Saeed Hanaei or Said Hanai (Persian: سعید حنایی; 1962 – April 8, 2002) was an Iranian serial killer, arrested in 2001 for the murders of at least 16 women in Mashhad.
He had a dysfunctional relationship with his mother, who violently abused him; he later claimed that she frequently scratched him with her fingernails hard enough to draw blood, and attempted to bite off pieces of his flesh.
[4] Hanaei targeted female prostitutes in the eastern city of Mashhad, a major religious pilgrimage site where the Imam Reza shrine is located.
The murders were referred to as the "spider killings" by the Iranian press because Hanaei lured the women to his home and strangled them and dumped their bodies.
[7] In 2022, another film about his life, Holy Spider, was released, starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi and Mehdi Bajestani, and directed by Ali Abbasi.