Really good longread about Taalibah Islam and Typhenie Johnson

I regularly check the ididitforjodie website for links to articles about missing persons and other cold cases. I wanted to mention it here cause it’s awesome. Today I found a link to this article about the 2006 disappearance of Taalibah Fatin Bint Islam and the 2016 disappearance of Typhenie Kae Johnson. Both women had been dating the same man, he was the last person known to have seen them, and he told the same story as to what happened to each of them. The suspect, Christopher Revill, was convicted of kidnapping in Typhenie’s case but has never been charged in Taalibah’s.

It’s a really sad story, and so typical of domestic violence cases. The article is very detailed and well worth a read.

MP of the week: Jamal Mohammed

This week’s featured missing person is Jamal “James” Mohammed, a Tampa, Florida dance club owner who disappeared on October 17, 2007. I’ve got a pretty broad weight range for him, 145 to 220 pounds. From his photo (which, admittedly, only shows his face and neck) I’d be guessing he was at the lighter end.

He was last seen on his way to the club he owned. He was never seen again and his car turned up abandoned with some of his stuff inside. Foul play is suspected.

MP of the week: Yousef Almetnawy

This week’s featured missing person is Yousef Almetnawy, who was four years old when he and his sister Iman, age one, were abducted by their mother from Euless, Texas on August 25, 1999.

Disturbingly, the children and their mother, Ghada Abdel Said, may be on the run with Ghada’s brother, Yaser Abdel Said, who is wanted for a double murder: he allegedly shot and killed his two teenage daughters, Sarah and Amina, in 2008.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Dawood Kullo

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Dawood Kullo, a 39-year-old of Pakistani descent who disappeared from Houston, Texas on March 27, 1995.

Kullo had an argument with his girlfriend and stomped out the day he disappeared. I normally consider give the significant other a serious side-eye in such cases, but Kullo was seen at a bar after the argument so who knows what happened to him. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of information.

About his name: the Arabic version of David is pronounced something like Dah-ood and it’s transliterated in a lot of different ways, such as Daud, Daoud, Da’ud, and…Dawood. Pakistanis speak Urdu, not Arabic, but both Pakistanis and Arabic speakers are all mostly Muslim, and what I’m trying to say here is that Kullo’s name is basically “David David Kullo.”

I wonder if “David” is actually a nickname/Anglicization rather than his legal middle name, especially as NamUs has his name given as “Dawood (David) Kullo.”

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Tangena Hussain

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Tangena Hussain, a two-year-old girl who disappeared from Detroit, Michigan on October 2, 2008. She is of Bangladeshi descent.

Tangena’s mother’s boyfriend, Jamrul Hussain (no relation) is the last person known to have seen her, and his behavior in the aftermath of her disappearance is pretty sketchy. He didn’t immediately alert the authorities when she was supposedly abducted from his car while he was stopped at a gas station. By the time the police were called, nearly half an hour had passed.

Jamrul was later sentenced to one to fifteen years in prison on an unrelated statutory rape charge involving a teenage girl. I don’t know whether he’s still in prison or not, but a search of offenders in the Michigan Department of Corrections doesn’t turn up anyone by that name. Last I heard, he hadn’t been officially named as a suspect in Tangena’s disappearance, simply because there’s no evidence as to what happened to the little girl.

Tangena’s mother has returned to Bangladesh and the case has gone cold. I haven’t seen any news about this missing child in a long time.

If still alive, Tangena would be twelve years old today.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Mohammed Alghannam

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Mohammed Abdulmohsen Alghannam, also known as Mo, who disappeared from New Orleans on March 28, 2015, at the age of 25.

Mo is from Saudi Arabia and was in New Orleans on a student visa at the time of his disappearance, studying mechanical engineering at UT-San Antonio. I think he disappeared over spring break.

It was spring, anyway, and he was taking a break: he went to New Orleans with his uncle and stayed three nights at a hotel there, presumably doing touristy things during the day. Mo was supposed to take a bus back to San Antonio, but it’s not clear whether he ever did. He was just gone.

His loved ones created a Facebook page for him, but it’s almost entirely in Arabic, and the last post on it was in June 2015. There hasn’t been any news about him in years.

I have no idea what happened here, but here’s to hoping that Mo decided to drop out of sight so he wouldn’t have to return to Saudi Arabia. He apparently wasn’t doing too well in school, and he would hardly be the first temporary visitor to the U.S. who decided to make his stay permanent.

Some behind-the-scenes updates

Yeah, I’m sorry I’ve been kind of absent this month so far. I think I might have mentioned I’m taking some different medicine, cause my old medicine made me gain 40 pounds. This new medicine seems to work, as far as moods go, and I don’t think I’ve gained any more weight, but it’s interfering with my sleeping a lot. It seems like I can’t sleep more than four hours at a time. And four hours plus four hours does not eight hours make. I’ve been really tired and draggy and unable to accomplish much even when I’m awake.

Anyway, I am getting some stuff done today. I have:

Middle Name and Date of Birth Added

1. Linda Lou Bean
2. Nanette Evette Thomas
3. Jacob Lewis Tipton

Date of Birth Added

1. John Howard Friebely
2. Adrian Genti Gokaj
3. Pamela Diane Ingle
4. Napoleon M. Ray
5. Joe Saxton
6. Chad Allen Scudder
7. Lori Dee Wilson

Pictures Added

1. David Antonio Cambray
2. Maria Ann Monrean
3. Kathy Pereira

AP Updated

1. Amanda Alexandra Adlai
2. Brittney Ann Beers
3. David Michael Borer
4. Bryan Keith Fisher
5. Kyron Richard Horman
6. Ayesha Faheem Khan
7. Fatima Faheem Khan
8. Sindy Jazmin Perez-Aguilar
9. Jasmine Anne Marie Sajedi
10. Stevey Howard Sommerville
11. Vivian Aileen Trout
12. Anna Christian Waters

Make-a-List Monday: Black/Hispanic

This list is of people who are biracial and of African-American and Hispanic descent. On this entry I wrote about a missing young girl who was listed as Hispanic but “looked” black to me. Someone posted the following comment:

I just wanted mention that being Latino and looking Black are not separate cultural states. There are many Latinos who are of Afro-Caribbean heritage given that a great deal of Latin America takes place in the Caribbean and historically much of the African slave trade took folks to Latin American islands and nations on the Caribbean and near-Atlantic.

This list isn’t that long; I expect there are probably more people on Charley that meet the requirements, that I just don’t know about.

1. Patrick Kennedy Alford Jr.
2. Osvaldo Baro
3. Terrance S. Bonilla
4. Michael James Borges
5. Devin Janelle Brown-Bousetta
6. Kamyle Stephanie Burgos Ortiz
   
7. Gebar Lynon Byrd Jr.
8. Marco Antonio Cadenas
9. Keyla Contreras
10. Natasha Paula Corley
11. Pinkie Mae Davis-Herron
12. Nadia Lynn Drummond
13. Acacia Nicole Duvall and Jon Pierre Duvall
    
14. Sarah Raquel Elsafi and Tariq Ahmed Elsafi
15. Youssef Nabil Elsayed Hassan
16. Kristopher Bryan Lewis
17. Gustavo Machado
18. Natanalie Marie Perez
19. Victor Leonard Richardson III
20. Rolando Salas Jusino
21. Abigail Smith and Isabell Lena Smith
22. Irwin Yafeth Stewart
23. Jocelyn Emilia Turcios
24. Elyssa Marie Vasquez

Just realized this

Remember these sisters? They were missing for almost three years before they both turned up in September 2014. Well, NamUs says one of them is missing again. And it says she has her two-year-old son with her. Which would mean she gave birth to him while she was missing last time. Sigh.

I wonder where the older one is, if she’s safe, if she’s in contact with her little sister and her nephew.

Flashback Friday: Nahida Khatib

This week’s Flashback Friday is Nahida Ahmed Khatib, who’s been missing from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a Milwaukee suburb, since October 1, 1976.

Born in British Mandate Palestine, raised in Lebanon, Nahida had married at sixteen and moved to the US with her husband Fahmi “Sam” Khatib. They were in the middle of a nasty divorce in 1976, but Nahida mysteriously disappeared midway through. Sam told their son his mother had walked out and abandoned him (wearing nothing but a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers), an opinion the police didn’t share.

It’s fairly obvious what happened here, but Fahmi is dead and presumably he took his secrets to the grave. I doubt we’ll ever find Nahida.