LEICESTER, England, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- A British woman killed by her ex-husband with her two children was about to move to a new city to get away from him, friends said.
Aram Aziz, 32, hanged himself in a public park in Leicester, police said. His body was found Friday and those of Joy Small and their children, Aubarr, 3, and Chanarra, 2, were discovered the next day in their home.
Friends said Small was about to move to Sheffield, The Sun reported. She had relatives living there and hoped to get a fresh start.
"She was determined to get away from Aram. He was very possessive," one friend said. "He once told her that if she ever left him he'd kill her. It turns out it wasn't just an idle threat. Maybe she told him she was leaving the area and he just flipped."
The couple were divorced last month.
Police have not released details about how Small and her children were killed. They said a park employee found Aziz hanging from the roof of a shed.
Aziz was an Iraqi Kurd. A relative told the Daily Mail his wife never formally converted to Islam but lived in a Muslim neighborhood in Leicester and adopted practices like wearing a headscarf.
"He often had a crazy look in his eye. He smoked skunk and took cocaine and was always skint," a Kurdish restaurant worker told the Sun, using slang terms for a variety of marijuana and being broke.
