Holly Ratchford has spoken publicly for the first time about unknowingly renting to two of the 9/11 hijackers, saying she shared cookies and tea with the men who would later crash American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
Ratchford, who managed and lived at the Parkwood Apartments in the San Diego area, rented units to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in the months before the September 2001 attacks. The pair were part of the five-man team that hijacked the flight and killed 184 people at the Pentagon. She was introduced to them by Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who moved into the complex in 1999 and whose government connections have become central to ongoing litigation by 9/11 victims’ families.
“There was absolutely nothing unusual about them. They were nice, they were polite,” she said.
Ratchford described al-Bayoumi as a regular presence at pool parties she hosted, where he held a townhouse near the pool. “He was always so bubbly and smiling,” she said, calling him “very, very friendly,” She added that she “bought into everything that he told me” about being a student, saying, “I really thought that’s how he was.”
Al-Bayoumi vouched for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar when they initially tried to rent a one-bedroom apartment by paying cash, telling Ratchford he knew them from his mosque. He eventually cosigned their rental agreement and helped them establish a bank account. Ratchford’s characterization of their relationship stands in contrast to al-Bayoumi’s statements to British authorities after 9/11, when he distanced himself from the two men. She maintains that al-Bayoumi and the hijackers were “definitely friendly.”
Richard Lambert, who led the FBI’s San Diego office investigation following the attacks, said that “it was a general consensus of people in the San Diego Muslim community that Bayoumi was an operative of the Saudi intelligence service.”
According to the FBI, al-Bayoumi was receiving payments from a contractor for the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority. He told investigators he met al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar by chance at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles, though a 2021 FBI report quoted a source saying Bayoumi held “very high status” inside the Saudi consulate in LA. The report also noted he carried a sketchbook containing a drawing of a plane and an equation.
Al-Bayoumi was never charged with a crime and relocated to Saudi Arabia in 2002. A video clip of him filming the US Capitol and referencing a “plan” was unsealed and released in 2024 in connection with the victims’ lawsuit.
Attorneys for the families of the 2,977 victims continue pressing their case that the Saudi government bears liability for the attacks, with al-Bayoumi’s role serving as a key element of their argument. Riyadh has categorically denied involvement and is contesting the claims in court. A federal judge ruled in 2025 that the families could proceed to trial, citing circumstantial evidence and the “inference” that Saudi Arabia had employed al-Bayoumi.
The 25th anniversary of the attacks will be marked next month.