Written by Photo courtesy of Walt Harris’ Instagram
A trial date has finally been set for Ibraheem Yazeed — the man charged with the kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Aniah Blanchard, who is the stepdaughter of ex-UFC heavyweight fighter Walt Harris.
Yazeed was arrested and charged with the crime all the way back in 2019 but delays and continuances have consistently pushed back the trial date. Now a judge has set a trial date for March 2, 2026 with jury selection beginning on the case unfolding in a Tuskeegee, Ala. courtroom.
Yazeed faces three counts of capital murder, and he faces the death penalty if found guilty. News of the trial date was first reported by WVTM 13.
He is charged with Blanchard’s disappearance and murder in 2019 after her body was found weeks after she first went missing.
Blanchard’s body was recovered by authorities in a wooded area in Macon County, Ala., with the remains later identified as the missing Southern Union Community College student. She first went missing in October 2019.
An autopsy was performed with authorities confirming Blanchard was killed by a gunshot wound and Yazeed is only person being charged with her murder after he initially faced first-degree kidnapping charges.
Blanchard was reported missing on Oct. 24, 2019 and she was later spotted on surveillance footage at a local convenience store in Auburn, Ala. Yazeed was seen on the same surveillance footage in the store at the same time as Blanchard and an eyewitness later identified him as the man he saw force Blanchard into her car against her will.
Blanchard’s 2017 Honda CR-V was recovered two days later with a “life-threatening” amount of blood discovered inside. Police then announced that they believed she was the victim of foul play.
Yazeed’s arrest soon followed but Blanchard’s body wasn’t recovered until November where she was declared dead and the kidnapping case then turned into a homicide investigation.
Harris and his wife were obviously devastated by the loss of their daughter, but he eventually returned to his fighting career competing three more times for the UFC before receiving his release.
At the time of his arrest, Yazeed was out on bond on charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and robbery in an unrelated case. Blanchard’s murder led to Alabama adopting “Aniah’s Law,” which gives judges more power to have defendants held without bond in cases involving violent crimes.
Yazeed plead not guilty to the crime and his attorneys argued for additional delays in starting the trial with hopes to push back the date until later in 2026. The courts disagreed under the recently enacted Speedy Trials Act, which seeks to address the tremendous backlog of criminal cases in Alabama.
Now Yazeed is set to stand trial starting in March.