate plot to bomb another American's house.

Ryan, a mother of 11-year-old boys, taught kindergarten in the UAE and once taught at Palmer Elementary School in Denver from 1997 to 2001. She also lived in Denver's Hale neighborhood.

Ibola Ryan
Ibolya Ryan (credit: CBS)

She had worked in four countries and was excited to teach in the Muslim world.

The attack comes weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi issued a warning to U.S. citizens in the area where jihadist groups encouraged violence against American teachers although credible threats were never identified.

Abu Dhabi suspect
The stabbing suspect wanted in the death of an American teacher arrested in Abu Dhabi (credit: CBS)

Interior Minister Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also deputy prime minister, said the attacker targeted her victims based on their nationality alone in an attempt to create chaos and terrorize the country. He called the stabbing of the woman, who previously lived in Colorado, a crime that is "alien to our secure country."

"The victim of this brutal crime was a schoolteacher who was committed to building strong future generations," he told reporters.

Word of the gruesome killing, which left a trail of blood in a public restroom at an Abu Dhabi mall, has rattled the Emirates, a Western-allied, seven-state Gulf federation that includes the glitzy commercial hub of Dubai.

"The Emirates take their security very seriously. It matters to them in terms of their safety and security generally but also to their public image and to their economy," said CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate.

Ryan's husband is now in the UAE with the couple's children.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.