Habiba Nosheen: A quick warning before we start the show: this program contains descriptions of violence. Please take care while listening.

Habiba: Previously on The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan.

[Tareq Al-Qhaiwi speaking Arabic]

Mindy: I just remember the panic in her voice when she called me from the airport. And I still to this day use the term "kidnapped" because they took her against her will. But she escaped to the Canadian embassy, and they ended up flying her back here.

[phone rings]

Christine Fox: Hello?

Habiba: Hi. Christine?

Christine Fox: Hi, how are you?

Habiba: Good. How are you?

Christine Fox: I'm good, thanks.

Habiba: Is this a good time?

Christine Fox: It is, yeah. I mean, really, I'm a mom of three. Never is a good time, but ... [laughs]

Habiba: I hear you. [laughs]

Habiba: This is Christine Fox. I'm calling her up because Nuseiba's school records show that when she came back from Jordan in 1997, after escaping with the help of the embassy, she enrolled at a Catholic high school in Hamilton, in a small, alternative program for at-risk youth called "Wilma's Place." Christine was also a student at Wilma's Place at the same time and remembers Nuseiba.

Christine Fox: She was a bit of a different soul. She was kind of secluded. Like, you know, nobody really knew her story. Like, at Wilma's place, everybody's there for a reason and everybody knows your reason, right? Like, nobody knew her story. There was rumors about what her story was about, but nobody ever really knew for sure.

Habiba: Hmm.

Christine Fox: It seemed like there was lots of secrets. And she didn't talk to anybody, and it always seemed like she was hiding.

Habiba: Christine was right. Nuseiba was hiding. She was hiding from her family, from her past, from people in her life she saw as a threat. But according to police records I would later obtain, while Nuseiba was hiding from all that, she walked straight into the arms of a new threat—a threat she didn't see coming until it was too late.

Habiba: From Spotify and Gimlet Media, I'm Habiba Nosheen and this is The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan.

Habiba: When a 17-year-old Nuseiba lands back in Canada with the help of the Canadian embassy, she's determined to get far away from her family. When I spoke to her older sister Sara Hasan, she agreed. Nuseiba did not hide the fact that she wanted nothing to do with the Hasans.

Sara Hasan: There was never once where she would make a phone call to parents or any fam—any relative. We would always have to try to find her. So there's so many times where we'd go looking for her, and mostly in the Hamilton area. And from all those times I'd find her in Hamilton or whatever, she'd always tell me, "Sara, I don't want nothing to do with the family. Leave me alone. Just—just leave me alone." Every single time. That's kind of like okay, she wants me to leave her alone, but do I want to leave her alone? I don't want to leave her alone. I want to know where she is.

Habiba: Sara may have seen this cat and mouse chase with Nuseiba as a sign of love, but there's something that a friend of Nuseiba's told me that suggests Nuseiba didn't see it that way. Her name is Maria Martin. She met Nuseiba at a shelter. And one day, she says, she and Nuseiba were walking down the street when a van started to follow them.

Maria Martin: It was a white van, and there was two people. And she saw the van, and she just said, "Oh my God!" And then she just went flying. Like, bolted.

Habiba: Hmm.

Maria Martin: And the van started going after her.

Habiba: Oh my God. Do you know who that was?

Maria Martin: It was some family members. I don't know exactly who. But she ran, we got away. But then she later told us that that was her family. And then for—I remember for a few days she didn't go out.

Habiba: Wow. Do you remember if it was male or female? Who was in the car? Do you remember anything about that?

Maria Martin: It was two males, two guys. A younger and maybe middle age?

Habiba: Got it.

Habiba: It seems like Nuseiba was always looking over her shoulder. At times, it was like she was undercover. Here's her old classmate Christine Fox.

Christine Fox: She went by another name.

Habiba: What name did she go by?

Christine Fox: Josephine?

Habiba: Huh.

Christine Fox: I heard—I don't know if this is true or not, but back then we all heard that she took a different name because she was hiding from family. It was speculated that she went by another name, I think, is because she confided in a student and the student leaked it out.

Habiba: Oh.

Christine Fox: I just remember hearing that it was "Oh, that's not her name," you know? And I'm like, "What do you mean that's not her name?"

Habiba: And did you ever learn that her name was actually Nuseiba?

Christine Fox: I didn't. No.

Habiba: Okay, this is the first you're hearing about it?

Christine Fox: This is the first I'm hearing about it! I heard that she—it was my understanding she went by a different name because she was hiding from her father. That's what I heard.

Habiba: Hey, Martin. Hi, can you hear me?

Martin Helling: Yes. Yes I can.

Habiba: I call up Martin Helling, the current principal at Wilma's Place. And I learned from Martin that it wasn't just Nuseiba who felt that this secret identity was needed. So did Martin's predecessor, the principal of Wilma's Place back when Nuseiba was a student. He's no longer alive, but at the time, Martin says, he'd given strict orders to the staff at school.

Martin Helling: They were told shortly after she got there that this is her real name, they only mentioned her name once.

Habiba: Okay.

Martin Helling: If anyone comes to school asking for her real name, you contact me and I will call the police.

Habiba: Martin says Nuseiba also made other efforts to stay hidden.

Martin Helling: There's no pictures of her in the yearbook because she didn't—they didn't want her in any pictures. Once she finished, she never attended the grad ceremony. This girl kept a pretty low profile at the school. She didn't want to talk to a lot of people. She was basically hiding.

Habiba: Wow.

Habiba: It's during Nuseiba's time at Wilma's Place, that another key figure enters her life: the man who would become Yasmin's father, Delroy Clarke. Nuseiba and Delroy's relationship seems to have started pretty early in her time at Wilma's Place, when Nuseiba was about 17 and Delroy was 23. Two years after they started dating, Nuseiba gave birth to Yasmin.

Habiba: Looking at her grades, it's hard to imagine how she pulled off the As and Bs in accounting and economics while still being a young mom with so little support. Nuseiba's friend Mindy also became a mom around the same time Nuseiba did. You met Mindy earlier—she's the friend who stole the sign with Nuseiba. And Mindy remembers hanging out with Nuseiba and her newborn daughter Yasmin.

Mindy: I remember seeing [bleep] as a smaller baby.

Habiba: Just a quick note: we beeped out Yasmin's real name in this conversation.

Mindy: She was a beautiful baby, with the curly black, dark, dark locks. Nuseiba loved that little girl so much. Oh my God, she just loved her. Just the way she looked at her. Because, you know, that—that smile and that sparkle was there when she looked at her daughter. She would sing to her, and she loved her and kissed her and brought her to the park. And she just—all of those things that a mom does. And the reason [bleep] was attached to her 24/7 was because Nuseiba not only was just around her 24/7, but was interacting with her and cuddling with her and just being there for her.

Habiba: Mindy found out firsthand how much Yasmin hated being away from Nuseiba when she tried babysitting tiny Yasmin.

Mindy: She just screamed and screamed and screamed. And you could tell it was just because she was only used to her mom. That was all she—she ever knew. So essentially, even though she'd seen me before, I was just some stranger and where'd my mom go?

Habiba: When I hear how hard it was for Yasmin to be separated from Nuseiba for a few hours, it's hard for me not to think only a few months later, Yasmin would be separated from Nuseiba forever. Mindy says raising a child alone as a young mom started to take its toll on Nuseiba. Nuseiba had also no support from her parents. If the Hasans thought running away and living in shelters was bad, a baby out of wedlock was a whole new level.

Habiba: But Mindy says life with Delroy was no escape, and Nuseiba told her that Delroy was sometimes violent.

Mindy: She told me he was abusive. She showed up at my place one day and had some sort of bruising on her, because I think when she told me he was abusive, it was just kind of in the vaguest of terms, or maybe it was not even the word "abusive" she used. Maybe it was a "He's not a nice guy" sort of comment. But I believe it was after her elaborating a little bit more about him being physically abusive that my concern started to grow.

Habiba: Mindy convinced Nuseiba to go to the police. And Delroy was arrested and put in jail. Mindy and Nuseiba stayed in touch for a bit after that, but sometime in the early 2000s, Mindy stopped hearing from Nuseiba. Mindy says for more than 15 years she didn't change her phone number, and hoped that maybe Nuseiba would call her again. But she never did. And then one day in 2015 ...

Mindy: Two male police officers show up. They sit on the other side of my desk. I think they were probably there maybe about a half hour, 45 minutes. And just asked me similar questions to you in a sense that they were just trying to find out what kind of person she was and the people in her life that I was aware of who may have wished to harm her. And they told me that—I think they told me at that time that she was, like, a missing person. But beyond that, they—they didn't give me any other information. So of course, I told them too, that my theory is that if she's missing, it could be Delroy. Please look into that. And they said it was an avenue that they were exploring.

Habiba: I have to admit the thought that Delroy could have something to do with Nuseiba's disappearance also crossed my mind. I know that something like half of all murdered women are killed by a current or former romantic partner. And I remember documents in the adoption file that also made me wonder about Delroy. Because the adoption file says Delroy had been in jail, and Nuseiba had reported him to the police. There is a note in the CAS file that says quote, "She worried that another beating could happen when he was released." And addressed to Yasmin, it also says, "One worker wondered if your birth mother was concerned about relinquishing [your] care for safety reasons."

Habiba: I need to learn more about Delroy Clarke to try to answer the countless questions that are circulating in my head. Yasmin does not remember her birth father. And despite trying over the years, she's never been able to find him. Delroy Clarke is a pretty common name, so her internet searches have all been dead ends. But I think I might know where to look: one of the few places an internet detective like Yasmin hasn't looked. A place that seems stuck in a different era: the criminal courthouse of Hamilton.

Habiba: I enter the courthouse on 45 Main Street and pass through the metal detectors. There's one working computer that resembles one that I may have seen in the '90s, but you can't use it to search criminal records. For that you have to get in line and wait to speak to a court clerk behind the glass. When it's my turn, I approach the counter with my recorder and mic in hand.

Habiba: So the person's last name is Clarke. C-L-A-R-K-E.

Clerk: I have things from 2002 to 2004, which we don't have. 1999, '95, '99. '98.

Habiba: Can you read me what—what they are?

Clerk: Okay. So the first one was possession of firearms.

Habiba: Possession of firearms.

Clerk: Second one ...

Habiba: I try to write as fast as I can to keep up with the list of charges the clerk is reading out to me, but I struggle to keep up.

Clerk: Failed to comply with probation times three, which means there are three counts of fail to comply with probation. They might have different dates.

Habiba: Got it.

Clerk: This is one information. And I can tell you if I have to stand here and do this with every single information, it'll take me a very long time.

Habiba: Okay. I'm okay with it if you are.

Clerk: I'm gonna be closing in 20 minutes.

Habiba: Got it.

Habiba: The clerk says 20 minutes is not enough time to go through all the charges filed against Delroy Clarke in this courthouse alone. This visit kicks off many months of record chasing and document hunting. And then one day, I uncover something disturbing: a dramatic and terrifying account of Nuseiba's life with delroy in her own words.

Habiba: That's after the break.

***

Habiba: On a Monday morning in November, I receive an email from the Hamilton Police Department. Attached are 19 pages of records which include Nuseiba's allegations against Delroy. It's a complaint for "break-enter, assault and unlawful confinement." This is the report Nuseiba made after Mindy encouraged her to go to the police. And it contains a statement from Nuseiba in her own words.

Habiba: I'm going to read this statement because reading these words is the closest I've come to actually talking to Nuseiba, to hearing her version of events, not filtered through her family, her acquaintances or the police investigating her disappearance. But a quick warning: it contains graphic descriptions of domestic violence and may be upsetting.

Habiba: Also, the statement has Delroy's name redacted, but it's pretty easy to figure out that it's him because he's also referred to as Yasmin's dad. So we've added it back. And I've also swapped out Yasmin's real name and corrected for grammar. The statement Nuseiba gave to police is typed and it reads:

Habiba: "I've known Delroy for the past three years, since I was 17 yrs old. We were introduced by a friend of mine and began dating soon after. We never lived together officially, but he stayed at my house for an extended period of time. Delroy is very abusive, and has assaulted me on numerous occasions, but I never called the police because I was either scared or was under the impression that we could work out our problems. Whenever we argue, Delroy usually strangles me, holds me down, refuses to let me off the floor, kicks me, spits on me. He has threatened me countless [times] by saying I don't deserve to live. 'I should shoot you,' followed with a hand gesture signifying that he had a gun pointed towards me. I've sustained various bruises from Delroy hitting me, and showed them to my friend who tries to encourage me to call the police.

Habiba: "I got pregnant with Delroy's daughter who is two, and he was kind of supportive initially, but slowly he never bothered to involve himself with us. Now he doesn't help with his daughter in any way, shape or form. For the past six months, our relationship is at a point where Delroy really isn't welcome in my apartment."

Habiba: Nuseiba goes on to describe a specific incident in November of 2000 that she says led to the assault that she reported to the police. In the statement, she says she dropped off her daughter at Delroy's mom's house without his permission. The following day, she says Delroy burst into her apartment, stormed into the bathroom while she was in the shower, grabbed her by the hair, and pulled her out naked. She says he then strangled her as he proceeded to violently beat for about an hour. At the bottom of the statement is Nuseiba's signature.

Habiba: Nuseiba gave this statement when she reported Delroy to the police on January 2, 2001. It was after this that Delroy was arrested and put in jail. A couple of months later, while Delroy was in jail, according to police records Nuseiba showed up at a women's shelter in Hamilton, in the middle of a cold Canadian winter without any shoes, disclosing to the staff that she had recently been assaulted.

Habiba: Reading these records, I realized that Mindy had told me about the same assault the shelter worker seemed to be referring to. Mindy said Nuseiba told her that while Delroy was in jail, someone broke into her apartment.

Mindy: There was a tree out front of her balcony, and she had told me that one of Delroy's male friends had broken into her apartment and just—and just beat her badly, and essentially kind of told her that, like, next time it could be [bleep].

Habiba: Next time it could be her daughter, Yasmin.

Mindy: She was terrified. At that point, she had done what she was supposed to do in the way that she reported Delroy, she got him put in jail. Her child and herself, they were—you know, they were finally safe. And then this happens. And again, every time there is a little piece of light and she was kind of coming into her own, something else happened that just totally broke her spirit. And that's kind of what happened here.

Habiba: Mindy says that Nuseiba told her the threat felt clear: if Nuseiba snitched on Delroy again, her daughter would be next.

Habiba: Mindy didn't know the exact date for when she thought this happened, but here in the police records there is a date: February 28, 2001—and that date is significant. Because according to Yasmin's adoption records, it was the very next day, on March 1, 2001, that Nuseiba showed up at a Children's Aid office to give up her little girl. The girl who, until that moment, was attached to Nuseiba's hip. The girl Nuseiba cooed over and dressed up, the girl who cried nonstop when separated from Nuseiba. It had always been such a mystery: why did Nuseiba put Yasmin up for adoption? Was this the answer? Did she do it to protect Yasmin from her own father?

Habiba: If the alleged beating by Delroy's friend was meant to shut Nuseiba up as Nuseiba told Mindy, it worked. About two weeks after Nuseiba gave up her daughter, on March 12, 2001, there was a hearing for the assault case against Delroy. Nuseiba was supposed to be the main witness, but she never showed up.

Habiba: Everything I've read from the police report suggests that by this time she was terrified of Delroy, so the fact that she wouldn't want to testify against him doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is what happened next.

Habiba: Because she doesn't show up to testify against the man she told the police had brutally assaulted her, the police arrest Nuseiba. Yasmin's adoption records stated that Nuseiba never showed up at a court hearing two weeks after dropping her off at CAS. Yasmin had always wondered why her mother wasn't there. And now I know why. Nuseiba never showed up because she was in jail. Just two blocks away from Yasmin's custody hearing, Nuseiba was facing another judge for refusing to testify against Delroy. I tell Mindy what I've learned.

Mindy: Really? Are you kidding me? That's terrible! Why—why do they think that women do not come forward about violent acts and why they're so terrified, if that is the way the system treats them? She was petrified. She had a history of abuse. That's just so sad. I don't think I knew that. Oh my goodness. That's—I'm—that's just terrible. I'm so heartbroken on her behalf, for everything that happened to her. I need a minute.

Habiba: Mindy walks away, and then returns several minutes later with tears in her eyes.

Mindy: Sorry. Just—just wow!

Habiba: What made you tear up?

Mindy: The fact that they put her in jail. And I was already pretty terribly sad for her. It was already really hard to hear that she had to give up her daughter because of being beat so badly and being terrified for her daughter's life. But to hear that she went to jail?

Habiba: Do you wish you hadn't told her to go to the police?

Mindy: I was just gonna kind of say that. I mean, I kind of feel like a bit of a jerk for telling her to do that now. But what do you do then? Like, do you let your friend live in that abusive situation? It actually blows my mind that she ended up in jail. That's so terrible.

Habiba: Ultimately, without Nuseiba agreeing to testify, the police drop charges against Delroy. For over a year I hit dead ends trying to track down Delroy Clarke. I run down every lead for every person that I could find with that name. And when I think I've finally got a number for him, I start calling and sending texts. Nothing. Then one day, my phone rings.

Habiba: Hello?

Delroy Clarke: Hello?

Habiba: Hi.

Delroy Clarke: Who is this?

Habiba: It's Habiba.

Delroy Clarke: Yeah, hi. You leave a text message on my phone.

Habiba: Is this—is this Delroy?

Delroy Clarke: Yeah.

Habiba: After the break, Delroy Clarke in his own words.

***

Habiba: I've been—I've been trying to reach you for a while. Can you just give me one second? I'm just gonna go to the other room.

Delroy Clarke: Okay.

Habiba: I'm eager to talk to Delroy Clarke for a few reasons. I want to ask him about the allegations in Nuseiba's police statement. And I want to know: did he have anything to do with Nuseiba's disappearance? Delroy is 48 years old now and still lives in Hamilton. And by the way, Delroy's phone quality isn't so great, so it is hard to hear him sometimes.

Habiba: Can you tell me a little more about what your first impressions of her were?

Delroy Clarke: Oh my God. She was beautiful. Yeah.

Habiba: Tell me more.

Delroy Clarke: And have a nice, sexy body. [laughs] She was beautiful, nice. I remember her in those jeans, you know? I liked her very much. She was cool. And I was playing music, and she seems to like when I DJ.

Habiba: Oh.

Delroy Clarke: I guess that impressed her.

Habiba: Delroy says that shortly after meeting they started dating. All told, Nuseiba and Delroy were on and off for about four years. But there's a lot he didn't know about her, especially in the beginning—like her real name.

Delroy Clarke: I didn't even know her as Nuseiba. When we were together, I found out. But she goes by Josephine. That's—that's what I call her, you know?

Habiba: Do you remember anything at all about her talking about her family to you?

Delroy Clarke: Oh, she never mentioned too much about her family.

Habiba: Did she say anything?

Delroy Clarke: I didn't even know about her family. I just thought that she lived in some house in Milton. I didn't—I didn't know that they had a property. She didn't explain all that stuff to me that they have a nice large property and all that stuff. She didn't tell me all of that. I just thought she was some girl that lived in a normal—you know, she didn't talk much about her family, no.

Habiba: Two years into their relationship, Yasmin was born. Delroy remembers when she was little.

Delroy Clarke: I remember I was holding her. She couldn't talk much. She could only say "Mama" and "Dada."

Habiba: Delroys says he remembers Yasmin being a perfect baby, so perfect that he says he's still confused why Nuseiba would ever give her up for adoption.

Delroy Clarke: To give up a kid like that? I would never do something like that. Like, a kid—the kid don't cause no problems. I would keep the kid because, you know ...

Habiba: But Delroy. Whoa, whoa, listen. Okay, but—but you did do that. It's the same thing whether a mom does it or a dad does it. You did do that.

Delroy Clarke: What? Okay? Don't blame me because I didn't try hard enough. I didn't try hard enough, I admit that. Yeah. But that's what it is. It is what it is. I can't raise no kid by myself and go through all the problems.

Habiba: Well, maybe she couldn't either though, right?

Delroy Clarke: Huh?

Habiba: Maybe she couldn't either. Maybe she couldn't do that by herself either.

Delroy Clarke: We were doing it together! We were actually together. We could have raised the kid together.

Habiba: Maybe she didn't want to raise the kid together.

Delroy Clarke: I was with her. I was with her.

Habiba: I know. But maybe she didn't want to be together, right?

Delroy Clarke: She didn't want me and her to be together?

Habiba: Maybe. I don't know. That was ...

Delroy Clarke: Yeah. Yeah, that is why she did what she did.

Habiba: I was on the phone with Delroy for more than two hours. We talked about his relationship with Nuseiba, Yasmin's adoption. But what I really wanted to ask him about was what was inside the police reports.

Habiba: You came into her house the next day, and pulled her hair and beat her really badly for a long time.

Delroy Clarke: Oh, that's a lie. No, no, no, no. That's a lie. A real lie. There's no reason for me to do that, you know? Like, there's no reason for that. I'm not that kind of person. I don't do stuff like that. I don't need to do that, you know?

Habiba: Did you guys ever physically fight? Did you ever hit her?

Delroy Clarke: No. No, no, no. Like, me and her have one little fight and, you know, she got a little bruised lip.

Habiba: Wait, so you're saying—you're saying there was a fight and you hit her, and …

Delroy Clarke: There ain't no—no, listen to me, man. There wasn't a fight, okay?

Habiba: Yeah?

Delroy Clarke: My hand accidentally hit her on her lip.

Habiba: It's hard to hear Delroy there, but what he says is that one time they were arguing, and "his hand accidentally hit her on the lip." Apart from that, he's adamant there was no violence.

Delroy Clarke: I'm not a violent person. I never hurt nobody or fought nobody. Nothing. My record is almost clean. I never do nothing.

Habiba: I point out that's not exactly true. There were 21 charges in total that I found against Delroy in the Hamilton courthouse. Ultimately, he was convicted of seven of them. They all appear to be for non-violent crimes.

Habiba: You know, she—it's interesting because she actually told her friend—I don't know if you met any of her friends, but she told her friend that that happened. And then she also told this friend that when you went to jail, you were very mad about it, and a friend of yours broke into her house, climbed over a tree and beat the crap out of her and said if she ever talked about you to the police again, her kid would be next.

Delroy Clarke: Oh, nothing like that happened, man. I'm like an angel. Like, seriously! You know what I'm saying?

Habiba: That's how you would describe yourself?

Delroy Clarke: Yes. Yeah. I'm a great person. You ask anybody in town about me, okay? Where I live? And they will tell you, "Delroy is the greatest." Yeah. Somebody look at me and said, "If they had more people like you, this world would be a better place." Somebody look at me and tell me that. "If there were more people like you this world would be a better place." And it's the truth. Yeah.

Habiba: But why would she do that? I'm just asking you to ...

Delroy Clarke: Nothing like that happened, man.

Habiba: I don't know.

Delroy Clarke: Think smart, okay? Think smart.

Habiba: I'm asking you because I don't understand.

Habiba: When Delroy got out of jail a few months later, he says Nuseiba was gone. She had moved out of her apartment. Children's Aid wrote in Yasmin's file that initially Delroy said that he wanted custody of Yasmin. But he never responded to repeated attempts from CAS to reach him. And then Yasmin was eventually put up for adoption.

Habiba: Delroy also insists that he had nothing to do with Nuseiba's disappearance, because after they separated he says he just wasn't in her life. He never saw her again, except for a chance encounter on the street once. And after that, they never spoke.

Habiba: When did you find out that she was actually missing?

Delroy Clarke: Oh, when the cops came to me, basically. Two times they came to me. One time, you know, and then another time, yeah.

Habiba: So what—when you heard—when you hear that she's been missing for, you know, 14, 15 years now, what do you think?

Delroy Clarke: Maybe she's with a rich man in a mansion somewhere chilling. [laughs]

Habiba: As for how his conversation with the cops went down, Delroy says he told the police the exact same thing he's telling me now.

Delroy Clarke: Like, this girl leave me, end of story. We never communicate, we never see each other. How could I possibly know nothing about her? The girl left me, and that was it.

Habiba: I'm curious: did the police buy that, given all the troubling details in Yasmin's adoption file and the police reports.

Sergeant Daryl Reid: I was one of the officers that spoke to Delroy.

Habiba: Mm-hmm.

Sergeant Daryl Reid: There was no resistance from him whatsoever. He opened his doors to us as police officers, and invited us in and talked to us about his relationship with Nuseiba. And we asked Delroy all of the questions that you're probably thinking the police would ask in these scenarios. And we were satisfied with the answers that he gave us at that time.

Detective Peter Thom: I don't think they've had any contact since, like, 2001. When they split, that was the end of it.

Habiba: There were five years between the time Delroy and Nuseiba broke up in 2001, until 2006 when she went missing. And the detectives say they found no evidence that Delroy was in her life in that period. And that they say is a big reason they are ruling him out as a suspect. But I later learned that there was something else the police weren't telling me at this moment—they had other evidence that pointed away from Delroy, evidence that they hadn't mentioned. Evidence that has to do with the farm that we talked about in the very first episode—the last place police say Nusieba was known to be alive.

Habiba: On the day she disappeared, the police believe there was someone with her, a person they have never identified publicly. Someone who they would later call a suspect in the case. Who was that person? That's coming up on the next episode of The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan.

Habiba: Conviction: The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan is a Spotify original podcast and Gimlet production. The show is hosted and reported by me, Habiba Nosheen.

Habiba: Additional reporting by Kelly Bennett. Our producers are Alyssa Edes, Hannah Harris Green, Chris Neary and Anya Shultz. Our supervising producer is Matthew Nelson. Our editors are Alex Blumberg, Collin Campbell and Heather Evans. Fact-checking by Kelly Bennett and Marsha McLeod.

Habiba: Original music, scoring, sound design and mixing by Catherine Anderson. Music supervision by Liz Fulton.

Habiba: If you have information about Nuseiba or this case, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me at habiba.nosheen (@) gmail.com. That's H-A-B-I-B-A dot N-O-S-H-E-E-N at gmail.com.

Habiba: Thank you for listening.