Nuseiba Hasan’s daughter seeks justice for killer, court declaration her birth mother is dead

When she was young, Yasmin would wander into her mother's closet, slip the papers from the folder, and read about the nameless, faceless woman who had given her up for adoption.

Your birth mother loved you very much and would do anything for you," reads the Children's Aid Society (CAS) document.

She had wide, bright brown eyes. Her hair was thick and wavy, dark-brown to black. She was tall and very slim ... She had an amazing singing voice. She liked dance music and R&B."

Years later, in 2016, when Yasmin was about 17, she read a story in The Spectator about a Hamilton woman named Nuseiba Hasan.

The story quoted police saying Nuseiba had gone missing in 2006, at 26 years old, and that she was the victim of a homicide. Her body was never found.

Yasmin started putting the pieces together. She spoke to Hamilton police. She learned that Nuseiba Hasan was her birth mother.

She had been two years old when Nuseiba put her up for adoption; a young mother with her life in turmoil who was about to vanish.

Nuseiba's daughter is now in her early 20s, and hopes the person responsible for her birth mother's death will one day be brought to justice.

But in the short term, she told The Spectator in an interview, she wants a court to declare that Nuseiba is legally dead.

A lawyer is assisting her with an application under Ontario's Declaration of Death Act.

Everyone else that dies is given the respect and dignity of having a death certificate, and a memorial, and Nuseiba should not be excluded," said Yasmin.

No one else seems to want to make that effort and I feel like I have a responsibility to do that."

She would like to explore erecting a memorial to Nuseiba in Hamilton, and has learned that she needs a death certificate in order to open a plot for her.

Yasmin is the name she uses when talking to journalists, but it is not her real name. She asks not to be identified given the nature of the case.

Her caution seems prudent, given that Hamilton police believe someone in Nuseiba's family is the prime suspect in the homicide.

The investigative theory in this case," reads an affidavit written by Det. Daryl Reid, is that Nuseiba's disappearance and death resulted from the actions of a family member or members."

Reid, an investigator in the homicide unit, prepared the document in support of Yasmin's declaration of death application.

Yasmin is the applicant, and the respondents listed on the court document are eight members of Nuseiba's family: mother Yamneh Hasan, as well as four brothers and three sisters.

Nuseiba's father, Moses Hasan, died in 2012.

Reid has told The Spectator he believes the one responsible for Nuseiba's death is still alive, and living in Ontario.

An Ontario court has the power to declare an individual deceased in the absence of a dead body, when the person has gone missing or disappeared under circumstances of peril," and has not been heard from in seven years.

Peril is what Reid believes awaited Nuseiba Hasan in November 2006, when she was picked up at an apartment she rented in Hamilton with a boyfriend, and driven about 35 minutes to the Hasan family farm on Concession Road 8 West in Flamborough.

(Nuseiba) took all of her belongings and personal effects with her," Reid wrote in the affidavit, adding that the investigation suggests Nuseiba was met with foul play at the family farm, and her remains were later disposed of."

According to an eight-part podcast about the case titled Conviction: The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan" by investigative journalist Habiba Nosheen, a few members of the family insist Nuseiba is still alive, and one of the brothers spread the word that she is living in Vancouver doing her thing" and abusing drugs.

The podcast reported there is a family rumour that when Moses Hasan was on his deathbed, one of the siblings confessed to having killed Nuseiba to save the family's honour."

It was Feb. 11, 2015, that police learned Nuseiba was missing.

On that day, reads the affidavit, a Halton police constable met with Reid at the central station downtown.

The police constable told Reid that he was a personal friend of a member of the Hasan family," and had received information that Nuseiba had not been seen or heard from in approximately nine years and there were concerns as to whether another member of the family had killed her."

The podcast series reported that it was one of Nuseiba's brothers who spoke to police.

The meeting with Reid sparked a missing-person investigation, in which Hamilton detectives searched the farm for several days - in addition to searching health records, financial transactions and international travel data associated with Nuseiba.

They found no trace of evidence suggesting she had existed after 2006.

At the time she went missing, she was receiving social assistance and did not own a car.

As of November of 2006, Nuseiba had no other support network or other financial means that would allow her to disappear on her own and remain hidden," reads the affidavit.

Nuseiba was born in Jordan, on the Arabian Peninsula, but grew up in Milton, 25 minutes north of Burlington, where she attended elementary and high school. She took courses in travel and tourism at Fanshawe College in London, but did not complete the program.

Reid wrote that the investigation revealed Nuseiba diverted from her strict Muslim upbringing" in her family, and had a child out of wedlock with a non-Muslim man, and she was not willing to abide by the strict rules imposed upon her by her family."

Yasmin was the child out of wedlock.

The CAS file was given to Yasmin's adopted parents as a matter of course, and contains baby pictures of Yasmin, court dates, and medical information and other background about the birth parents.

But Nuseiba had requested a closed" adoption, and so the file contains no information about the birth mother's name, nor is there a birth certificate connecting Yasmin to Nuseiba; she was raised not knowing that Hasan" was her original surname.

The file cites information provided by CAS caseworkers, Nuseiba, and a close friend of Nuseiba's in Hamilton. The friend is quoted saying that Nuseiba experienced a physical abuse situation" in her family when she was growing up; abuse rooted in cultural issues ... your birth mother was felt to have rebelled."

When Nuseiba was 14, she was removed from the Hasan family and briefly placed in foster care by the CAS. At 16, she was shipped back to Jordan by her parents, and returned at 18 with the assistance of the Canadian government."

Reid's affidavit says Nuseiba and members of her family frequently travelled between Canada and Jordan, and the last time she returned to Canada from overseas was in April 2001 - two months after she had given up Yasmin for adoption. (Her Canadian passport expired in 2011 but was never renewed.)

Nuseiba was 19 when she gave birth to Yasmin in Hamilton at St. Joseph's hospital.

Scorned by her family over the birth, the CAS file says Nuseiba also reported domestic violence from the birth father, that led her to live in a shelter, stop attending college classes, and caused her to feel like her life was crumbling."

I think she felt boxed-in, and like she had no other choice (but to give her up)," said Yasmin.

As for the declaration of death application Yasmin seeks, it's not clear when it will be heard in court, but it has no bearing on police ultimately laying a homicide charge, according to Reid.

He pointed out that police charged Jeremy Hall in the William (Billy) Mason homicide without seeking a death certificate, when the victim's remains were never found.

Yasmin lives in southern Ontario and tries to keep the homicide case, and her own road travelled, in perspective.

It's tragic (Nuseiba) felt so unsafe that she had to give me up for adoption, failed by all the people who claimed to love her," she said.

But coming from that, I was adopted by an amazing family that gave me opportunities and support that Nuseiba could not have given me in her situation."

The CAS file offers glimpses of Yasmin's brief life with Nuseiba: Her birth mother slept with her each night, they went for walks in Hamilton parks and at the beach, and watched Teletubbies" and Barney and Friends" on TV.

The file suggests that, even as a toddler, Yasmin displayed some of Nuseiba's spirit; she seemed a confident youngster."

Yasmin said friends wonder how she can cope with it all, and stop herself from being blinded by rage, knowing Nuseiba's killer is at large.

The best thing I can do is advocate for her, without it interfering in my own life," she said. Since I found out what happened to Nuseiba, even on my worst days, I went through the stages of grief but I kept that attitude. I think about her each day, but not the case, just her, as a whole."

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