Canadian True Crime - 32 The Shafia Family

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

A large family journeys from Afghanistan to Quebec, before the family descends into chaos, ending in a catastrophe. What went so wrong in the Shafia family? Learn more about:The Search for Ryan Shtuka (Night Time Podcast)The Wrongful Conviction of Ronald Moffatt (Impact Statement Podcast)Music in this episode was by SoularflairSupport my sponsors! Here's where the discount codes are:www.canadiantruecrime.ca/sponsorsPodcast recommendations:Murder Road TripIt's Haunted: What Now? Join my patreon to get early, ad-free episodes and more: www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrime   Credits:Research: Haley GrayAudio production: Erik KrosbyWriting, narration and music arrangement: Kristi LeeDisclaimer voiced by the host of Beyond Bizarre True Crime All credits and information sources can be found on the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca.Support the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast contains course language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. Afghanistan is a landlocked, mountainous country located within South Asia, and is bound by several countries including Iran, Pakistan, and China. The country has a long history of conflict and chronic instability, particularly in the last 50 years. Traditional Afghan customs, followed at the discretion of each family, suggest that men and women dress conservatively. They should not shake hands with each other or make eye contact in public, and they should both keep their eyes lowered. But the customs go a bit further to suggest a divide between men and women.

Women are expected to behave in a certain way. As well as dressing conservatively, they should ensure that they show as little skin as possible, including their legs. They should wear a headscarf or hijab in public to ensure they show as little skin as possible below the neck. Honor is huge in Afghan culture, and the headmail of the family is responsible for sustaining the family's honor. Honor is their motivating factor for everything, including how they dress, how they conduct conversation, get their education, and the overall workings of the local economy. If someone's honor has been tainted, then that person will be shamed. Revenge on a family member who is considered to have brought dishonor on the family is considered by many Afghan families to be acceptable.

Dishonor is considered to be brought on a family many ways, including refusing an arranged marriage or insisting on being in a relationship that the family doesn't approve of, having sex outside marriage, being a rape victim, identifying as LGBTQ, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or renouncing the faith. Polygamy in the Islamic faith is not forbidden. It is referred to as limited polygamy, not a rule but an exception. Men may take up to four wives, but only four exceptional circumstances. One of the original reasons for it was to ensure that war widows and their children were cared for during times of war. When a man takes additional wives, the rule states that he must be able to provide for them all and treat them fairly. This is Christy and welcome to Canadian True Crime, Episode 32, The Shafi'a Family. Muhammad Shafi'a was born in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan in the early to mid-1950s.

He was born into a middle-class family, but the family was rocked when his father, Akbar, died in a car accident when Muhammad was only two years old. Because of his father's death, Muhammad was only allowed to go to school until sixth grade, when he had to quit to become the man of the family. As it was now his primary responsibility to take care of them, he began several apprenticeships with family members, learning how to repair electronics. He was a quick learner and had an eye for business. As a teenager, Muhammad opened a small electronics store and eventually segwayed into a million-dollar business importing Panasonic radios and peacock vacuum bottles from Japan. Muhammad was proud to be Muslim and was vocal about his strong faith and way of life, even though he would go for long periods of time without going to a mosque. At the age of 25, a marriage was arranged for Muhammad and a 23-year-old woman called Rona Amir Muhammad, who was also born in Afghanistan. Rona was the oldest daughter of the family, who was helmed by her army colonel father.

Unlike Muhammad who finished school in the sixth grade, Rona was permitted to continue going to school up until the eleventh grade. She partook in customary Muslim traditions, but wasn't a fundamentalist. The wedding was a grand affair, held at the International Hotel in Kabul. Rona wore a fully light blue dress and Muhammad wore a purple suit, both outfits the height of fashion for 1979. The newlyweds attempted for years to have children, but had many difficulties. They eventually travelled to India to receive fertility treatments, but nothing worked. After a while, Muhammad started harassing Rona for children. She was an avid writer in her diary and would later write, quote,

He wouldn't allow me to go visit my mother and at home he would find fault with my cooking and serving meals and he would find excuses to harass me. Finally, after ten years trying for children with no success, Rona decided she'd had enough. She told her husband he should find a second wife who could bear children for them. So, he did. One of Muhammad's friends introduced him to 17-year-old Tuba Yaya and he quickly found a new suitor in her. Tuba was the educated daughter of a pharmacist father and was a devout follower of Allah and the Muslim faith. She prayed five times a day and was well-versed in the Quran. In the Islamic faith, there are two main branches, Shia and Sunni.

These two groups resulted from a disagreement many centuries ago over who would be the successor when the Prophet Muhammad passed away. The majority winner was the Sunnis and they've been in conflict with the Shias ever since. Today, there are reportedly around 1.8 billion Muslims in the world and around 80-85% of them are Sunni. In the context of this story, it's interesting to note that Rona was Sunni. Her husband, Muhammad though, was Shia so both came from opposing sides and 17-year-old Tuba was also Shia. Both Sunnis and Shias include worshipers who run the gamut from moderate to fundamentalist and, like many other major religions, both groups can have extremist splinter groups. Certainly, Muhammad's personal beliefs were more at the fundamentalist end of the scale.

Muhammad was 34, so double the age of 17-year-old Tuba, but the age difference wasn't a concern. Tuba was going to be Muhammad's second wife. The marriage was arranged between Muhammad and his first wife, Rona's parents, and Rona gave her blessing, even planning the reception at the same hotel that her own with Muhammad was held, and participating in the wedding party. One photo from the day shows Muhammad in a black suit with Tuba on his right arm, in a frilly lacy white dress and veil, and Rona on his left arm wearing a dark olive green patterned dress. The wives called him Shafi. It took only a few weeks after the wedding for Tuba to get pregnant with their first child.

Daughter Zainab was born in September 1989, and they travelled to India for the birth because they thought the medical care was better there than in Afghanistan. The three adults and one baby slotted into family life. Rona would do what needed to be done around the house and help Tuba look after the baby, while still hoping that she would be able to get pregnant herself. But things didn't take long to start unraveling. It seemed as if Rona's expectation was that Tuba would be a sort of surrogate to give her and Muhammad babies, but that was it. She did not expect Tuba to box her out and try to take her place as Muhammad's wife, or that Muhammad himself would allow it.

According to Rona's diary, Tuba started pushing her out of the picture within a few months of the second marriage. By the time Tuba and Muhammad's second child, son Hamad was born, Rona was completely unhappy. When Hamad was only seven months old, Rona was rocking him on a glass skylight, when the skylight suddenly collapsed and they both fell down to the floor below. Hamad hit his head, and although he made a full recovery, Muhammad never let Rona forget the accident. He told her that she had hurt his son. In 1991, Tuba gave birth to another baby girl, Sahar, in Afghanistan, but this time she gave the baby to Rona as a gift to raise as her own.

Rona wrote in her diary about the joy she felt at having a baby for herself, even if Sahar wasn't biologically hers. Unfortunately, that joy was short-lived. Rona had no idea that the gift was a setup of sorts. Soon afterwards, Tuba told Rona that their husband would stay three nights with her and then only one night with Rona. Because Tuba had just gifted Rona a baby, she felt like she wasn't in a position to say no. It didn't take long before Muhammad abandoned his night with Rona and took to sleeping with Tuba all the time. Before long, Tuba was pregnant again. It was now 1992, and Muhammad decided to move the family out of Afghanistan

because of the country's worsening civil war and the Taliban's quickly rising power. So the family of six hopped in the car and drove across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan. There were the three adults, Muhammad, Rona and Tuba, with kids Zainab, Hamad and baby Sahar, who had technically been gifted to Rona. In Pakistan, Tuba gave birth to a fourth baby, a boy, and then a fifth, a girl, but their names have not been released because of a publication ban. For the purposes of this story, they'll be called child number four and child number five. Their sixth child, a girl named Geeti, was also born in Pakistan in 1996. After this, Muhammad moved his two wives and six children to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

While living in Dubai, he started a new Panasonic trading company, which was so successful that he received a very large bonus check for being the top seller in the region. Eventually, he expanded his business to selling used cars that he imported from the United States. While in Dubai, the kids went to a private American school, which assisted them to learn fluent English. Tuba and Muhammad's last child, a girl, was born in Dubai. Her name is also protected under a publication ban. So, the family was complete with seven children and lived in Dubai as a family of ten, where they would stay for many years, most of that time spent searching for a country

that would give them full citizenship and not just permanent residency. Because of the influence of Western culture on Dubai, the family had developed a bit of a taste for it and wanted more. Tuba had even learned to drive and used this newfound skill to continue to ensure she was positioned as the main wife, the preferred one over Rona. The family's fascination with Western culture inspired them to apply for citizenship in New Zealand. But Rona failed the medical exam, so the family decided to head to Australia instead. Unfortunately, they weren't there for long. Tuba said she and her children just didn't like the country,

but Rona said they were actually deported because Muhammad broke his visa rules. The family was back living in Dubai within a year of moving to Australia. The blame for this was placed solely on Rona's head and she was harassed for years for failing the medical exam and causing the family to not be able to move to New Zealand as planned. She wrote in her diary, quote, Whatever I did, if I sat down, if I got up, if I ate anything, there was blame attached to it. In short, he had made life a torture for me.

Even though the family was happy enough back in Dubai, Muhammad still wanted to find a country that would grant them permanent residency at least. He'd heard about the Immigrant Investor Program in Quebec, a program that offered visas to wealthy foreigners at a cost of $400,000. By now, the family had no problem paying that amount, but the issue was that he had two wives, something that isn't allowed in Canada. So he hatched a plan to list Tuba as his wife and sent Rona to live in Europe with her relatives

until he could figure out a legitimate story that would get her into Canada. So in mid-2007, Muhammad, Tuba and all of their seven children moved to Canada where they were given immigrant status. First, Muhammad bought a new Silver Lexus SUV and then a $2 million strip mall in Laval. He founded an import-export company with various household goods and decor items, clothing and construction materials. He then spent $900,000, which included a block of land to build his dream house on,

but while waiting for the house to be built, the family rented a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house, quite small for two adults and seven kids. The house was sparsely furnished with no beds and everyone slept on brown mats on the floor. In the main bedroom were Tuba and Muhammad, with their youngest child who was then around nine or 10 years old and the other kids who ranged in age from around 11 to 18

were grouped together in the other three bedrooms. The family lived like this from June 2007 until November 2007 when Rona was able to come from Europe to join them. She arrived on a temporary visitor's visa saying that she was Muhammad's cousin and would be a live-in nanny for the seven kids. Tuba wasted no time in making sure that Rona knew and accepted her new place in the house.

She told Rona outright that she was the servant. Rona moved into the bedroom that 16-year-old Sahar and 11-year-old Geeti were sharing and took her own brown sleeping mat, the three of them sleeping side by side. The girls loved Rona. Although the children were living in Canada, they were still expected to live by Afghan customs

and were under strict house rules, the most important of which was not to bring dishonour to the family. This was difficult for many of the younger children since they'd never actually lived in Afghanistan like their older siblings had. They'd been brought up in Dubai. Muhammad was very strict. He didn't want his daughters to wear makeup

and even talking to boys was strictly off limits, let alone actually having a boyfriend. He also wanted them to wear the hijab. This in itself was an interesting rule since his own wife Tuba didn't always wear a hijab and she drove a car which went against traditional Afghan customs. It seems that Muhammad picked and chose which customs suited him. He was strict and abusive, both mentally and physically.

But he wasn't around much as he was often back in Dubai on business and as is the custom, he entrusted his role as man of the house to his oldest son Hamid, then 17 years old. Hamid was just as strict and mean as his father, so was the perfect choice to enforce the house rules. One of the most strict rules was how the girls could interact with boys. They weren't allowed to even talk to them.

But being teenagers at a mixed gender school, it was virtually impossible. So the two oldest girls, Zainab and Sahar, had to sneak around. And the younger kids, particularly child number four and child number five, who were around 14 to 15 years old, acted as spies for their parents alongside 17-year-old Hamid. They were extremely loyal to Muhammad and Tuba and did everything they said. 18-year-old Zainab, 16-year-old Sahar and 13-year-old Geeti

wanted to live the life of a normal Canadian citizen. They wanted to wear fashionable clothes and makeup, have a boyfriend if they wanted, and not wear a hijab. Zainab had a boyfriend called Amar, who was five years older than her. Obviously, she had to sneak around with him, and she told him that if they ever saw her brother Hamid, to act like they were complete strangers. One day, when Tuba was in Dubai with Muhammad on business,

Zainab invited Amar over to the house, thinking her strict brother Hamid wouldn't be there. Unfortunately, he arrived home much earlier than she thought, and he found the terrified Amar hiding in the garage. He calmly shook Amar's hand and told him to leave. Zainab was then pulled from her school, and for the next few months she wasn't allowed to leave the house unless she was chaperoned by a relative.

She didn't see Amar for those months. In the meantime, Rona, Muhammad's first wife who was now relegated to basic servant, wasn't faring much better. In April of 2008, she wrote in her diary about how badly he and Tuba mistreated her. They often beat her, threatened her, and constantly called her their servant. Even though she wasn't allowed to use the phone inside the house, Rona began calling a United States volunteer program called Women for Afghan Women in the spring of 2008.

She would walk to a pay phone to make these calls a few times a week, detailing the abuse and the threats that she was putting up with. Muhammad and Tuba withheld all her identity documents so she couldn't go and live in another country with family members. Rona was literally all alone. She wanted a divorce, but she knew she couldn't let Canadian immigration find out that she wasn't just Muhammad's cousin as she'd stated on her visa application. If the authorities found out, then the whole family could be deported.

And she also didn't want to leave the children. She had a tight bond with them, especially the girls, and was seen as the more gentle and caring figure, the maternal one. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Sahar was having troubles of her own. Tuba accused her of kissing a boy at school and stormed into school and had harsh words with one of Sahar's teachers, saying this kind of behavior didn't fit within her values. She made quite the scene.

Sahar was miserable and very depressed, and one day she decided she'd had enough. She got some silica gel packets that come with shoes to keep the packaging fresh. You know those little packets that warn of poison. She ripped open the packet, mixed them with water, and then drank it. Rona and Geeti rushed to help her, while Tuba stood in the kitchen and said, she can go to hell, let her kill herself. Sahar didn't drink enough to die, but she would be punished for being a drama queen, as Tuba referred to her.

Tuba instructed the younger kids, children number four and five, plus the youngest, to ignore Sahar. And they all did for months, making her feel even more isolated and miserable. Her little sister Geeti refused to follow this order though, because she and Sahar were very close. Sahar reached breaking point, and in May of 2008, she tearfully opened up to her vice principal about how bad her home life was, how her mother and several siblings refused to talk to her.

She said Hamid had thrown a pair of scissors at her, and she spilled the details to the vice principal about her suicide attempt. The vice principal called the child welfare agency called Batshaw, and they came to speak with Sahar. But when she discovered her parents would be notified, she changed her mind, denied everything, and begged them not to talk to her parents. But by now, Batshaw had an obligation to see it through, although they wouldn't tell the family that it was Sahar who came to them.

The agency contacted Tuber, and Tuber brought her oldest daughter Zainab to the meeting. Remember, Zainab was still under house arrest after the incident with her boyfriend. Tuber and Zainab both refuted everything that Batshaw brought up. Muhammad and Hamid also showed up to the meeting. Muhammad was very angry and wanted to know the source of the report. Obviously, they couldn't tell him. Two days later, Batshaw came back to the school for a follow-up. Sahar was now wearing a hijab and minimized what she'd said about the situation.

She said she wanted to go home. The agency decided that Sahar was not currently at risk, so closed the case. Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level? Square Space makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and sell anything from your products to the content you create and even your time. When I launched this passion project six years ago, I needed some kind of online hub to manage all the non-podcasting tasks that come with podcasting.

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Zynab was finally allowed back to school after several months on house arrest, but not the old school. She was made to go to a different school now. She was still watched closely most of the time, but somehow found a second to send a secret email after her ex-boyfriend Amar, telling him that she missed him. He felt the same way, and before long they were seeing each other in secret again. Zynab also introduced her younger sister Sahar

to a guy she'd met at her new school, Ricardo. Before long, Sahar and Ricardo were a secret item. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Geeti was having her own adolescent struggles. Unlike her older siblings, she hadn't spent any time in Afghanistan. Most of her childhood was in Dubai with its more Western influence, so she didn't have any interest in the conservative Afghans. Naturally strong-willed and rebellious, Geeti tried to wear makeup and very fashionable clothes

and didn't bother even trying to hide it from her father. She skipped school often and was suspended from school multiple times for wearing clothes that the school deemed inappropriate. She would hide in the bathroom at school instead of going to class, and she was also caught shoplifting. Muhammad was getting increasingly tired of her shenanigans and her refusal to follow his rules.

In April of 2009, 13-year-old Geeti was at the mall with her two older siblings, child number four and child number five, the spies, and they all arrived home late. That was the last straw for Muhammad, who was home in Montreal for once instead of Dubai. He and his faithful henchmen and son Hamid screamed at the young kids. Muhammad pulled Geeti's hair, Hamid punched her in the face,

and they both slapped all three of the kids. This physical attack seemed to signal the escalation of the tension in the family. A week or so later, Zainab decided to take drastic action and ran away to a women's shelter. She left a note saying that she wanted to live her own life. Her younger brother Hamid found the note

and called 911 to report his sister missing, even though she was nearly 20 years old now. He was impatient. After a few minutes when nothing happened, he called 911 again to hurry them up. Obviously, a nearly 20-year-old woman who left a note explaining that she'd gone wasn't a high priority.

Soon after this, Muhammad found out what Zainab had done and he was ropeable. He felt that by leaving home in the way that she did, Zainab had betrayed him and brought dishonour upon the family. A serious transgression. Her younger siblings, 18-year-old Sahar,

child number four and child number five, and 13-year-old Geeti, were still at school when they found out what their older sister had done. They were terrified of their father's reaction. One way or another, they knew they would probably all end up paying. They were so scared to return home

that they stopped in at a stranger's house on the way and asked to call the police. This was the third 911 call that afternoon. The police met them at the police station and escorted them all the way home, where each kid was interviewed separately. Muhammad was not home yet. Geeti told police what happened after the mall

and disclosed that her father often threatened to kill them. Child number four had a mark near her right eye, but nothing is publicly known about how she responded to the questioning about it. Child number five said that his father and child number five said that his older brother Hamid kicked him and his dad often threatened to tear him apart. Sahar said that Hamid slapped her

and that she had seen Zainab get beaten by their father. Both Sahar and Geeti said they wanted to leave the house because of the violence and because they were scared of their father. Muhammad came home in the middle of the interviews. He stopped and gave the kids a stern look and immediately they clammed up. Child number four even said

that the statement she'd just given wasn't true. That night, the social work agency, Batshaw, showed up at the house and staff talked with Muhammad, Tuba and Hamid. The social worker decided that the kids were OK to stay at the house while an investigation was conducted. On April the 20th, three days after Zainab ran away,

a Montreal detective visited the children at school. Child number four recanted everything she'd said and child number five was absent from school. However, Sahar and Geeti did not recant. They told the detective again what they'd told the officer on April 17th. Geeti begged to be put in foster care as soon as possible. Despite all of this evidence,

for reasons that were never publicly disclosed, no charges were brought against Muhammad, Tuba or Hamid. The file was again closed. Meanwhile, Zainab was still gone and during this time, the Shafir House remained in chaos. Sahar's teachers reported she was often in tears at school. Child number four and child number five's grades were slipping

and Geeti wasn't turning up to school much at all. At the end of April, two weeks after Zainab left, Tuba and Muhammad were called to the school to discuss the slipping grades of their children. The assistant principal would say that Muhammad was in a real state. His first wife, Rona, watched all of this a helpless witness. One day, she overheard a secret conversation

between Muhammad, Tuba and their son, Hamid. Muhammad said, I will go to Afghanistan. I will prepare the documents. I will sell my property and I will kill Zainab. I will kill the other one too. From her hiding spot, Rona was confident that the other one he was referring to

was her. As soon as she could, she called her sister who lived in France to tell her what she'd overheard. Her sister said, don't be afraid. This is not Afghanistan. This is not Dubai.

This is Canada. Nothing will happen. On May the 1st, several weeks after Zainab fled the house for the women's shelter, Tuba convinced her to come back home. She promised that if her daughter really did love her boyfriend Ammar, she would let them get married. Muhammad was away on another business trip,

so didn't know about any of this. Not only did he not want his daughter to date, he especially did not like Ammar because he was Pakistani and not Afghan, and therefore inappropriate husband material. Zainab agreed to return to home, but once Tuba had her daughter back under her roof, she started a campaign to talk her out of the marriage.

She even called her brother Havid, who lived in Sweden to help her out. But Tuba didn't have any luck. She resigned herself to the fact that the marriage was going to go ahead, and asked her uncle Lateef to arrange the ceremony since the Shafia family had not been to a mosque once since they'd arrived in Canada.

The ceremony took place on May 18th, while Muhammad was still overseas. But it was a flop. Ammar's family were not in favour of the marriage either, so not one of them showed up to the ceremony. Tuba was inconsolable because of the embarrassment and fainted at the reception. Zainab admitted defeat and told her mother

she would ask for a divorce, saying she couldn't hurt her family's reputation like this. Ammar, while heartbroken, agreed to the divorce because he saw how upset Zainab was, added to the fact that his own family didn't approve of the union. The marriage was annulled during the reception. It didn't even last a day.

Tuba immediately got to work, brainstorming ways that honour could be restored to the family. She came up with one idea. Zainab agreed to marry one of her uncle's sons, her cousin. Muhammad agreed with this plan, but said the marriage couldn't take place until he got back to Canada.

On June 5th, Zainab made a surprising call to 911. She told the operator that Ammar was angry that the marriage had been annulled and that she was scared that he might try to kidnap her. But at a later police interview, she confessed that she only made the call because Tuba asked her to. Sahar was still sneaking around with her boyfriend, Ricardo.

Just a few days after her father returned, she was hugging him at a restaurant when her younger brother, child number five, walked in. The couple quickly stepped away from each other, but not before the teen questioned them about what was happening. Sahar and Ricardo tried playing it off as though they had just met each other and Ricardo was in fact the boyfriend of one of Sahar's friends.

Ricardo even kissed the friend to make it believable. Sahar was so stressed that her little brother was going to tell Mohammed or Hamid that she fainted in class and was rushed to the hospital. A few days later, Sahar told her teacher how worried she was and the teacher called protective services. She met with a social worker and told them everything. The social worker planned a follow-up meeting,

but Sahar didn't show up for it. What she didn't know was that her older brother, Hamid, had already gone through her cell phone and found a plethora of photos of her and Ricardo together. He hopped on a plane to join his father in Dubai and showed the photos to him as soon as he could. Proof of more dishonour brought on the family. And 13-year-old Geeti was rebelling even more,

telling anyone who would listen that she was desperate to get out of that house. When she had failing grades across the board, she wasn't showing up to school and she was caught shoplifting at Walmart. Geeti was officially out of control. Meanwhile, Rona was continuing to walk to the nearby payphone to make desperate calls to her contact

at the Women for Afghan Women Organization. But her contact there wasn't in, so Rona just left voicemails. Quote, it sounded like she was in big trouble. It seemed to me like she wanted to do something. But because Rona called from a payphone, her contact couldn't call her back. On June the 13th, 2009, Muhammad was due to arrive back from his latest trip to Dubai.

He would be returning with Hamid, who had flown to meet him, armed with the photos of Sahar and Ricardo. Muhammad had been gone for around six weeks and this would be the first time he would see Zainab since she returned from running away to the women's shelter and so much had happened since then. She'd married Ammar, had the marriage annulled and agreed to marry her cousin.

Zainab met her father and brother Hamid at the airport and begged for her father's forgiveness. Muhammad told everyone that he kissed her on the head and forgave everything. But little did Zainab know that everything was not forgiven. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Just over a week later, Muhammad bought a five-year-old Nissan Centra sedan

and told the family they were going on a summer vacation. They didn't know where, but it was going to be a road trip, a journey. The next day, all seven kids and three adults packed their bags and left in two cars, the Nissan Centra and the Lexus SUV they already owned. They headed southwest from Montreal towards Niagara Falls, a trip that would have taken about seven and a half hours.

The family stayed their first night in a hotel and then got back on the road. About halfway to the falls, they stopped at a historic lock station called Kingston Mills just to use the washroom. Although the locks are a tourist attraction, stopping there was an odd choice because the locks were not off the highway

and were completely out of the way as just a washroom stop. After quickly using the facilities, the family continued to Niagara Falls and got there in the early hours of June 25. They stayed at the falls for a few days, as well as being the location for the well-known waterfalls, Niagara Falls is a tourist mecca with restaurants, attractions and rides,

a popular holiday destination. Sahar's phone records show that on the night of June 27, her phone dialed her brother Hamid's phone from Niagara Falls. The ping to Hamid's phone, though, showed that he wasn't at the falls. His phone was back towards the Kingston Mills locks, hours away, and Hamid appeared to be with him. Wherever Sahar thought they might have gone,

she took advantage of the fact that they weren't there and snuck in a long phone call with her boyfriend, Ricardo. The family started their return home on June 29 at around 8pm. An interesting time to leave for a journey home that would take over seven hours without even factoring in any breaks. At around 9.30pm, they drove through downtown Toronto.

Sahar took photos on her cell phone of the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower as they drove past. Heading out east of the downtown area, they stopped at a McDonald's at the town of Ajax. It was now 10.30pm. At around 1.30 in the morning on June 30, 2009, the manager at the Kingston East Motel was woken up by Hamid and Mohammed,

saying they needed two rooms for the night. The manager asked them how many guests were staying and they appeared to be confused about the exact number. They argued for a little while, then settled on six. Hamid paid cash for the rooms. During the night, Hamid decided he needed his laptop, which he'd left in Montreal, and he drove back in the Lexus to get it,

leaving only the Nissan Centra behind. Just before eight the next morning, Hamid called the police from Montreal to report that he'd accidentally hit a yellow utility pole in the Lexus and smashed the left front end of the car. When Mohammed and Tuba woke up in the morning, they quickly realised that the Nissan Centra was gone,

and so too was Zainab, Geeti, Sahar and Rona. Mohammed called Hamid in Montreal, who left to return to Kingston straight away. He left the Lexus behind this time and drove back in the family's third car, a green minivan that they'd left in Montreal. At the Kingston Mills locks, a Parks Canada employee

saw that a car had gone into the lock and was submerged in around three feet of water. The employee alerted the police. A police diver went into the water and accessed the submerged car. Inside were the bodies of four females. The front seats were reclined back, the headlights were off,

the back bumper was damaged, no airbags were deployed, and no one was wearing a seatbelt. One of the bodies was floating over the driver's seat, and the driver's window was rolled down. The police diver was experienced and was surprised to see that no one in the car looked to have attempted to escape

through the open driver's side window. Typically, he would find a driver's body partly through the window or a body caught up in the seatbelt, but not with this case. At around lunchtime, Mohammed, Tuba and Hamid dropped the three other kids off at a local Tim Hortons

and walked into the local police station to report that three of their daughters, plus Rona, and the Nissan Sentra, were missing. The police were quick to connect the dots between this and the strange submerged car. They immediately separated Mohammed, Tuba and Hamid and began taped interviews. All three said that the family stopped

in Kingston the night before as Tuba, who was driving the Nissan, was feeling sleepy. So she waited in the car with the seat reclined while Hamid and Mohammed went to find a motel. Once they'd booked their rooms, Tuba said she drove the Nissan to the motel and everyone got settled in. During the night, they remembered

that the oldest daughter, Zainab, asked for car keys to the Nissan because she needed to grab some clothes from it. Also, at around this time, they all said Hamid headed back to Montreal in the Lexus SUV. He gave a couple of different reasons for going back. He left his laptop at home.

He left for personal reasons. And then he said he just didn't feel like staying at the same place with his parents that night. The police told Hamid that an eyewitness saw two cars at the edge of the lock the night before, a big one and a smaller one, but only the big one drove away. Hamid replied, quote,

you mean someone pushed them in? The detective hadn't made any such suggestion. And in the meantime, officers had contacted the Montreal Police Department and found out about the fender bender that Hamid had reported only hours earlier. Hamid said he hadn't brought it up because he didn't want them to tell his father

and make him angry. In Tuba's interview, she suggested that when Zainab took the keys, it wasn't just to get clothes out of the car. Instead, she decided to go for a drive during the middle of the night while her parents were asleep, even though she didn't have a license and did not have extensive driving experience.

During the interviews, all three of them appeared emotionless. No one shed a tear or appeared to be even remotely upset. Hamid even checked his watch. The car was retrieved from the water. 19-year-old Zainab was in the front passenger seat, 18-year-old Sahar was in the rear, and her phone record showed her boyfriend, Ricardo,

continued to try to get in contact with her. 52-year-old Rona was slouched in the middle of the back seat, and 13-year-old Geeti was floating over the driver's seat with the window beside her rolled down. Geeti could not have been driving the car, so who was? The autopsy showed that all the victims drowned, but they couldn't determine whether the victims were deceased

before the car went into the water or if they drowned afterwards. What they did find was that Rona had a 6-centimeter diameter bruising on the crown of her head, about the size of a small apple. The determination was that it could have been from one or two impacts. Geeti and Zainab had similar but smaller bruising. All of the bruising happened when the victims were alive. They also found no evidence of alcohol or drugs in any of their systems.

Police found the scene of the crime to be suspicious. They found that the Nissan would have had to cross a patch of grass, then either over a concrete barrier or through a gate, and then through two poles on the dock. How could that happen by accident? While it's widely known that the reactions to the sudden death of a loved one can vary, and that doesn't necessarily mean anything, police were suspicious of the fact that neither Muhammad, Hamid,

or Tuba, a mother who just lost three of her daughters, showed any emotion. They would need to question them further. The police zeroed in on Tuba's story that she parked the Nissan and waited there while Muhammad and Hamid went to get a hotel. No one could tell police where she'd actually parked it. Police also wanted to know how Tuba knew which hotel to go to. The answer was that she just drove down the road and found them.

When they asked Hamid why he drove back to Kingston and the family's green minivan and not the Lexus SUV, Hamid said that it was because the minivan got better gas mileage. Clearly, the police were not getting anywhere with the interviews, but the evidence was coming in thick and fast, and it was giving far more answers. A few fragments from the headlight of a Lexus SUV were found at the locks. A quick-thinking constable drove to Montreal with the fragments to compare with the Lexus.

He found more fragments in the back of the SUV and matched them up with the pieces found at the locks. They fit together perfectly. The police started to put puzzle pieces together regarding Hamid's call that he'd hit a pole in the SUV and the fact that he drove the minivan back to Kingston instead of the SUV. Hamid's phone records showed that after Muhammad called him in Montreal to come back to Kingston when he noticed the four were missing,

Hamid called Sahar's phone multiple times. While examining cell phone records and tower pings, the police found that the family's travel route kept changing as they drove to Niagara Falls. Remember, they made a strange detour to the Kingston Mills locks just to use a washroom when there were multiple rest stops just off the highway. And remember, on the night of June 27th

when the family were staying in Niagara Falls, Hamid's phone pinged off the tower back at the Kingston Mills locks. Why did he go there in the middle of the night? Police also discovered that the Shafir family had been to the Kingston locks in 2008, the year before, when they were going on a previous vacation to Niagara Falls. Police started to formulate a theory that Muhammad and Hamid had spent the holiday

trying to find the perfect location for the perfect crime. The police discovered all the details about what had been going on in the family in the months beforehand. The 911 calls about Zainab running away and then the kids being too scared to go back home. The multiple reports from teachers and social workers and the welfare checks. Then, in mid-July, about two weeks after the Nissan went into the lock,

police received an email from someone claiming to be a relative of Rona. The email suggested that the deaths could have been in the name of Honour. Honour killing is the traditional practice in some countries of killing a family member who is believed to have brought shame on the family. The killings are typically performed by a male toward a female family member. Honour killings occur in cultures all around the world. They're not limited to just Islamic countries.

Police also received a letter from Muhammad's sister saying that the family had been receiving death threats for social, cultural and family reasons. A vivid picture was starting to emerge. The police realised they needed to take more action. They asked Muhammad, Tuba and Hamid to go back to the Kingston Mills locks to go over some details and update the three on where they were at with the investigation.

While these talks happened, police bugged their car. The police then planted some information with them. They told them that there'd been a video camera at the scene and that they were going to go over the footage from that night. Then they sent them back home and listened for them to talk in the car. In the bugged car, Muhammad spoke in his language of Dari, saying to Tuba and Hamid, quote, they're lying if there was a camera that access it in the minute.

At other times, police heard Muhammad call his three deceased daughters treacherous and whores, quote, to hell with them and their boyfriends, filthy and rotten children. He said, quote, they committed treason from beginning to end. They betrayed kindness, they betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion and creed, they betrayed our tradition, they betrayed everything. Another time, he was captured on recording saying,

may the devil shit on their graves. Tuba was captured saying that Zainab, the oldest daughter, was already done but wished that two others were not. Muhammad disagreed with her. No, Tuba, they messed up. There was no other way. They were treacherous. They betrayed both themselves and us.

On July the 21st, three weeks after the deaths of Zainab, Sahar, Geeti and Rona, the three Shafi'a children who were under the cover of the publication ban were placed in protective care. The police also arrived with a search warrant in hand, which clearly stated that they were investigating four counts of first-degree murder. Then, they sat back and waited for Muhammad, Tuba and Hamid to talk about this. Back inside the bugged car, Muhammad said to Hamid, quote, even if they hoist me up onto the gallows,

nothing is more dear to me than my honour. Let's leave our destiny to God and may God never make me, you or your mother, honourless. There is no value of life without honour. The next day, the three of them were on their way to Pierre-Aliot Trudeau International Airport in Montreal when they were arrested. They were each charged with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

During their interrogations, the family continued to tell the same similar story they'd previously told of what supposedly happened that fateful night. When Muhammad was presented with a wedding photo from his marriage to Rona, he denied it was a marriage saying it was probably her birthday or something. But Tuba did change part of her story. She said that she had in fact been there the night that the car went into the water, but she fainted when she heard the car go in the water and she couldn't remember anything until she was back at the hotel.

During this interview, she finally cried and then she recanted the fainting story the next day. Hamid didn't break in his previous story when talking with police, but he was different when he was talking to a private investigator hired by his father. He told the PI that after everyone had settled in at the motel, Rona, Geeti Sahar and Zainab all wanted to take the Nissan for a joyride to go and buy phone cards with Zainab driving. Hamid decided to follow them in the Lexus SUV

concerned for their safety because Zainab didn't have her driver's license. He said he followed them to the locks of a canal, but he accidentally rear-ended them. He got out of his SUV to assess the damage and pick up pieces of the broken headlight when the Nissan tried to turn around and instead drove over the ledge and into the canal. Hamid quickly honked the horn of the Lexus to signal for help and then rushed over to the water, called out their names, and then dangled rope and threw it into the water, but he said no one ever responded. So instead of getting in the water to save his family,

he took off to Montreal and didn't report the accident because he was afraid of his dad's anger. He then staged the parking lot accident in Montreal to cover up the SUV's damage. The trial began on October 20, 2011, 16 months after the crime. Tuba, Muhammad and Hamid all pleaded not guilty. There was much debate about how to refer to the murders. Should they be called honour killings or just what they were, domestic violence or domestic homicide? The media chose to use honour killings and the judge just referred to the crimes as murders. Special arrangements needed to be made for this trial because of all of the different languages spoken.

Muhammad and Tuba did not speak English well, so every word of the trial was translated in real time. Everyone had headsets. The Crown's theory was that the victims were all killed in an honour killing, a planned and premeditated massacre motivated by a father's anger at betrayed Afghan values, which was carried out with the full cooperation and agreement of his son and preferred wife. Muhammad was the mastermind, Hamid was the location scout, and Tuba was the one who made sure no one saw it coming, a peacekeeper of sorts. The Crown believed that the murder plans began as early as May the 1st,

two months before the Nissan went into the lock snuffing out the lives of four females. According to the Crown, Zainab and Sahar were killed because they had boyfriends, wore fashionable clothes and makeup and refused to wear the hijab. Zainab ran away and Sahar told her teachers about her home life. They made their problems public and that was unacceptable. Rona and Giti were most likely killed because they had betrayed Muhammad in other ways. Giti with her teenage rebellion, but mostly because they could not be counted on to keep the story straight after Zainab and Sahar were murdered. They couldn't be relied upon to stay in line and obey Muhammad's orders.

According to the Crown, the evidence suggested that fateful night as the family was heading home from Niagara Falls, Hamid was in the lead driving the Lexus SUV, and Muhammad was behind the wheel of the Nissan. At around 1.30am, the two vehicles exited and headed towards the Kingston Mills locks, where they pulled into the parking lot. According to the Crown, Muhammad got out of the Nissan and Tuba got in the driver's side. She stayed with Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Giti while Muhammad and Hamid went with the three unnamed children to get a hotel room. Tuba reclined the seat back to get some rest. The other three were already sleepy. The father and son secured two hotel rooms and left the three other children at the hotel. Remember, two of them were in their mid teens, so old enough to be left by themselves.

Hamid and Muhammad then drove back toward the locks. When Tuba saw the headlights of the approaching Lexus SUV, she got out of the Nissan. The Crown put forward the theory that Tuba, Hamid and Muhammad held each victim's head underwater one by one until they stopped moving, though it's important to remember that the autopsy wasn't able to conclude whether they died before the car went into the water or after. What was conclusive is that the head bruising they sustained was received while they were still alive, so they may have been struck on the head and then drowned. Their bodies were then likely piled back inside the Nissan with the seat still reclined. The car was then driven up to a tall curb next to the water's edge.

Tuba, the driver, got out, left the engine running, reached through the open driver's side window and moved the car into first gear. But the car got stuck at the tall curb and didn't surge forward into the water as expected. To help things along, someone then hit the back of the Nissan with the front of the Lexus SUV until the car went overboard and into the water. The SUV's headlight was damaged in the process, so the suspects picked up what they thought were all the pieces and put them in the back of the car for safekeeping. Hamid then dropped his parents back at the motel and headed to Montreal. The defence presented a theory that the deaths were simply an accident. Echoing the story that Hamid told to his father's private investigator, the defence suggested that the four ladies had gone out on a joyride on their way to get phone cards. Hamid followed them and accidentally rear-rendered them at the locks, sending the Nissan into the water.

Hamid tried to save them with the rope, but was unsuccessful. And instead of calling the police, he abandoned the scene and headed straight back for Montreal. The defence said that Hamid made a mistake by not calling the police, but that did not mean he was a murderer. The defence also said that there was no conclusive proof of what happened, so it might as well have been an accident. Over the course of the trial, the jury also heard from almost 60 witnesses and saw over 160 exhibits. They heard from social workers, teachers and police about what they saw happening with the family in the lead-up. Sahar's boyfriend Ricardo and Zainab's husband of just one day, Ammar, testified about their relationships with the two Shafir sisters. Tuba's brother, Harveed, who lived in Sweden, took the stand.

He testified about when Tuba had asked for his assistance and how to fix the dishonour Zainab had brought to the family. After the phone call, he called Muhammad in Dubai, and while they were talking, Muhammad said he had a request for him. Muhammad said that his daughter was a whore and a prostitute, and said he had a plan to end her life and thus maintain his honour. The rough plan was that Muhammad wanted Harveed to invite some of the family to visit him in Sweden, plan an outdoor gathering near a body of water, and throw Zainab into her death. Harveed was shocked. He swore at Muhammad and hung up the phone before calling Tuba and their other sibling living in Montreal to warn them about what Muhammad had said. He testified that his sister thanked him for telling her.

He didn't call Zainab himself, likely assuming that her mother Tuba would have taken care of that. Another relative testified that Muhammad had told them that if he had been at Zainab's wedding to Omar, he would have killed her then and there. Remember, he was still in Dubai on a business trip at the time. A police officer testified about analysing the family's laptop that was mostly used by Muhammad. On June 3rd, when he and Muhammad were in Dubai, he searched on prisoners and Montreal jail. And then, can a prisoner have control over his real estate? The computer also revealed searches for bodies of water, including of the Kingston locks area. There were searches for boat rentals, metal boxes, and fax and documentaries on murders.

Then, on June 20th, there was a search for where to commit a murder, just 10 days before the car went into the water. Collision experts testified that the Nissan's bumper damage was consistent with contact from the Lexus SUV. Although there were so many witnesses and exhibits, the evidence was almost all circumstantial. The last witness for the crown was Shahzad Mojab, a University of Toronto professor who co-edited a book called Violence in the Name of Honor. She said honour killings don't have any direct connection with religion at all, although she acknowledged a United Nations Population Fund report that suggests honour killings are more prevalent in Islamic communities. She went on to explain that, quote, if a man cannot control his own household, which is represented by the behaviour of the female members of the family, then he cannot be trusted for any other public matters, including financial relationships. She went on to say that there is only one way to erase the shame, bloodshed. Quote, what masquerades as honour is really a man's need to control a woman's sexuality.

58-year-old Muhammad testified for two days. He denied trying to control what his daughters did, saying that they were allowed to have boyfriends and although he didn't like Zainab's boyfriend Ammar, he wouldn't have stopped her from pursuing a relationship with him. During cross-examination, the crown asked if Muhammad believed their actions brought about their rightful death. Muhammad replied, yes. The crown then asked if he believed his daughters deserved to die for their treachery. Muhammad replied, that is up to God what he did. 42-year-old Tuba testified for six days, giving what was described by members of the media as rambling responses to the most basic of questions. During her testimony, she insisted that there were no marital problems between her, Muhammad and Rona. She insisted that she had nothing to do with the murders and said that she was upset that Muhammad didn't tell them everything. Obviously, she was choosing to align herself with Hamid's story about it being an accident that he fled from. Hamid himself did not take the stand. Child number five, around 17 years old at the time of the trial, testified for the defense saying that his deceased siblings were liars. He asserted that their parents spoiled them and were great to their children. He said Geeti's request to be placed in foster care was just for attention, as was Sahar's suicide attempt with the gel packet from the shoes.

And he said that Zainab frequently took off with the car keys, so that was a plausible story too. The argument of the three defense lawyers was that the Shafiya family was a happy one. It was an accident caused by Hamid, and despite what the wiretap recording said, quote, at no point do they say, we have regained our honor by drowning them. In closing arguments, the crown prosecutor said that, quote, Muhammad, Tuba and Hamid decided there was a diseased limb on their family tree, and their solution was to remove the diseased limb in its entirety and prune the tree back to the good wood. In total, the trial took over 40 days. The jury began deliberating on January the 27th, 2012. After 15 hours, they returned with their verdict. 58-year-old Muhammad Shafiya, 42-year-old Tuba Yaya and 21-year-old Hamid Shafiya were all found guilty of first-degree murder.

At sentencing, the judge said, it is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more onerless crime. The apparent reasons behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded on the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society. Sadly, there were no victim impact statements. Muhammad, Tuba and Hamid were each given an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years. In 2015, they filed appeals stating that the honor killing theory was prejudiced by the jury, but their appeal was denied. And most recently, Hamid tried to appeal his sentence by disputing his year of birth on record,

arguing that he was actually 17 at the time of the killings and not 18, meaning he should have been tried as a young offender and received a lighter sentence. But the appeal was denied when the judge ruled there was no merit to the application. Today, Tuba is in Joliet Institution for Women in Quebec. Hamid and Muhammad are serving sentences in Ontario. Muhammad was originally in Kingston Penitentiary, but after it closed down, he was moved to an undisclosed location. It's also unclear where Hamid is housed. Tuba and Muhammad are still married. In prison, Muhammad became even more radicalized. He was found to be bullying more than 20 men to come to his religious readings, even men who were not Muslim.

In early 2018, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada ruled that when Tuba and Muhammad are released from prison, they won't be allowed to stay in Canada. Honor killings take place most often in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of South Asia. According to a 2000 United Nations Population Fund report, as many as 5,000 women and girls are murdered every year in these types of killings. They are strangled, smothered, shot, burned, stoned, buried alive, knifed or poisoned by family members. Between 2002 and 2010, in Canada alone, there were 12 honor killings. It's important to note that Canadian Muslim organizations, including the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, have publicly denounced honor killings and domestic violence.

Islamic imams or leaders have come out to say that honor killings are unforgivable and cautioned against associating honor crimes with Islam. In 2012, imams from across North America issued a moral ruling that officially condemned honor killings, domestic violence and misogyny as un-Islamic. Rona Amir Muhammad and Zainab Sahar and Geeti Shafir are buried next to each other in an Islamic burial ground in Laval, Quebec. But Geeti's headstone was incorrectly engraved with the birth date of her sister Sahar. The director of the cemetery received many calls about this error, but there's no record of it having been corrected yet. Michael Friskalanti, a senior writer for McLean's magazine, wrote a long-form article on the Shafir family murders after the trial was completed. It was called, Inside the Shafir Killings that Shocked a Nation. He ends the article by saying, quote,

In life and in death they had no voice, no one to protect them, no one to save them, no one who cares even enough to fix Geeti's headstone. Nearly three years after she was buried, it is still engraved with Sahar's birthday, not hers. Thanks for listening. A huge thank you to Hailey Gray from the Murder Road Trip podcast for helping me out with extensive research for this case. I'll introduce you to her podcast in a second. And thanks also to Hamayou Koreshi, Zara Shwani and Sean Shulba for helping me out with questions relating to Muslim culture and religion. Every episode I go on a huge learning curve and I greatly appreciate when I have people in the know to consult with. I also wanted to give a huge shout out to the music producer known as Solar Flare, who provided all of the music underscoring this episode.

I randomly came across his music and I am obsessed. To find out more, visit solarflare.bandcamp.com. That's S-O-U-L-A-R-F-L-A-I-R.bandcamp.com. As always, there's a link in the show notes. If you've sent me kind words or left me a good review, thank you so much. As you know, I'm on Twitter, Instagram and I have a Facebook page and discussion group and you can find them all just by searching for Canadian True Crime. If you have a case suggestion for me, feel free to check out my website where I have a short little form that helps me to keep everything organized. It's CanadianTrueCrime.ca.submit.

If the ads bug you, you can receive early ad-free versions of my episodes via Patreon for just $2 a month. Visit Patreon.com slash CanadianTrueCrime to sign up. There's also a link in the show notes and on my website. A huge thank you to these patrons for your support. This week's podcast recommendations are Murder Road Trip with Hailey, who helped me with research for this episode, and a brand new one called It's Haunted. This week's podcast recommendations are Murder Road Trip with Hailey, who helped me with research for this episode, and a brand new one called It's Haunted.

Murder Road Trip is a bi-weekly podcast where I, Hailey, travel to the scene of the crimes in my car, the mobile beast lab. I am joined by my regular co-host Jess and our podcasting friends as we discuss the cases. Join us on the road for snacks, mixtapes, games and more as we make the research for this episode. Make sure to check your backseat and we'll see you at the next Rest Stop. Join me as I share these creepy, spooky and downright terrifying stories. You can find It's Haunted what now on your favorite podcatcher or at hauntedpod.com.