Someone Knows Something - The Next Call with David Ridgen: Episode 2 in the case of Nadia Atwi

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

“Drive”: Nadia’s car is found, but no Nadia. Could footage from a dashboard camera provide some answers? And what about her family and neighbours? Did they see anything?

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Watch both episodes now on cbc.ca slash Via Rail. Paid content with Via Rail Canada. This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains references to suicide, so please take care. He basically took our peace away. It was just like a constant barrage of yelling and cursing and abusing everybody. Hi, is this Adele? Yes, sir.

I've reached Adele El-Seri, Nadia Atwi's cousin in Alberta. Adele is something of a public figure in the Edmonton Lebanese community and is known as an outspoken supporter of Nadia and advocate for investigations into her disappearance. So with Nadia, there's a lot of details that the public don't know, and it's time to shine light on it. Adele tells me that Nadia and her husband Ali Fnaish were in the process of divorcing.

So prior to Nadia's disappearance, Ali actually already Islamically divorced her. Can you explain Islamically divorced versus divorced in Canadian law? Yeah, so like Islamic marriage isn't covered under the government of Canada. It's a piece of paper that your Muslim, your Muslim marry, but at the end of the day, you want that legit and everything, you got to get married in Canada as well, because that's how the system is. So we get married twice.

Okay, so you're suggesting that the Islamic divorce happened but not the Canadian divorce. So the Canadian divorce obviously takes a lot longer. Nadia and Ali began their separation or trial period in the process of Islamic divorce in the months leading up to her disappearance. They were still married under Canadian law, but the intimacy that is permitted with a religious marriage would have ceased in the relationship. Whether this is relevant to her disappearance is unknown, but Adele says it was known in the community that Ali was seeing other women. But slowly and slowly everything was getting uncovered. Like when you have friends telling

you, oh, I've seen this guy with a chick in public. So eventually he just didn't care anymore and he was just doing it openly for everyone to notice. Did you, Adele, ever witness Ali with another woman? Did you ever see him with somebody else? Me, personally, I haven't. But, like, I had inboxes from so, like, I'd say at least three, four different women sending me screenshots of their conversation at the moment, at the time, the second day Naj is missing, about him saying, oh, I just want to cuddle. My ex-wife went missing, but I'm still helping look for her,

and I'm all over the news. He was using that to get with girls on dating sites, and they were sending me personally the screenshots. It was unbelievable. Adele says most of the messages are still on his phone. He sends me one that helps augment other information I have found that shows Ali was using a dating app as early as January 2018, just a few weeks after Nadia went missing. Did Nadia ever tell you about having an issue or a problem with Ali,

or did she ever confess any kind of worries she might have had about the relationship? Yeah, Nadia called me at least once in the past saying, hey, I'm arguing with Ali right now, if anything happens to the home. We all kind of live in the same area within a five to seven minute drive. She said, if anything happens, can I call you to come over? I said, for sure, cuz. Anything you need, you just call me and I'll come over. She never ended up calling.

I don't know if that was like four months before the disappearance or three months, around that time. Like, Natcha is very strong and independent. She used to tell her dad and mom everything and everything, and they always would support her, no matter what the situation is. Adele points his finger in Ali's direction based on how he saw Ali acting before and after Nadia's disappearance. He tells me that during the initial searches for Nadia, Ali was seemingly unbothered.

The guy was literally driving around with two or three buddies all day just pretending they're involved in the search. Like, there was no emotion. And I know that the missing person poster that Ali made caused quite a stir with Nadia's family and friends. It looks like the worst picture you could possibly pick. It makes the person look like a lunatic. And that's the picture he blew up and brought to the Candelay visual.

The conflict between Ali and Nadia's family started before her disappearance, according to people I have spoken to. There were tensions during family visits. Ali wouldn't allow their son Mohammed to receive gifts from Nadia's family, and what seemed a general divestment of involvement. In the aftermath of her disappearance, it all boiled over at a vigil for Nadia on December 17th, nine days after she went missing. Nadia's sister-in-law was speaking at the vigil when it happened. As you know, Nadia, it means that you know what true kindness is.

So then she started saying the speech, and Ali interrupts the speech and says, you guys are the reason she his candle at her feet. So then he, like, backs up, backs up, and then, obviously, then the shitstorm broke out. I'm David Ridgen, and welcome to The Next Call, episode two in the case of Nadia Atwi. Give me a second, nobody's penalized me. This is over, everybody go home.

Following the vigil incident, Ali filed a civil claim against Adele for damages. In an affidavit, Ali writes that he and his mother, who was also in attendance, were physically assaulted at the vigil by members of Nadia's extended family. Given all the animosity, I wonder if Adele has ever tried to talk to Ali about the day Nadia disappeared. Did you ever ask Ali directly about what happened that day, or did he give an explanation to you directly about what happened? I'm going to go back. This is exactly from his mouth to me on the first day of searching.

I said, what happened, brother? What is going on? Where's Nadia? What happened? He said, you know, we got into an argument at night, and she was texting me at like 3, 3.30 in the morning telling me, are you coming to bed? And we were fighting and then I ended up falling asleep. And then she woke up and she went to work in the morning

around normal time. And I was sleeping, but I seen her get ready to hurt her and she left. There are no official confirmations that Nadia sent Ali a text, but as the story goes, at 3 a.m. on the day that Nadia went missing, she asks when Ali is coming to bed. Ali replies, soon. But recall that Adele told me that Nadia and Ali weren't sleeping together.

I'll try to find out more about this message or conversation. The argument that Adele says Ali told him about has not been reported in any other media to my knowledge. However, Ali seems to make reference to this dispute himself in a public statement he made on December 17th. I want to tell her, come back today. I would put everything on the side. I would forget about what happened and put everything on the side and also forget about all the past. I wonder what his meaning of these phrases might be.

I know that Ali also fell under suspicion for not tearing up in previous public pleas following Nadia's disappearance, but people react to loss and extreme stress in unpredictable ways, so none of this proves anything. Nadja, if she could have left Ali and felt still like proud of herself, I think she would have did it. But she didn't want the burden of everyone like, oh my God, like she got divorced and she has a kid, like the normal thing. You know what I mean with like the public? She just wanted to prove to everyone and her family and her husband that she'll stand by him.

Because our culture really stands by the husband. Nadia met Ali a few years before she graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Education. Ali lived in Lebanon at the time, so they began video calling regularly. Eventually, they married in June 2012, but Ali didn't come to Canada until the following year, in 2013. I think that Adele's suspicions about Ali might colour his interpretation of what he has seen and heard. I wonder about any information he may have received from police. Did the police ever tell you any of the details that Ali had mentioned to them? No, so they can't tell us any details hypothetically. And police won't talk to me either.

Their media relations officer and the lead detective declined talking to me at this time. I try to redirect Adele to talking about anything he thinks can be verified about Nadia's disappearance. This is a very, very important thing that a lot of people don't know. In their car, they had a dash cam video. Did Selva tell you this?

No, she didn't. The car that was found at Rundle Park. In the car that was found at Rundle Park. And the car that was found in Rundle Park, I have them in my car. I have the exact same brand from Amazon. It works on motion. So if you walk in front of the thing, it'll turn on,

and then when you start driving, it constantly records. It records voices inside, and it records everything outside. Okay, okay. And it records within 24 hours. So when everything happened, the cop seized the vehicle and Ali, a couple days later, said, oh, I got the dash cam video back from the police.

Come watch it. Come watch it. So he called Nadja's oldest brother and then Selwa's brother from Toronto was in town. So them two went and watched it. And then I went and he even played the video for me. So what did you see? Try not to tell me what you thought of it. Tell me what you saw okay so it's someone literally reversing out of a garage going on the driveway and then driving driving around the whole time alleys like morgan freeman uh telling us oh look she's driving too fast oh look she's switching lanes oh look she's almost gonna run this light she almost re-rendered this person for the whole time he's giving us this montage at the end of the day i just seen a normal person

pretty much driving to be honest maybe yeah like it's morning traffic or whatever and you're switching lanes or whatever but if someone was crying and like gonna kill themselves i don't know what happened but the voice recorder records everything. And there was not one thing said except a little muffled, like, for one millisecond. That muffled. They even called Nadja's mom and her dad and everyone to the police station. And, like, blew up the noise, put them on headphones to say, is this Nadja's voice?

Do you guys recognize this voice from anywhere? And they all came to the conclusion it's not Nadja's voice. I just wanted to hear her voice. And then I'd be like, okay, maybe Nadja, something happened with Nadja. Like, I don't know. Maybe she was having a very sad time. I don't know. Maybe she was having a very sad time.

I don't know. But there was no voice, no crying, no weeping, no nothing. Okay, so the very important thing about the dash cam video. So Nadja, you never see her or never hear her. Okay, so does the car end up at Rundle Park? So Rundle Park, like you enter the park, and then there's a long drive that's a little bumpy hill and going turns and circles and up and down because it goes into a river valley. And then there's a golf course,

you got to go super slow, like there's so much bumps and turns, right? So right when this thing starts entering Rondo Park within probably three minutes before the car when it crashed and kind of went down the hill and hit these bushes the video all of a sudden turns off okay so like all I was waiting for personally in this whole video I just want to come fucking fast forward the video and let me see when she crashes. I want to see if I hear her say, or like say like something like, I'm going to kill myself and like

turn over the corner and like try to break a million bushes to get to a river that's near impossible because it's such a heavy bush. The video freaking turns off. So how do you turn it off? Could you turn it off? Could you turn it off if you wanted to?

The only way you could turn it off is, like, literally holding the off button for, like, three seconds. And you leave it plugged into your cigarette thing. To keep the charge. And then if it has a charge, it will stay on if you unplug it, right? Exactly. So you physically have to hold the thing. But it doesn't make sense. Why would she turn off the video right before, like, maybe two minutes before she's going to crash?

At risk of stating the obvious, either Nadia drove the car to the park or someone else did. If the driver was Nadia, what was her intention, and were there other forces at play? Did her journey and disappearance in that case ultimately end in suicide? If the driver was not Nadia, then something else is afoot. But would somebody else take the car to the park, crash it, put Nadia's shoe outside, and leave her cell phone inside to make it look like Nadia had done it. Seems like a pretty risky thing to do in a public setting. Another reason why the timing of when the car was first seen in the park is important. Another person I spoke to who says they saw the dash cam told me the car made a circuit through the park, then drove out

and around the city for a bit, then re-entered the park, and went dead as Adele describes. Does this show the driver trying to reconsider their actions or waiting for the right moment, and for what? Lots of nuanced and some not-so-nuanced questions here. Did you see a timestamp on the video? Or a date? Me, personally, I didn't pay attention to the timestamp in the tape. Another person, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, who also viewed the dashcam footage, tells me that the timestamps were off by a day or two, possibly due to the unit not being programmed correctly.

However, they say police estimated the video was recorded between 6 and 7 a.m. on the morning that Nadia was last seen. The driving portion of the video indicates that it was still dark out. Sunrise in Edmonton that day was around 8.30 a.m. Adele says that the dash cam turns off before the crash, but then it turns back on again, apparently actuated by the arrival of police on the scene after 4 p.m. that afternoon,

when it would have been getting dark at that time of year. So it's pitch dark, and you hear cops walking around the vehicle. at that time of it, so the camera's aiming down. And then it turns on again, and it's like an officer's shoe in the office. It doesn't show his face. It just shows his feet. And then he lifts it up, and he turns it off.

And then that was the end end of the video. I asked Adele if anything else stood out to him. Okay. If Nadja was, God forbid, going to kill herself, wouldn't there have been at least a single footprint? Wouldn't there be a single thing? From where her car is to the river, it's heavy bush. Heavy bush, and it's another four to six minutes,

if there wasn't probably heavy bush, to get to the river. Adele suggests no footprints were found at all. It makes sense that if Nadia drove the car, she might have left footprints behind. But if someone else drove the car, they also would have left footprints. Without police involvement, I can't know whether they found footprints or who they belonged to. But at the time, did the police not look at the river? Do you know or do you searches, they did the people searching, the dog searching, all that stuff. But you have to wait until the river unfreezes for them to search the river.

Every fall for at least the past four years, the Edmonton Police Missing Persons Unit conducts an annual search of the North Saskatchewan River when water levels are low, looking for human remains. But to date, there has been no sign of Nadia. I don't know the Saskatchewan River in Edmonton there. Does it stay frozen all winter, or is it just partly frozen? No, it stays three-quarters usually frozen. It's not like almost all of it. Okay.

In cold or near-freezing water, it could take several weeks to several months for a body to resurface. Then there's the issue of the flow of the river. A woman named Cheyenne Partridge went missing from the Edmonton area in 2016, and her body was found in the Saskatchewan River over 500 kilometers as the river flows

from where she is thought to have entered the water. He used her phone and kept telling them, OK, I'll pay you next month. He wrapped up every bill possible under her name. Sawa received calls from a credit collection agency that I have verified that shows that the credit card was being used after Nadia disappeared. Adele believes it was Ali who was using it, but I cannot verify if the credit card wasn't simply a shared account with Ali. And according to Adele and Salwa, Ali also continued to use Nadia's phone number, something I have also been able to verify.

After she disappeared. After she disappeared, Nadia would never leave her son. That was her life. Like, she had a best, best, best buddy. Adele, despite his bias, has been helpful about filling in some of the blanks in Nadia's timeline on the morning she disappeared. And while it is true that without police, putting together a clear sequence of events for Nadia's case will be more difficult, I think I'm getting closer. Oh, hey there. I'm Andrew Fung, and I want to tell you about my new series with Via Rail. Join me as I ride on from Toronto to Ottawa and London

aboard Via Rail's new fleet of trains. My journey was a breeze. No traffic jams, just smooth sailing. The seats are super comfy, and with complimentary Wi-Fi, I can work and play with ease. Plus, with meals and snacks on board, I arrived refreshed and ready to explore. From a boat cruise in Ottawa to the Grand Theatre in London,

these cities are packed with amazing experiences. For your next trip, do yourself a favor. Skip traffic and take Via Rail. Watch both episodes now on cbc.ca slash Via Rail. Paid content with ViaRail Canada. your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Dr. Al-Attar speaking. Hello.

Hi, Dr. Osama. It's David Ridgen calling here from Toronto. You were calling, I think, about Nadia Aswa. Yes, that's right. Dr. Osama Al-Attar is a religious leader within Edmonton's Muslim community. He's also the principal of Al-Baqir Academy, the K-12 private Shia school where Nadia and her mother taught. So I call him Principal Usama. I'm hoping he can add to Nadia's timeline on the day she disappeared,

but he also knew Nadia well and saw her at work. So maybe just tell me a little bit about the school and what Nadia used to do there. Nadia was the kindergarten teacher when we started four years ago. And tell me maybe a little bit about Nadia herself and as a teacher and a person, anything you noticed about her. She is an angel. That's really what I can sum it up as. A very quiet person. So her mom was with her in the class as an assistant. So the junior atway and the senior atway, they both were together working together as a teacher and an assistant teacher for the kindergarten class. She would look after the kids. She would follow the protocol. She would adhere to the rules. She would attend to the

meetings. She was extremely punctual, arriving every day at the specified time. So she was a great teacher. And you witnessed her teaching and you saw how she interacted with students? Yes, yes, I would go there every now and then and I would see how she interacts with students and how she's conducting her classes. Was there ever a moment where she didn't come unannounced or she wouldn't let you know if she wasn't coming to school?

No, no. What was the timing around Nadia coming and going from school? Yes, so our hours are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. So she would usually arrive around 8 a.m. and she would usually leave shortly after 4 p.m. And arrival, would she come usually with her mom or sometimes without her mom? No, it's with her mom. They both lived close to each other on the north end of the city. The school was on the south end of the city. It's about a 40 plus, you know, give or take minutes drive. Okay, and then they would switch off.

Putting together this piece of chronology based on the time she says she got from the neighbor's doorbell camera, Sawa told me she arrived to pick up Nadia at her home at around 7.24 on the morning Nadia disappeared, December 8th, 2017. The doorbell camera did not have a view of Nadia or the car leaving the garage. There were other cameras around, but it isn't clear that any of them captured anything either. Sawa leaves at about 7.28, and according to Principal Usama, they would both always be on time for the school's 8 a.m. start. And her relationship with her mother while they were teaching was positive? I did not observe anything that would tell me or suggest otherwise. I moved to Nadia's mental health, and the extent to which her diagnosis of bipolar disorder

could have evidenced itself in her day-to-day interactions. So, to be clear, she never disclosed that to us at the time of hiring. I did not observe anything that would raise an alarm. If I would find anything alarming about her staying with the children, then obviously I would definitely keep the safety of the children first. And throughout the three months approximately that she worked at Al-Baqarah Academy, she was looking after kids. Things are being done. Students are learning.

I have not had a single complaint from a parent who's saying, for example, my child came home today and he or she said this, or the teacher said this. Do you think that she was suicidal or that she would have killed herself? I don't know. I cannot say that. Again, I'm not a psychologist. From my interaction with her, I have nothing to demonstrate this for example teachers usually undergo an assessment every year where me as a principal would have to go and assess their performance so it's all pre-arranged where I just come in and I observe the teacher and then based on that observation I would give him or her some feedback and so Nadia's turn was coming up and she had actually emailed me her lesson plans

and she had sent her work. We had discussed her assessment and so on and so forth. So nothing to me would suggest that she would not be engaged in any source. My opinion is that we can never know if or when someone might think about suicide or act on those thoughts. People can live day to day in a silent darkness and we might never know. Sometimes you just have to ask. What was the last interaction you remember with Nadia? Yeah, it was that Thursday because she disappeared on a Friday. So that I remember vividly. That Thursday

because it was winter, so the evening prayer that Muslims pray dawned or started at about 4.30pm. So her and her mom said, you know what, we're going to pray with you, Imam, before we go home. So they came. For some reason they stayed for an extra half an hour.

Maybe they were working. They were preparing for their next day. So some teachers do that. So at 4.30, they came. They joined me for the evening prayers. And that's when I said goodbye, you know, God bless you, and so on and so forth. It was just like an ordinary day. No hint of any sort.

However, the next day was anything but ordinary. This part is important because you witnessed events across the day that Nadia disappeared on December 8th, 2017. So I'm interested in how that day started for you and then what happened during that day. So her mom came in the morning and she came to my office and she said, did Nadia contact you this morning? I was like, no. I was like, what's going on?

She's like, well, she did not come to pick me up this morning and she's not answering her phone. So I drove to school myself. So I said, okay, well, let me try. So I tried calling her, but I couldn't reach her. So I said to her mom, well, maybe she has something that just came up last minute, although this is unusual of her, but we'll see, you know, let's, as the day commences, obviously we have to attend to our duties. What time did Salwa come to the school? Do you remember what time that was?

Around eight-ish. The school brought in a supply teacher to assist Salwa with Nadia's class. Principal Usama and Salwa continued to make calls trying to locate Nadia. Then as the morning crept on, the already escalating anxiety came to a head at around 12 noon when Principal Usama says Ali showed up at his office. And he said, have you heard of anything? I said, no, I haven't seen Nadia. She has not been to the school yet.

So then later on in the day is when the husband calls me and he says, well, I've reported Nadia missing to the police. Do you remember anything about his behavior or what he appeared to be worried? I don't remember. Usually in a school setting, you know, we don't have that much time. So then he came in and I think he was really quick. He said like, you know, has she been around? Did she come in? And I was like, no, she hasn't. So then he said, okay. And then he came in and I think he was really quick. He said, like, you know, has she been around? Did she come in? And I was like, no, she hasn't. So then he said, okay, and then he left. Okay.

Do you know if he had reported her missing at that time or before he called you, like around the time he called? I'm not sure, to be honest. When he called me, he said that I've reported her missing. And, of course, that was alarming for us. There is some discrepancy surrounding when Ali first reported Nadia missing. Salwa remembers Ali's midday visit to the school, although he never spoke to her. Instead, he went to another teacher, she says, and asked her where Nadia was.

Salwa remembers being told that Ali had made a call to Edmonton police happening around the same time. I am left wondering what happened to make Ali go to the school in the first place. If everything was normal that morning, why go to the school and ask if anyone had seen her? And if he thought she was missing before going to the school, why did he not call the police sooner? I really want to nail down what time Ali called them. Back to Principal Usama. I wonder if the principal spoke to Ali before he arrived at the school. And in your calling up in that morning, had you called

Ali too and tried to reach him yourself? No, I did not. So you didn't call and leave a message and say, where's Nadia? He just called you on his own. And his words were to the effect of have you heard anything? Do you know where Nadia is? Yeah, something along these lines.

So I said, well, we're praying for her safety then let me know what happens. But he didn't tell me she was reported missing at that time. I asked Principal Usama if Nadia ever approached him with a problem, seeking his advice. It never happened. The interactions were all positive from day one.

The day I interviewed her, the way the day we hired her. Yeah. Things have been just good. Since you're an imam, you must be interconnected with the community in Edmonton and also through the school. How has Nadia's case sort of developed within the community and how have you tried to deal with that? I had Ali calling me and I can't remember when exactly, maybe a week later. And he asked me, he's like, you you know have you observed anything of Nadia that may have suggested that she would do something like this I was like no my interaction with her was

completely professional right right so everything was going normal professional positive and I explained that to Ali I have not observed anything that would raise an alarm. And so in your interactions sort of going forward from after that week, did you interact with Ali at all throughout the period after that? Or did he ever come back to you and talk to you? Not much. I received a couple of text messages where he, I don't even know if I have them to honest with you, where they were not very positive.

But I'm not sure really why was he upset. I told him, I sent him a message back. I think I asked him, like, have I done anything? I mean, why are you upset? He's like, didn't give me really an answer. Why was he upset at me? Maybe he was just upset. Maybe he thought maybe I said something professionally that may have upset Nadia. Maybe I put her in some pressure of some sort that may have caused her to do this. So I'm not sure. I probe further into these texts from Ali.

It's not the first time I've heard of people receiving angry messages from him. He's just basically trying to get across what kind of a man of religion are you, you know, what kind of a religious person are you, who would do something like what you did. And I don't know what does he mean, to be honest with you. What is he referring to as what you did? I don't know what I did. Were those messages sort of close together or did you receive them over time, different

ones? No, they were close together. So, and then he stopped. Like, he, they were close together. And then he stopped. Like he sent maybe a couple of messages and then he stopped. And did it ever resolve? Did he ever come back and say, oh, remember those messages? No, I haven't had a chat with him, I mean, ever since then. Hello? Hi, David. How are you? I'm okay. I'm a little nervous to tell you the truth, but I'm okay.

This woman, who I will refer to as Olivia, has come forward to talk to me about Ali and some messages he exchanged with her in the aftermath of Nadia's disappearance. Her name has been changed to avoid exposing her husband and his company. Did you know Ali? Did you, um... Yes, so I'll tell you. I met him when I was in the Northwest Territories. Ali used to work in Yellowknife as an electrical apprentice in early 2017. He would either drive or fly up to Yellowknife from Edmonton during this time. Olivia's husband was his boss. Ali was at one point in charge of sourcing materials

for an electrical company. According to a supervisor, Ali was let go due to a lack of available work near the end of 2017, and it was shortly after that that Nadia went missing. I think he was home for three weeks, if I remember correctly. I have that in my mind, three weeks, and then Nadia disappeared. Olivia had been told by a colleague that Ali would often scream at Nadia on the phone in Arabic, which made her suspicious around the time Nadia went missing. She inadvertently discussed her thoughts about Nadia's disappearance with Ali himself in a back-and-forth flurry of online messaging.

Olivia says she had written a long note outlining what she thought of Ali and then accidentally sent it to him. And it was a long message and I secretly sent it to Ali by accident. It was very awkward, yeah. As soon as I sent it, like two minutes later, I realized what I had done. So I just sent a follow-up thing, and then he texted back. We have determined that the person messaging Olivia is Ali based on certain information markers, photos, and the account it came from. In the messages from January 10, 2018, which I've amended here for some grammar and typos,

Ali admits he uses a dating app and that he used it during the time he was married to Nadia. Yeah, I date women. Is that your problem? During that time I had Tinder. We were in the process of divorcing with each other. I have a screenshot of a text message that he sent me. He also says about Nadia, I used to suffer from her. When Nadia would keep talking with me on the phone for 12 hours non-stop, how can I work? And then, the only problem with my wife is that she's bipolar. Other than that, she's an angel.

Police went through all my phone history, records, and everything. If there's something bad about me in the last four years in Canada, I would be in jail now. I don't know, I just, I'm scared of him. Even though he's always been so nice to my face, it's just, I don't know, I just have this fear of him. Ali also says that people say he killed his wife, but he never makes any denial here. According to Ali, police said there was a two percent chance Nadia was in the river. Ali volunteers the timing of the morning, saying that Nadia woke up at 6.30. She was getting ready to go to school. Her mom came to pick her up at 7.

My wife took the car five minutes before her mom arrived. So, this would mean Nadia left around 7.19, just as Salwa was arriving. I'm not sure about this timing. Ali finishes his messaging saying, I have nothing to hide, but at the same time, I don't have to be an open book. And then, guilty or not guilty, that is up to the justice system, not me or you. Did you ever meet Nadia? No, no, I never met her.

Did he ever talk about Nadia to you? Right before he left, he was talking about opening like a night daycare with Nadia. And he was very excited about that. And he said because Nadia is a teacher, she would automatically get accepted for this position. And he was very excited about that and he said because Nadia is a teacher she would automatically get accepted for this position and he was very excited and then just a few short weeks later he's telling everyone that they're in the process of divorce and who's leaving her hell i remember is the pain and every night i went to bed with a fear that either he's going to burn my house or he's going to put through a bullet hole or do something.

Salwa told me that a number of Nadi and Ali's neighbours had never been interviewed by police. Yunus Mohammed, who lived next door to Ali and Nadi in Edmonton, is one of those people. I never talked to her because even when I said hello, she would not say hello back. She's always withdrawn, wouldn't make eye contact. Eunice still lives in the same

house. Did you see Nadia on the morning that she disappeared? Did you see her leave for work? I did not. Several times before that, there was always, the kid was crying. I hear the cries, and I hear some yelling going on, and yelling was a part and parcel of this household forever. Eunice doesn't name Ali here, but that is who he is talking about doing the yelling.

Yelling for everybody. Even, I clearly remember, I talked to the gentleman, Ali here, but that is who he is talking about doing the yelling. Ali's mother was staying with him and Nadia just before Nadia went missing. I would say clearly that I never heard from his mouth any word which would be kosher, always something coming out which is filthy and insane. How's that? During these arguments, Yunus says he never heard Nadia yelling back. Salwa told me that she has also witnessed similar arguments. On one occasion, she overheard Ali yelling at Nadia over the phone. When Salwa asked Nadia what was wrong and why he was shouting, Nadia didn't answer. We were always one-sided. I did not hear her speaking.

So you didn't hear her participating? I did not hear her speaking. All I heard't hear her participating? I did not hear her speaking. All I heard was crackers coming out of his mouth. Okay. And so you didn't engage with Ali, Mr. Fnesh in any other way other than just to kind of try to calm him down? Or did you have any interaction with him? Yeah, just well, when he moved earlier into my neighborhood, being a Muslim and being a neighbor, I extended my greetings. And I said, it's good to have you here. And I remember cutting his side of the lawn a couple of times.

And, you know, even I remember cleaning some snow from the sidewalks. But after that, I mean, things fell apart and I just kept quiet. I said, instead of engaging and making something more complicated, my way of doing things, I just don't say anything. So I didn't. Eunice also tells me about the type of company Ali kept in the immediate period after Nadia disappeared. There was a lady for a few days, I would say, a young girl in her 30s. And two or three

different girls at different times, they would go with Ali. Okay, and was this, would you say, close to the time Nadia disappeared, or after, or before? After, after. Okay, and was it within a couple of weeks or days or months? A couple of weeks, yeah. Okay, a couple of weeks, within a couple of weeks.

And did you ever see other women going in and out before Nadia disappeared? I saw his mom. Between Ali's admitted use of Tinder and his statement to Nadia through the media that he was willing to forget the past, I'm not sure what, if anything, that tells us. What I do know is that nobody has ever asked Eunice about it. Nobody has ever come, not even the police, but several times police was, and let's put it that way, every second or third day,

the police cars were there at his house. I don't know what business they were doing, but police was a constant presence while this gentleman was in that house. And Ali never came to you and said, did you see what happened that morning? Did you see my wife? Did you see Nadia? No, no, no, never did, never did. All I remember is after she disappeared, he talked to me while I was in the front yard, front driveway,

and he said, and I remember clearly, he said, oh, she has ran away to her boyfriend in Calbee. And I just looked at him, didn't say anything. And I just, my heart just, I drowned into my own fear that she's your wife. You have a child with her and all you're doing is accusing her of running away with somebody else. And he told you that?

When did he come to you and say that? Oh, that was within a week or so when she left. And she disappeared. We live in a neighborhood which is, I would say, multiracial. And we all get along very well. There's never

even a question raised for who's living what and what we're doing. We all keep to ourselves. We're all decent people. But he, in my words, he basically took our peace away. It was just like a constant barrage of yelling and cursing and accusing everybody. Yeah, I understand. Every night around 2 or 3 o'clock, I would hear the kids crying, and I would hear him yelling. 2 or 3 in the morning?

2 or 3 in the morning, yeah. Eunice's description of the fights he heard makes me wonder if they had ever escalated into something more. Okay. Did you ever see Ali being physically violent or just verbally? Physically violent? Outside, I don't know. Inside, I don't know. Outside, because whether he behaved or not, I don't know.

But he certainly did not behave with his mouth. He was very aggressive. Every time he saw me outside, he just posed in a very aggressive way. That's it. I just have one more question before you go. Did Ali ever tell you or give you any explanation for what happened that day to Nadia? Did he ever say the timing of what happened or where she went or anything? No, no, he didn't say anything. But several times he said, oh, I heard from him that Nadia's elective has attacked him and he has a restraining order against them. I heard from him. I also heard that he, what else he said?

I'm trying to remember. That Nadia's parents are threatening him and he's being threatened. I also heard from him. And that's it. Personally, I think every time he talked to me, he was trying to build up a case against them. Look at that. My wife, we were married for 30 years. She passed away five, over five years ago.

Oh, sorry to hear that. I'm still single. I still miss her every day. And I still cry about her. If you're married, that is beyond love. You are together. That's your life. That's it. And a person who's married and he talks negatively about the spouse, to me, there is something's not right.

Something not right in Eunice's mind. Something unproven in mine. Ali can date other women, he can yell and be upset with his family members, and he can be visited by police. None of it means he had anything to do with Nadia's disappearance. In cases like this, timing and timelines can make the difference. Who said what happened when? And did that story change?

Where was Nadia confirmed to be? With Edmonton police inexplicably continuing to decline participation, finding solid ground on timings is tough, but maybe talking to Ali will not be. I'm happy. I'm not happy that my wife is missing, but I'm a little bit like, OK, like in Canada, there is a fair judgment for everybody. Like if I'm guilty, yeah, I deserve. Anybody guilty for this, like, deserve a prison, right? Like, I'm not saying anything, but, like, I'm not. I'm not that one that you're looking for. To be continued... Senior producer is Cecil Fernandez. Emily Cannell is our digital producer and our story editor is Chris Oak.

Additional audio from City TV. The director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.