‘A mystery inside a riddle’: Suspect in Nuseiba Hasan Hamilton cold case still at large

At this hour, what is dead is restless

and what is living is burning."

- Li-Young Lee, poet

People know the truth as to what happened to her."

- Sgt. Daryl Reid, Hamilton homicide detective

The fields have turned golden brown, a prelude to winterkill, just as they have the past five falls since police searched for her remains here.

Back then, in 2016, Hamilton police officers led cadaver dogs over the rolling rural property off Concession 8 West in Flamborough, seven kilometres southeast of Valens Conservation Area, and 25 kilometres northwest of Hamilton.

The early hours and days after a homicide are critical for investigators to process forensic evidence at the crime scene, and collect clear-headed witness statements.

But there was no crime scene in this case. Instead, nine years passed before 26-year-old Nuseiba Hasan was reported missing.

She was last seen alive in the late fall of 2006, here at her family's farmhouse on a 55-acre (22-hectare) property.

We believe Nuseiba was a victim of foul play," said Det. Daryl Reid, the lead investigator in the case.

Nuseiba's family had sold and vacated the property before police searched it.

Some members of her family have left Canada for Jordan, the country on the Arabian Peninsula where they have roots.

The cold case is a mystery inside a riddle: who killed Nuseiba, and why - and why did someone in her family wait those nine years before walking into a Hamilton police station to express concern about her?

The picture is incomplete at best for homicide investigators.

But they have enough to not let it go.

Childrens Aid Society is evil and are destroying the family unit."

It was 1995, and the hand-painted sign was erected on the property of a man named Moses Hasan, in Milton, 25 minutes north of Burlington.

Moses, 58, was angry at the Halton Children's Aid Society (CAS) for taking away his 14-year-old daughter one year earlier, in June 1994, and placing her in foster care.

The daughter's name was Nuseiba.

Back then, Milton was a town of 30,000, just over 10 years away from doubling in population from GTA sprawl.

Moses had built a large home on a rural property along Highway 25 on the edge of town, near the Croatian club and the new Halton Region waste landfill.

He had also set up his business there, called Bethlehem Sons Excavation.

There were piles of landscape material, soil, stone, wood chips here and there on the property," Brad Reaume told The Spectator.

In 1995, Reaume was a reporter for the local newspaper, called The Canadian Champion, and he wrote a story about Moses Hasan's battle with the town over the sign.

Moses first put up the sign in 1994, and one year later was told by town officials to take it down because it violated zoning, and that he risked having his business shut down if he didn't comply.

We have this garden operation to keep our children off the street and away from drugs," he said in the article.

Moses added that it was Nuseiba who had approached CAS, complaining to the agency about family problems" she was having.

He was quoted in the article saying that two months after his daughter was removed from home, she returned to her family after she explained to a judge the problems were not unusual." He said he paid $6,000 in legal fees.

Nuseiba Hasan was the second youngest of nine children; there were 16 grandchildren.

One of the sons, Abdullah, was also quoted in the article, and photographed with Moses.

Three years earlier, at E.C. Drury high school in Milton, a senior student named Abdullah Hasan had been a champion wrestler, according to sports stories in The Champion.

One of Nuseiba's other older brothers was named Nasser; Nasser Hasan was mentioned in the newspaper for running on the cross-country team at Drury.

Nuseiba, meanwhile, attended Sam Sherratt and Robert Borden elementary schools in town. After high school, she enrolled in classes at Fanshawe College in London, a 90-minute drive from home. She was five-foot-four, with brown eyes and dark hair.

According to police, Nuseiba was pregnant at 18 years old, gave birth to a girl, and put her daughter up for adoption.

She had support from one part of the family, others were not supportive of her having the child out of wedlock," said Stephen Metelsky, a retired police officer with Halton Regional Police and RCMP, and an author and professor of criminal psychology at Mohawk College.

Metelsky said he interviewed Peter Thom, the now-retired Hamilton detective who had been in charge of the Nuseiba Hasan homicide investigation, for a recent article in Blue Line" magazine. (Thom declined to be interviewed by The Spectator.)

(Thom) alluded to the cultural dynamic, that some felt (the pregnancy) brought shame to the family," Metelsky told The Spectator. Situations like that can be mitigating circumstances for violence. It was an angle (police) looked at."

Nuseiba attended her college courses intermittently, and in May 2006, completed the spring semester. She did not return for another.

In September 2006, Moses moved to the rural Flamborough property, that is located across Concession 8 West from the entrance to the Ponderosa nudist resort.

At this time, Nuseiba had been living in Hamilton, and was in relationship, according to police.

Homicide detectives believe that in the late fall, just as the relationship ended, a family member picked her up and took her out to the country home.

In emails to The Spectator, Reid said statements taken from family members have helped detectives form an investigative theory" about her death.

He said that a family member or member(s) played a role in getting Nuseiba to the Flamborough family farm in November of 2006," at which point she was killed, and her remains were disposed of."

He said they have a theory about the manner in which she was killed, but would not offer details.

Who approached police on Feb. 12, 2015, to report her missing?

By that time, Nuseiba's daughter was in her late teens, and at some point learned who her birth mother had been.

In October 2015, eight months after Nuseiba was reported missing, a Locate Nuseiba" Facebook page appeared; it still exists online, with almost no activity all these years. It's unclear who started the page.

Was it the daughter who went to police?

No, said Reid.

The report was initiated based on disclosure by another member of the family who we are intentionally not identifying," he said.

Using Reid as an intermediary, The Spectator requested an interview with the daughter, but she has so far declined.

Metelsky said one of the baffling aspects of the case is that Nuseiba was a young woman attending college, likely in regular touch with friends and peers.

And she just drops off the map for nine years, without someone asking, where is she?'"

Police reject any notion that she chose to disappear.

Nuseiba Hasan has not been heard from, seen, travelled on any known passport, or had any contact with government agencies since November of 2006," said Reid.

Given the issues Nuseiba had with her father when she was a child, he might seem a prime suspect.

Moses died in 2012, six years after Nuseiba was last seen.

But Reid suggested Moses is not a suspect: We believe the person(s) responsible is still alive."

He also believes the killer remains at large in Ontario.

We have no evidence suggesting the person is no longer here," Reid said.

Police have said that some members of Nuseiba's family have co-operated with investigators, while others have not.

Moses Hasan's old company, Bethlehem Sons, is still listed online, but the number is no longer in service, and the company property in Milton no longer exists, overtaken by sprawl.

The contact name listed for the company is Musa Hasan. The listing for M. Hasan" in Milton is out of service.

The Spectator made contact with an older brother of Nuseiba's over the phone and via email. He works in construction.

When asked by The Spectator for a comment about Nuseiba, and the cold case, he wrote in an email: Do not contact me through emails or phone calls. You should go talk to the police."

Reid said there have been no new developments" in the investigation over the past five years.

It is often true in cold cases that police believe they know the identity of the killer, but there is not sufficient evidence to make an arrest.

Perhaps police are waiting for one more witness to come forward, or a suspect to make a move that would suggest a guilty mind: attempting to leave Canada, for example.

Reid said there are people who know the truth about what happened" to Nuseiba.

Clearly someone said enough that, after interviews with family members and exploring banking and other records, police launched a search at the farm, 20 months after she was reported missing.

On Oct. 28, 2016, and for several days after, police officers on foot and horseback searched; they used a drone, ground-penetrating radar, and a backhoe. Their focus was the area around a flat-roofed steel barn, but also extended over the entire property.

Joining the search team was forensic anthropologist Renee Kosalka, whose resume included wading into muck north of Sarajevo in 2006 to identify skeletons of Bosnian Muslims in mass graves.

But Nuseiba's remains were not found at the farm. Or anywhere else.

Today, the barn is still here, but the weathered house has been torn down, and a new ranch-style home built, with a big front porch. A plaque announces the name of the family that owns the farm.

One thing that has not changed to the naked eye, is a serpentine hill, called a drumlin, that stretches behind the farmhouse. It is one of the remnants in the area of glaciers from the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

Life moves on, lovely and gentle things die, or are taken away.

And some things endure; elemental, hard, unyielding.

We will aggressively pursue each and every lead," said Reid, until the truth of Nuseiba's death is revealed, her remains are located, and those responsible are held accountable for their actions."

Jon Wells is a feature writer for The Spectator. jwells@thespec.com