Who Is Sitora Yusufiy, Omar Mateen’s Ex Wife?

Sitora Yusufiy, the ex-wife of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen, is speaking out about the mass murderer and the abuse that led to their divorce.

Sitora Yusufiy On Ex-Husband Omar Mateen

Yusufiy, 27, married Mateen in 2008 after meeting him on MySpace. By 2009, her parents helped her escape her marital home before she could officially obtain a divorce in 2011. Though Yusufiy admits that she is shocked by Mateen’s actions in the early hours of Sunday morning at the Pulse Orlando nightclub in which he took the lives of 49 revelers, she has long known that Yusufiy has a penchant for violence and hateful outbursts.

“He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute — the next minute his temper… his body would just [go] totally the opposite. Anger, emotionally violent and that later evolved into abuse, to beating,” Yusufiy told ABC News. “After being abused and after trying to do that and see the good in him, I can honestly say this is a sick person. This was a sick person that was really confused and went crazy.”

Yusufiy added, “In those moments of emotional instability, he would express his anger towards [a] certain culture, homosexuality, because in Islamic culture, it is not really tolerated, homosexuality. And I know at the time he was trying to get his life straight and follow his faith.”

During her marriage to Mateen, he would confiscate her paychecks, virtually hold her hostage in their home and verbally and physically abuse her. Fortunately for Yusufiy, her parents realized the depth of the trouble in the marriage and flew to Florida to take her back to their home in New Jersey. Since the day that her parents picked her up, Yusufiy says that she has had no contact with Mateen outside of a Facebook message he sent her a year ago.

“I thought I had closed the chapter on this horrible mistake that I had gotten myself into and forgot all about it and we’re free from it. But this is the most shocking, heartbreaking experience,” she said.