The Butcher

In 2004, the butcher and sole proprietor of the Super Halal Market in suburban Springfield, VA ducked into the walk-in freezer to fetch some goat meat for a customer. When he returned moments later, the customer’s severed left hand lay on the floor by the meat saw, and a trail of blood led all the way out of the store. Witnesses said the customer had used the saw to cut off his own hand, yelling again and again that he was "not a terrorist." He had done it, he screamed, "for Allah." But what exactly had he done? And why? In the ensuing weeks, the butcher, his wife, a reporter, an investigator and one innocent family try to make sense of this ultimately bewildering (and all too true) event.